I have grown dozens of sweet potato vines over the years. They are really easy to grow and make a pretty plant. As far as gardening (especially Aerogardening), it is strictly a hobby and is calming to me. I just zone out when I'm working with plants and I appreciate the climate control, no dirt, and no bugs. It is fun to "harvest" stuff for cooking, though. My quest right now is to find a cucumber variety that is sturdy enough to make pickles... I HATE mushy pickles. When my niece and her husband came to pick up the RV they bought from us, he was enthralled by my "garden room." He took dozens of pictures and earmarked the Aerogarden website, so I believe he will be a convert.
@Beth Gallagher Space is my main concern concerning indoor gardening. If it wasn't so expensive, I would convert my 16' X 20' patio into a heated greenhouse with raised beds for indoor gardening. I could get one aero-gardening unit on my kitchen counter, but that is it.
Faye--the Harvest model Aerogarden has a small footprint and would grow those "golfball sized tomatoes" on the countertop. It would also be handy for herbs, lettuce, etc. in a small space. The only drawback is that you soon discover you "need" another one. The Harvest models come in three different styles, each with a different layout... the "Slim" is longer and narrow, the 360 is round, and the regular Harvest is shorter and wider but still a rectangle shape. I think a greenhouse would be a lot of fun!! They are relatively inexpensive on Amazon, but then there would be other costs to consider.
Just closing it and not heating may extend your growing season a lot, @Faye Fox. We have an attached entryway (they call them arctic entries here) that is heated just by leaving the garage door open. We use supplemental heat when it gets much below 0 F. but you might not have that problem there, and we just use containers, not beds.
I will check out that long and narrow one. That sounds ideal. I had a 6' X 12' greenhouse up until a few years ago. It was great but a lot of work. I used wood to heat it and that was constant work. The north wall was against the house and the east, south, west, and roof were double layer clear acrylic. I had roll down canvas drapes for extra insulation at night. I could bank a hardwood fire and keep it above 45 even on the few night we had that fell below zero. It simply wasn't worth the work since it is usually May here before I could get the early start plants out safely in the rowed garden. The last few years I had it, I used it just for starting plants. Even if it was kept 45 to 70, tomatoes, zucchini, and such didn't produce very well during the winter.
I've been trying to think of some new stuff to try in my AGs. Since I bought 2 more machines from the Black Friday sale, I decided to order some broccolini seeds and some chard (lol). Maybe if I grow my own chard I will like it better. I ordered a type that has light green stems instead of the red.
I got some called "Fordhook," which I've never heard of except in lima beans. I wasn't playing attention to the details, and this says it gets to 24" tall. This will be too tall for most of my Aerogardens so I probably need to choose a smaller variety.
I got some bok choy which has some short varieties. Swiss chard is very easy to grow but I never liked the taste.
Bok choy works great in an Aerogarden; I almost always have a garden of bok choy and one of tatsoi since we like stir fry quite a bit. I'm not much on chard but apparently it is a "superfood" so I'm going to try some different ways to prepare it. From WebMD... "Swiss chard is a nutritional powerhouse -- an excellent source of vitamins K, A, and C, as well as a good source of magnesium, potassium, iron, and dietary fiber."
This was odd. I have a couple of over-achieving banana pepper plants in the AGs. I have put up a few jars of pickled peppers and we eat raw peppers occasionally. Yesterday I decided to have one with my dinner and took a big bite. WOW. It was fiery hot. Very surprising since all the other peppers I have harvested have been extremely sweet and mild from the same plant. Now I'm afraid to bite into a banana pepper.
Fordhook chard is often listed as Fordhook Giant, so it probably isn't the best chard to pick fore Aerogardens. There are many more, so hopefully you will find one suitable. Pick it young and small when the taste is milder and use it as a cut and come again leafy green.