I love adding fresh basil to pizza or pasta during the week. It adds a little something — freshness, flavor, aroma. Without it, it’s just Tuesday. But here's the problem: Basil, like some friends, shows up once and disappears. One use and it wilts into a sad, slimy pile in your fridge. Money wasted, dreams dashed.
That’s where I took a cue from Rosalie Sparaco, an editor at NBC Select with excellent taste and, crucially, a working relationship with basil. She’s had her AeroGarden for a little over a year and swears by it — it’s basically a countertop greenhouse for people who can’t be bothered to garden. “I think basil grows the fastest from the other herbs I’ve grown. I have enough basil from 3 pods to make enough pesto to cover more than a pound of pasta.” That’s a lot of basil. And a lot of pesto. But also, a lot of money saved — not to mention a fridge that no longer feels like a herb graveyard.
Do the math and the AeroGarden (about $100 with pods) pays for itself in a couple of months, especially if you’re the kind of person who regularly drops $4 on a single packet of organic basil that turns brown by Thursday.
If you're wondering whether this is just another gadget that will end up under your sink with the soda maker and the air fryer you used once, Ashley Morris, an NBC Select reporter, is here to reassure you. “The garden basically tends to itself,” she says. “I’d even go as far as to say that someone with absolutely no knowledge of gardening would find the AeroGarden easy to manage.” In other words, you don’t need to be Martha Stewart or a TikTok homesteader.
