When Gardens Fall

A couple of nights ago, just as we were thinking it was time to crash, something in the kitchen beat us to it. At the assortment of loud noises, including breaking glass, we jumped up to investigate. First thing - establish that Ziggy and Starbuck are okay. Yes, they are.  Next step - conclude that one of them was likely the cause of the disturbance.

We have a number of wooden shelves on decorative iron brackets on two walls. These hold a variety of items - cookbooks, Cuisinart blades (in safety containers), flour/sugar, telephone, vases, etc. The lowest shelf has the toaster and two Aerogardens. This shelf was now resting on the recycling bags below, with the various items strewn across the floor. Including the now-broken bulbs from the Aerogardens. And all the crumbs from the toaster (should clean that more often). And all the water from their just-topped-off-that-day reservoirs. Oy.

Ziggy has a habit of standing on the table near the bottom shelf so he can then lean up onto the near Aerogarden to sniff and perhaps chew the herbs (savory seems to be his favorite). I believe he may have tried taking it to a four-paw and full-weight investigation, which combined with the fact that one of the brackets was just in sheetrock using those plastic anchor thingies rather than secured to a wall stud, and hijinx ensued.

We got the immediate mess cleaned up, but I put off doing the full Aerogarden cleanout and testing until this morning. Bad news - three of the four bulbs either broke visibly or internally. Good news - the remaining bulb lit up in each of the four sockets.

What remains:

• Locate wall studs
• Reposition brackets
• Secure shelves to brackets (rather than just setting on top)
• Order new bulbs
• Order new seed kits
• Set up Aerogardens with new components

Any bets on how long this will take? For now, we just need to ignore the vacant area on the wall: