Aero-ponic gardening?

[Cooper27]

Has anyone tried one of these? What are your thoughts?

I'm really tempted to try one, but it looks as though the one we we're eyeing up would require us to buy seed pods from that brand (£4 for 3 seed pods), so I want to know if it's worth it!

[TheAwfulToad]

I've seen them, but IMO they're likely to suffer from the same problem as all hydroponic configurations: complex chemical control and risk of obscure diseases (eg., root rot). Just a personal opinion, but I'd say you're likely to get better results, with less outlay, using good old-fashioned pots of compost. Put them in a tray and water from "underneath" if you want to get the ease-of-use that aeroponics promises. Add some growlights if you want to keep your plants indoors - the LED types are now very, very cheap. I just bought 500W of LED lighting for US$25, although those are just the bare LED arrays, minus heatsink and power supply.

We have a small aquaponics system in the back yard (anybody know how to insert photos into a response?). I went for this because they are inherently stable, non-polluting, and don't require synthetic inputs. The big downside is that they require a significant investment in the setup - it's pretty complicated - and because there are live animals involved, it has to be 100% reliable.

[Cooper27 Administrator in reply to TheAwfulToad]

I'd ideally love to start a vegetable patch, but we live in a flat. I have some potatoes growing on our balcony, and herbs, but it's limiting! Good point about root rot though! It sounds like it might not be worth it, if all the plants might die...