The Aerospring is a low-pressure aeroponic system. Water is pumped up from the resevoir bucket through the vertical tower and showers the roots of the plants, delivering water, nutrients and oxygen.

Besides electricity, water, seeds and seedlings, everything is included in the box. After purchasing the system, you will need water, electricity and nutrients on an ongoing basis. Of course you will also need plants for growing. It is also good to have an EC and pH meter on hand to monitor the proper balance of nutrients and quality of your water.

Seasonality plays an important role in what you can grow, and when you can grow. Plant growth and development is entrained by the seasonal cycle. The growing season is that portion of the year in which local conditions (i.e. rainfall, temperature, daylight) permit normal plant growth. Understanding seasonality will help you be a more successful grower. Knowing when to plant and grow, and the relative position of your garden to sunlight, will be important factors to the success and productivity of your garden. Referring to the USDA plant hardiness guide is the standard by which gardeners and growers can determine which plants are most likely to thrive at a location.

Growing indoors allows you to control temperature and light. When growing indoors temperature will still need to be controlled in order for plants to grow properly.

Growers have found that they have very high yields in hydroponic/aeroponics systems. In fact, production increases 3 to 10 times in the same amount of space as a soil garden. Many crops can be produced twice as fast in a well managed hydroponic system.

When growing indoors, growing can be accelerated even more because you can control the light exposure, simulating longer days and shorter nights. You are also not beholden to climate issues such as rain, lack of sun, heat/cold.

It's best to place larger, fruiting plants such as cucumbers and tomatoes in the lowest tier of the Aerospring. Their roots grow large and long, so it's best to allow them to grow into the bucket so that they don't interfere with other plants. Other larger plants like eggplants, dwarf tomatoes and chilis are best grown mid-tier as their large leaf canopy may shade all the other plants. Leafy greens and herbs can be placed anywhere on the Aerospring at random.

It's best not to move an established fruiting or vining plant when it's productive, doing this may damage their tap root and kill the plant. But you can move herbs and leafy green plants around. Just be careful not to damage too much of their root structure when pulling them out and placing them back in.

Many plants, especially some fruiting plants, will send out a tap root and these roots should never be severed even if it's tempting to trim them back. Cutting these too early in the plant's development stage could kill the plant. You can however trim back some of the roots of herbs and leafy greens, just be careful not to overdo the trimming. You wouldn't trim the roots of soil plants so trimming those of hydroponic plants isn't neccessary.

Garden pests are a natural part of our ecosystem, and hydroponics/aeroponics will not elminate pests entirely. Ensure you spend a few minutes every couple of days inspecting outdoor plants for signs of infestation. Deal with them if they are present with an organic pesticide of your choosing ie. soap solution, pyrethrum etc.

If growing indoors, bugs will find it harder to get to the plants but care should be taken not to unwittingly introduce them or by adding an outdoor plant to the system. It's good practice to start your seedlings by germinating indoors in an uncontaminated area.

Yes, hydroponic/aeroponics systems require you to add nutrients to the water; unlike soil gardens where some nutrients are found in the soil. Your nutrient concentration in the tank is dependent on you water temperature. Maintain levels of EC 1.0-1.5 if your temperatures are between 25C-30C, maintain levels of EC 1.8-2.5 if your temperatures are between 18C-25C. These are guideline values only and can be adjusted to suit the majority of crops you are growing. You can optimise your nutrient levels based on the types of crops you grow.

Add nutrients when your EC levels fall below 1.0 uS/cm. We recommend that you add nutients in small amounts and then measure so as not to overfertilise.

EC is a measure of the salts in your water tank —that is, the level of nutrients in your system. EC gives you an idea of the quantity of available nutrients. A regular complete water change, no later than every 12 weeks, ensures balanced nutrient uptake for the plants.

pH is the measure of the acidity of a system and determines how plants and other organisms interact with different nutrients. We recommend maintaining your pH between 5.5 and 6.5, without changing more than .5 per day as drastic changes may shock plants. You can increase or decrease the pH using pH up or pH down solution respectively.

All plants fall under three categories: annuals; perinnials; biennials. These categories are based on their life-cycles, and will dictate when you can and should harvest. Annual plants should be harvested before they flower. Biennials should be harvested at the end of the first year before they flower and seed in the second year. Perennials can continue to grow for many seasons. When harvesting a complete plant, simply replace the harvested plant with a new seedling in the system.

You can increase your plant capacity by adding hexmodules. One hexmodule adds three plants. Note that the Sicce Syncra Silent 1.5 (standard issue in the Outdoor Standard, and Indoor) can only service 10 hexmodules. For 11-12 hexmodules we recommend upgrading to the Sicce Syncra Silent 2.0 to provide the extra lift to push the water to the higher points.

All gardens need ample space and ventilation around them, whether outdoor or indoor. Ventilation brings in fresh air and CO2 to give plants what they need for photosynthesis. The sizes of our gardens are as follows:

• Outdoor Standard: 160cm (63”) tall x 58cm (23”) wide on parallel sides and 64cm (25”) corner to corner.
• Outdoor Pro: 195cm (77”) tall x 58cm (23”) wide on parallel sides and 64cm (25”) corner to corner.
• Indoor: 194cm (77") tall, 78cm (31") wide on parallel sides and 86cm (34"’) corner to corner

It is recommended that you have 2-4 hours of direct sunlight daily in tropical climates, and 6-8 hours in temperate climates, for optimal growth.

The indoor system is best placed in rooms with ambient temperatures no warmer than 28 degrees Celsius or colder than 10 degrees Celsius.

Appropriate temperatures for outdoor systems will be dictated by the relative growing seasons.

You will need access to an electrical point to power the irrigation pump, lights (indoor only) and fan (indoor only). Our standard Sicce Syncra Silent 1.5 comes with a 10m cable

The outdoor system pump consumes 23W of energy. You can opt to keep it running 24/7 but all systems include a WiFi smart socket plug which allows you to schedule irrigation and reduce your energy consumption. The lights of the indoor system consume 138W of energy and are required to be on for 14-16 hours a day.

You will need a water source to fill the bucket reservoir initially, as well as to top up the water while growing. While it is handy to have a water source nearby, it is not essential to have one to operate the Aerospring. We recommend using a hose, but you can also use a regular bucket to fill the tank.

The outdoor system should take no longer than 15 minutes to set-up before filling with water. The indoor system should take 2-3 hours to assemble.

Yes, the systems are designed for an individual to set-up. You will received a detailed instruction manual that will walk you through the installation process.

If you have an extra set of hands it will make the installation quicker, but the system is designed to be assembled by one person.

Yes. Once the system is set-up and filled with water and nutrients, plants can be placed into the system immediately. It is not advised to germinate the plants directly into the system. Once the seedlings are 2"/5cm in height they are ready to be introduced into the system.

The Aerospring Wifi timers, included in all systems, allow you to automate irrigation and lighting (indoor systems only). For the indoor systems, it is important for you to automate the lighting and irrigation with the Aerospring Wifi timers. For the outdoor systems, you can run the irrigation 24/7 if you do not want to use the Aerospring Wifi timers. In all cases, manual analogue timers can replace the Aerospring Wifi timers, but you will need to purchase these separately.

If your power supply is not under shelter, then a waterproof outdoor box is required. If you are using the Aerospring Wifi timers, then the waterproof box will need a total clearance of 8cm/3".

This will depend on your plant growth and types of plants you place in the system. As plants grow bigger, they will use more water and fruiting plants generally consume more water than leafy greens or herbs. We recommend checking the water on a weekly basis. At most you should add water every two weeks, and ensure the water level is near the top of the bucket reserviour.

Note that the pump will not work in a dry environment. If the pump runs dry it will damage the pump and void the manufacturer's warranty.

We recommend that the water is completely changed every three months. A complete reset is good practice in hydroponics. We also recommend repurposing the water for your soil plants as there are available nutrients that they can use.

We recommend cleaning the system twice a year for outdoors, and once a year for indoors. This can be done by removing the plants, dismantling the pole, and cleaning all parts with water and your preferred cleaning solution, e.g. soap, vinegar, etc. The Hexmodules are dishwasher safe.

Algae is a simple, plant-like aquatic organism that can grow in just about any aquatic environment. Because they are so similar to plants, they require the same basis for growth: sunlight, water, and nutrients. Algae gets into hydroponics systems through microscopic airborne spores and keeping a completely algae free hydroponics system is essentially impossible. Controlling algae growth should be paramount - don't leave any plant sites open and exposed to light, wipe any algae deposits that may form at the joins of the modules and wash/rinse rockwool that has heavy algae deposits on the surface of the rockwool cubes in cups.

The indoor system should be placed in a room with sufficient ventilation. Rooms such as closets and attics are unsuitable as the plants need fresh air.

The indoor system is best placed in rooms with ambient temperatures no warmer than 28 degrees Celsius or colder than 10 degrees Celsius. The fan at the top of the tent will draw out warm air as well as provide some air circulation which is vital to plant growth.

The Aerospring grow tent blocks 95% of light emitted around the tent. The only light that escapes is through the fan vent at the top of the tent. We have designed the tent to reduce light seepage as much as possible to keep the area you place the system as dark as possible.

We recommend setting a long day lighting schedule of between 14-16 hours a day. You can choose to schedule the lights to be on during the day or at night.

Yes, you can germinate your own seeds, and we encourage you to do so. We have designed the Aerospring system to be open source, and only require our grow cups for system use.

GMO seeds are genetically modified seeds. The majority of these species contain genes that make them either tolerant to herbicides or resistant to insects and as of 2015, there are 26 plant crops that have been genetically modified for use in agriculture. These are typically broad acre crops such as corn, cotton, canola and soybeans. GMO seeds are often protected by intellectual property rules, meaning farmers must pledge not to save them and replant and are rarely available to the home vegetable gardener.

F1 hybrid seeds are grown and selectively bred through traditional, natural means. It is similar to a farmer breeding his two best meat pigs together to produce the best offspring for meat. It is important to know that F1 seeds cannot be used for seed saving. The seeds from the F1 plant will produce a plant like one of its parent plants, not the plant you saved the seed from.

OP(Open Pollinated) seeds generally refer to seeds that will breed true, meaning that when plants of an open-pollinated variety self-pollinate, or are pollinated by another representative of the same variety, the resulting seeds will produce plants roughly identical to their parents.

Organic seeds are produced by organic gardening/farming methods. These are the same procedures used to produce organic food. In order to be be certified organic, they must be produced by a certified organic operation.

If you are located in Johannesburg, you can purchase seedlings from PlanetPartners. You can also buy seedlings from your neighbourhood nursery. Transfer the seedlings into the included rockwool and grow cups, and then they are ready to be transferred into the Aerospring system.

If the plants have been germinated in soil, ensure you wash and clean as much of the soil from the plants before inserting them into rockwool. It may even be prudent to sterilise the plant roots beforehand to prevent any pathogens from the soil entering the system. This is easily done by adding a few drops of Hydogen Peroxide to water and allowing the plant roots to sanitise in this water for a few hours.

Germination should be done indoors (especially in very hot or cold climates) and require a good amount of light. Germination can easily be done directly in the included rockwool cubes, vermiculite or similar mediums. Once the seedlings are around 2"/5cm tall with visible roots emerging from the rockwool, they are ready to be inserted into grow cups and transferred to the system.