My 2018/19 veggie garden

[IrishLass]

Well, she's up and running! I recently started my 3rd year of gardening in my handy dandy Tower Garden. For those that haven't read any my previous posts about my lack-of-space veggie gardening woes, the ingenious "Tower Garden" contraption that I'm using as my planter was designed by Tim Blank who used to be the head horticulturist and greenhouse manager of "The Land Pavillion" over at Disney's Epcot Center. I wrote all about it a few years ago when I first bought one in this thread here.

I keep it up and running/growing full throttle from September all the way to the first week of June, then I take it down, clean it, and store it away during the summer months when our normal temps hover anywhere between 105degreesF/40.5C to 120degreesF/48.8C. Thankfully, the temps get much nicer once summer is over and I'm able to grow and harvest all kinds of things like tomatoes, cukes, strawberries and pretty much anything else all the way up to June......well, technically I could keep it going all summer long if I really wanted to, but it would be too much of a hassle trying to combat heat stress on the plants (not to mention on me!). Besides, it's good to give things a break.

Anyway, I just set it up for the 2018/2019 season 10 days ago with all the baby plants I started from seed the first week of August.

Photo A is what things looked like 10 days ago just after I set it up, and Photo B is what things looked like this morning.

Photo A (10 days ago)

Photo B (this morning)

This is what I have growing in it at the moment:

Bottom rung:

Black Cherry tomato
Ceylon tomato
Fruit Punch tomato
Heide Tomato

2nd rung up:

Poblano pepper
Earliana tomato
H-19 Little Leaf Cucumber
Principe Borghese tomato

3rd rung up:

1 chocolate mint cutting (for my SIL) that I'm waiting on to take root. Once it does and I give it to my SIL, I'll be leaving the whole 3rd rung empty for the sake of all heavy-fruiting plants below. You can see it in Photo B with a little makeshift shade taped over it.

4th rung up:

Bok Choi
Cilantro
Wildfire Lettuce mix
(soon-to-be) Stevia

5th rung up:

Amethyst Basil
Nufar Basil
Peppermint
Culantro (a cousin of cilantro with a similar taste, but more pungeant)

6th rung up:

Alpine strawberry (Stragioni)
Alpine Strawberry (White Soul)
Celery (Ventura)
Chocolate Mint

7th (topmost) rung:

Tango Celery
Collard Greens
Olympia Kale
Happy Rich Broccoli

I know I more than likely will regret choosing to grow 6 tomato plants in the Tower at the same time that I'm also growing a cuke and pepper plant (I've learned that 2 to 3 tomato plants are a much more manageable number when also growing other fruiting veggies), but gosh darn it they all had to go and sprout into healthy seedlings and make it very hard for me to decide which ones to keep..... so I kept them all! No doubt I'm in for quite the pruning adventure, for sure! If it gets too overwhelming for the Tower, I may just pull a few of them out and transplant them them into grow bags.

I'll leave you with a bowl of my first fruits- mostly bok choy, wildfire lettuce, and amethyst basil. There's also a little kale, collard greens and a sprig chocolate mint hiding somewhere in there, too:

IrishLass

 

[lsg]

Great idea!

 

[SaltedFig]

Looking totally fabulous as always!

The black cherry is going to take over your life (the Principe Borghese might too - they grow strong stems & might not let you in after a bit )

Does the tower otherwise allow for all of the plants to get enough nutrients?
If so, you could put a temporary grow frame further out (pvc piping and those corner joiners would match the white look - similar to what you have at the top) and prune/direct the tomatoes and climbers onto that - a bit like a white grow wall backdrop that you can dismantle when you're done

Nice first harvest

I've got giant red mustard, parsley and fennel all over my yard ... they tell me when I should be out putting the tomatoes in (I'm running late again this year).

Fingers crossed for your chocolate mint cutting - they don't strike as easily as regular mint (I will be interested to see how well the tower does for that - it's such a great thing).

I don't think I asked last time you posted (I was too busy just looking at your harvest!) - how much maintenance and nutrient input does it need?

 

[Relle]

Massive growth for only 10 days, it must like the heat of the concrete where it is to grow so fast.

Just looked up this -

https://www.towergarden.com/blog.read.html/en/2015/8/tower-garden-yield-value.html

Too expensive for me, I would have to add on 30% for the exchange rate, then postage etc. they say the operating cost is 170 - 200 dollars a year , that could buy a lot of veg and you wouldn't have to care for it.

 

[Lin19687]

WOW, Just Wow I want one... some day. So I am watching this !

 

[shunt2011]

Just awesome as usual. I pretty much gave up on my veggie gardens. The guy behind us spray paints cars and I think the paint has seeped into our soil. I can't get anything to grow. Even raised beds don't do well. So, I stick to herb on the patio and flower pots and hanging baskets. So jealous. I use to be able to grow just about anything.

 

[IrishLass]

My Tower this morning in the rain. It's been raining for 3 days here off and on, which is a rarity in our neck of the woods. We are enjoying it as much as folks who live in rainy climes enjoy a rare peek of the sun:

Looking totally fabulous as always!

The black cherry is going to take over your life (the Principe Borghese might too - they grow strong stems & might not let you in after a bit )

Oh boy (she said with much trepidation..... and excited anticipation of many lovely maters)! I know I'm in for a wild ride for sure! lol

Does the tower otherwise allow for all of the plants to get enough nutrients?

Yes.....just as long as the root systems are not so out of control that they are blocking the way of the normal 'rainfall' of the water/nutes from reaching the roots of other plants. That's why all my large fruiting plants are kept to the bottom rungs. My normal mode of operation is to always trim any roots that I see poking down into the reservoir whenever I go to add water/nutes (I just reach into the reservoir and yank them out), and if I see any plants further up that look like they are suffering from lack of water/nutes, I go into the Tower and perform 'root surgery' by trimming any invasive roots back by 1/3.

Of all the plants I grow on my Tower, I've found that the most aggressive, invasive roots that I have to deal with are the mint roots. Yikes- those buggers are insane! Theirs are the only roots I have to be vigilant about trimming back on a regular, once-a-week basis (sometimes twice-a-week). Whenever I've slacked off on my vigilance, I've found mint leaves and roots growing out of different ports all over the Tower and blocking water flow! Thankfully, since they are not heavy or fruiting plants, they are very easy to just pop out of their ports for a quick root trim..... just as long as I stay on top of things. If I let them go wild for too long, the roots get so big and gnarly that I can't pop them out of the port and I have to resort to taking apart the Tower rung by rung to get to them that way. Thankfully, the Tower is easy to take apart, but it's not something I like to do too often....maybe only once every 30-60 days or so when I do general cleaning/maintenance, and to keep the mater roots manageable.

If so, you could put a temporary grow frame further out (pvc piping and those corner joiners would match the white look - similar to what you have at the top) and prune/direct the tomatoes and climbers onto that - a bit like a white grow wall backdrop that you can dismantle when you're done

That would be perfect, and I have often thought about doing just that, but since I like to rotate my Tower 1/4 turn every day for more even sun exposure all around (it stays too shady on one side for me to leave it permanently stationary), I would need to build something that would be able to move with my daily rotations of the Tower. My son is a budding welder, and lately, I've been thinking of picking his brain about the possibility of welding some kind of cage-like thing to the steel dolly that the Tower sits on that would jut out just enough to add extra mater growing room & support, but without making things too difficult for me to maneuver. We'll see.

Fingers crossed for your chocolate mint cutting - they don't strike as easily as regular mint (I will be interested to see how well the tower does for that - it's such a great thing).

So far, it's looking really good, especially with the rainy, humid weather we've been experiencing the past 3 days. I've only ever tried to root a cutting of chocolate mint once, and it went really well, but I didn't put it in the Tower right away like I did with this one. The other one I kept in a moist growing tray with the lid on to keep the humidity in, and I covered the whole thing with a white, translucent plastic bag to filter out the sun. I decided to try sticking it in the Tower as an experiment after reading a blog by another Tower gardener who roots her mint cuttings right in the Tower. If it doesn't work, at least I have plenty more chocolate mint to do a cutting the other way. It grows like a weed! lol

I don't think I asked last time you posted (I was too busy just looking at your harvest!) - how much maintenance and nutrient input does it need?

With my plants still so young yet, I've been checking my water and nute level and the pH only twice a week, adding more if needed and adjusting pH as needed (I wait 1 hour after adding any nutes to check/adjust pH). As the plants get bigger, and especially as they start flowering/producing fruit, I check on things once every morning whether I actually end up needing to or not, just because I'm persnickety that way (and besides, I love being around my garden every morning anyway). Once every 30-60 days it is recommended to do a complete water/nute change/refill of the reservoir, which holds 20 gallons of water, which they've made very easy to do with the included siphon hose.

