I drained off some of the liquid under the plants after watering it down a bit in case there's too much plant food.

Here's what the plants looks like this evening:

I got most of the water out last night, I'm not sure if I can get the rest out without having the plants fall over or out.

My pH meter says the water we use for the plants (we let it sit for a couple of days before using it on plants so the chlorine dissipates) is between 7.2 and 7.3, so slightly alkaline.

I remember from our hot water heater/dishwasher problems several years back that our city water changed its standard pH a few years back, which changed the type of anodes that were needed in water heaters to avoid having the water develop a sludge (which was clogging up the water valve in our basement dishwasher, causing it to fail.)

I used some of the liquid plant food that came with our Aerogarden, which is a 4-3-6 plant food. The label also lists calcium at 1% and potassium at 0.5%, I do not see iron listed on the label. At this point, the reservoir is nearly dry so I'll watch the plants for a day or two, I don't want them to die from drying out, either, though.

The bottle says it is 'Miracle Gro', but when I look up Miracle Gro products on the Scott's site, at least some of those have iron in them. Web reviews of their new Liquafeed line have not been very positive.

I was going to try to ask the professor in Agronomy and Horticulture at UNL who runs the hydroponics lab, but he's unavailable right now.

I generally only try to start plants inside once a year, so my hands-on experience is pretty limited, and I'm not sure having an Aerogarden adds much experience.

I can send higher resolution pictures via email if that'd help your husband analyze them. What I posted was a medium-resolution iPhone shot, my Canon goes up to 6000 x 4000 pixels and I've got a 90mm macro lens.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Mike Nolan.

I was able to get some chelated iron online (none of the local garden supply places stock it) and I added a small amount to the watering liquid on Friday. Most of the plants are looking better already, but I had cut back on the water in the tray early last week, so that may have been a major factor.

Six of them (including one that grew from a seed that didn't get into a pellet pot) had gotten large enough that they were crowding out the light from the littler ones, I've moved them to separate 3" peat pots under another grow light and that should give the smaller ones more space (and better light) to grow. I think I was able to save enough of the roots of the one that wasn't in a pellet pot for it to survive, and I think I know what variety it was, too.

I'll continue to move the bigger ones to their own pots over the next several days, I need to set up another rack up with some grow lights.

Yeah, it hit 91 here today, but tomorrow's high is supposed to be 78, then down to the 60's for a couple of days. A regular roller coaster.

It used to be a pretty safe bet to plant tomatoes in the garden on Mother's Day here, but in the last 10 years we've had 5 with temperatures in the 30's and wind chill in the 20's after May 15th, so I'm not in a big hurry to plant outside. The years it didn't get super cold it often rained for 2 weeks in late May making it hard to plant anything until the soil dried out some.