In October we posted when we first got our Tower Garden. Now it's time to share a little about what we've learned!
A quick summary and recap:
What's a Tower Garden?
First, it's compact:
It's literally a 4 foot tall by 1 foot wide white tower with 20 net pots that sits atop a 1 foot by 3 foot 20 gallon reservoir.
Next, it's water and energy efficient:
A pump inside the reservoir distributes water with nutrients to the plants' roots that hang from the net pots. In recycling the water every 15 minutes, the Tower Garden uses 10% of the water that traditional gardening does. It's also on a 125 watt timer (included), so it waters the roots every 30 minutes for 15 minutes, meaning no work for you, and costing about $4 per month to run.
So on to what we've learned - Chapter 1 Seeds and Lights...
For anyone who says they can't garden - either born without a green thumb, devoid of space (apartment owners), or simply without the time, Tower Garden is a perfect fit. We love the addition of it to our home! Picking fresh food from it daily is inspiring, healthy, and fun.
But not without it's lessons. And we DO call ourselves gardeners... well, hobby gardeners. :)
Seeds:
When we first got our Tower Garden we set it up and started seeds immediately. Tower Garden
For smaller plants that like to share space (lettuce, basil, arugula), put 2-4 seeds per rock wool.
comes with seeds, rock wool (there's no dirt with a TG), nutrients, and pH kit. Here are our tips so far:
On to lights!
We started our TG without lights. For one, just to see how it would do. The light in November - December was not conducive to growing, and our seedlings grew slow through November (in fact, we experienced a failure due to a couple of factors: we put the seeds on a seed heating pad - they did better without. We also didn't cover the seeds with cardboard at first, and they grew faster in the dark.
Once our second seeds were strong in December, we transferred them to the Tower Garden. They grew about 3" and then plateaued. The custom-designed TG lights came online in late December, so we ordered lights and it made all the difference. January growth was intense! Within a week our plants were thriving, within two the lettuce was ready to eat!
By now we've been eating lettuce, arugula, cilantro, and basil for months. We are only having one issue with the Tomatoes... they're huge, but not fruiting. So our next post will be on that!
We love this product and company so much that we became distributors and are so glad we did. Helping people learn to grow and have fresh tower-to-table food in their house is truly inspiring. Tower Garden is a product of the Juice Plus company, a company with a heart, that has helped over 1 million kids get healthy! If you want to learn more about the power of phytonutrients and help your body be the best it can be, visit www.andreakennedy.juiceplus.com.
Our best resources:
Tower Garden blog
Tower Garden Facebook
Living Towers blog
TG Inventor Tim Blank's Future Growing
Stay tuned for future posts on
What we learned - tomatoes, pH and water temperature
What we learned - harvesting to keep it growing
What we learned - rebooting the garden
A quick summary and recap:What's a Tower Garden?
First, it's compact:
It's literally a 4 foot tall by 1 foot wide white tower with 20 net pots that sits atop a 1 foot by 3 foot 20 gallon reservoir.
Next, it's water and energy efficient:
A pump inside the reservoir distributes water with nutrients to the plants' roots that hang from the net pots. In recycling the water every 15 minutes, the Tower Garden uses 10% of the water that traditional gardening does. It's also on a 125 watt timer (included), so it waters the roots every 30 minutes for 15 minutes, meaning no work for you, and costing about $4 per month to run.
So on to what we've learned - Chapter 1 Seeds and Lights...
For anyone who says they can't garden - either born without a green thumb, devoid of space (apartment owners), or simply without the time, Tower Garden is a perfect fit. We love the addition of it to our home! Picking fresh food from it daily is inspiring, healthy, and fun.
But not without it's lessons. And we DO call ourselves gardeners... well, hobby gardeners. :)Seeds:
When we first got our Tower Garden we set it up and started seeds immediately. Tower Garden
For smaller plants that like to share space (lettuce, basil, arugula), put 2-4 seeds per rock wool.
comes with seeds, rock wool (there's no dirt with a TG), nutrients, and pH kit. Here are our tips so far:
- For larger plants that need all the room (tomato, cucumber, pepper) for a big stalk, put 1 seed per rock wool.
- Soak the rock wool first as the instructions tell you to. Cover the seeds up with a good amount of vermiculite.
- Cover the seed tray with a piece of carboard and keep warm but not hot.
- Put a little bit (50mg?) of nutrients in the seed water, and keep about 1/2" of water in the tray.
- For those who don't want to mess with seeds, go to Living Towers Seedlings and order when you order your TG so you're growing in less time. But for kids, watching seeds turn to plants is a magical experience and it's easy, just a little more time consuming.
- Tower Garden sends you organic seeds, but by all means don't stop there. You can grow edible flowers, beans, and all kinds of fruiting plants - just no root veggies or bushes.
On to lights!
We started our TG without lights. For one, just to see how it would do. The light in November - December was not conducive to growing, and our seedlings grew slow through November (in fact, we experienced a failure due to a couple of factors: we put the seeds on a seed heating pad - they did better without. We also didn't cover the seeds with cardboard at first, and they grew faster in the dark.
Once our second seeds were strong in December, we transferred them to the Tower Garden. They grew about 3" and then plateaued. The custom-designed TG lights came online in late December, so we ordered lights and it made all the difference. January growth was intense! Within a week our plants were thriving, within two the lettuce was ready to eat!
By now we've been eating lettuce, arugula, cilantro, and basil for months. We are only having one issue with the Tomatoes... they're huge, but not fruiting. So our next post will be on that!
We love this product and company so much that we became distributors and are so glad we did. Helping people learn to grow and have fresh tower-to-table food in their house is truly inspiring. Tower Garden is a product of the Juice Plus company, a company with a heart, that has helped over 1 million kids get healthy! If you want to learn more about the power of phytonutrients and help your body be the best it can be, visit www.andreakennedy.juiceplus.com.
Our best resources:
Tower Garden blog
Tower Garden Facebook
Living Towers blog
TG Inventor Tim Blank's Future Growing
Stay tuned for future posts on
What we learned - tomatoes, pH and water temperature
What we learned - harvesting to keep it growing
What we learned - rebooting the garden
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