To keep track of the nutes I use a TDS meter, marking my readings down in a notebook into which I record everything (I'm as anal about tasking gardening notes as I am about taking soapmaking notes) so that I'm not over or under feeding. The general instruction manual that comes with the Tower instructs one to add nutes at full strength in the cooler months and at 1/2 strength in the hotter months every time you add water, but those instructions have proven themselves to be too excessive for my climate. I've found with my TDS readings that 1/4 strength in our hottest temps is all my plants are able to take up, sometimes not even that much! I really love my TDS meter...it saves me a lot of money on nutes!

I use the Tower Tonic A & B nutes that were made to be used with the Tower, but I know of other folks that use other less expensive nutes just fine. So far, my TDS meter has kept us from having to break the bank with using the Tower nutes, and my plants have always thrived wonderfully with it, so for the moment I don't feel the pinch to switch to using anything else. Having said that, though, there is one extra nute that I add on top of the Tower Tonic- a CalMag solution from the hydroponic store nearby, because I use RO water instead of tap water in the Tower. Our tap water is monstrously horrible with a base TDS reading of anywhere from 800-850 depending on the day (it was 837 when I tested it a few days ago). So, I basically add CalMag to the RO until my TDS meter reads about 200, then I add my nutes on top of that. Whenever I start the Tower up for a new season with my baby plants, I begin with the CalMag and 1/2 strength Tonic nutes, take a base reading, and then I adjust up or from there as the TDS or the appearance of my plants dictates.

Massive growth for only 10 days, it must like the heat of the concrete where it is to grow so fast.

I keep it off the bricks on a dolly to help keep things cooler, but no matter if the temps are sizzling or cooler, things just seem to grow weeds in it, nevertheless, which is an awesome thing for someone like me who wasn't born with a green thumb.

Just looked up this -

https://www.towergarden.com/blog.read.html/en/2015/8/tower-garden-yield-value.html

Too expensive for me, I would have to add on 30% for the exchange rate, then postage etc. they say the operating cost is 170 - 200 dollars a year , that could buy a lot of veg and you wouldn't have to care for it.

Believe it or not, a friend of mine was able to procure one for 85 dollars US (including the pump, timer, cage, dolly, extension kit, nutes and pH adjusting fluids) at a garage sale. What a deal! For those that are interested, you may want to keep your eyes peeled the next time you go bargain hunting around the neighborhood yard sales. It's possible you might run into one.

Re: yearly maintenance costs and care..... I figure I spend somewhere around the neighborhood of 170 dollars per year on mine, much less than what I would normally spend on organic veggies for a year bought at the store (they're pricey in my neck of the woods).... and considerably much less than what I pay for soap making/B&B supplies in a year to be sure. lol Of the two hobbies (gardening and soapmaking), my Tower is without a doubt much easier on my wallet. There's definitely lots more care and attention that goes into each them - i.e., it's much easier to pick a tomato or a cucumber off the store shelf than to grow them yourself, just as a bar of soap is easier to buy than to make........but they aren't as enjoyable to me. There's just something about being able to make and/or grow things myself that one can't put a price on, and that are worth the extra effort/care to me. And it just tickles me to no end that with this Tower thing I'm able to grow things without them dying on me before harvest time (as opposed to every in-ground garden I've ever attempted).

IrishLass

 

[IrishLass]

Just awesome as usual. I pretty much gave up on my veggie gardens. The guy behind us spray paints cars and I think the paint has seeped into our soil. I can't get anything to grow. Even raised beds don't do well. So, I stick to herb on the patio and flower pots and hanging baskets. So jealous. I use to be able to grow just about anything.

That is so sad! I'd be so mad!

 

[SaltedFig]

Thank you so much for your detailed reply IrishLass

 

[IrishLass]

Today (Day 21):

Baby cuke closeup:

About once every two to three days, I've been picking a 1-gallon sized ZipLoc bag of greens off the Tower. At the moment, I have five, 1-gallon ZipLoc bags of greens queued up in my fridge's crisper waiting to be added to smoothies, or eaten. lol The more I snip off, the more abundantly they grow back seemingly overnight, and it's all we can do to keep up with the supply! LOL

SaltedFig- I am happy to report that my chocolate mint cutting rooted quite nicely in the Tower and is now happily growing in my sister-in-law's Tower.

I have decided to limit all of my 6 tomato plants to having only 2 growth stems each. That's the only way I can see keeping all of them growing in my Tower at the same time without things turning into an uncontrollable jungle and blocking out sufficient sunlight to all the other plants. I hope it works! I've been vigilant every day to nip off every single side shoot/sucker I see forming beyond those 2 stems, and so far, so good. They are all indeterminates, so I'm sure I'll get plenty enough tomatoes throughout the season out of them. My plan is that once each stem gets as tall as I dare to let them grow, I'll top them off and let a couple of new side shoots near the bottom grow out to be my new growth stems. We'll see how it goes! I'm very hopeful. They all have their first flowers growing on them right now. Every time I'm out there nipping off their ever-forming side shoots, I also give each one a bit of a shake to ensure good pollination.

My cucumber plant is exploding with little baby cukes everywhere. I really love this cucumber plant for my Tower. It's called H-19 Little Leaf- a self-pollinating type. I grew one last season too, and it was very prolific, but without overwhelming things. Like its name suggests, the leaves are of little size.... and the fruits grow to only about 5"-6" long at their biggest.


IrishLass

 

[IrishLass]

My Tower, Day 30 (just Yesterday, Sunday Oct. 22, 2018):

And Day 31 (today). Took a pic of my cukes and my Ceylon mini-beefsteak tomatoes a-growing:

Four out of six of my tomato plants all have baby tomatoes growing on them now. The two that don't only started flowering just recently. I took a battery-powered toothbrush to them and got them pollinated, so it won't be long that they'll be sprouting babies, too. It's funny that one of the plants that doesn't have baby maters yet is Earliana, which is supposed to be the earliest fruiting mater of the bunch. lol The other one with no babies yet is Fruit Punch.

My cukes are growing like crazy! I swear- it's like a turn my back for 2 minutes and they've grown twice as big by the time I turn back around! The largest one in the pic above is about 3 inches long, I'd say.

I'm out there either every single morning or every other morning plucking side shoots off the maters, pruning back excess leaves and securing their ever growing branches to the cage. I can't neglect them for more than 2 days in a row, it seems. I can't neglect the cuke plant either. It's growing like a weed sending out grasping tendrils everywhere!

Speaking of weeds, I had to trim the roots of my chocolate mint and peppermint yesterday. They were beginning to send out those invasive runner roots.

I am now picking a gallon-sized ZipLoc bag of greens off the Tower either every day or every other day.


IrishLass

 

[SaltedFig]

Ooooh ... I missed your choc mint update - that's terrific! Your tower is totally prolific!

I am following your tomato pinching technique with interest - I've seen the hot-house string grown style, which seems a little similar (indeterminate grown up a string and side-shoots mostly pinched out), but I've never tried topping a tomato plant - it should work (great idea).

Nice!

 

[IrishLass]

Day 34.

Picked my first cucumber today! It measured in at 4 1/2 inches long (normal size for this kind is 3" to 5"). Haven't tried eating any of it yet. I want to wait for Hubby to get home from work to show him.

Ooooh ... I missed your choc mint update - that's terrific! Your tower is totally prolific!

I am following your tomato pinching technique with interest - I've seen the hot-house string grown style, which seems a little similar (indeterminate grown up a string and side-shoots mostly pinched out), but I've never tried topping a tomato plant - it should work (great idea).

Nice!

So far, so good on the tomato front. All the daily pinching and pruning is really helping to keep things from turning into a massive, tangled jungle, and the plants don't seem to be suffering at all from all my snipping- flowers and fruit keep on appearing just about every time I turn my back, it seems. lol The weather we are having right now is just perfect for them,, too.

In comparison, here is a pic of my Tower from last year when I obviously didn't know as much as I needed to know about the benefits of pinching and pruning, lol. On the bright side, I did get lots of maters, but as you can plainly see, I was very lax with things and let my tomato plants get way out of hand (btw, I only had 2 tomato plants growing on the Tower at the time this pic was taken). Thanks to all the YouTube gardening videos I've been binging on lately, I am learning more and more, and I feel so much more confident about how to manage those unwieldy maters this year than I did last year.

IrishLass

 

[shunt2011]

That’s amazing. Looks awesome! Our growing season is done.

 

[Relle]

Can't believe the growth you get out of it, I'm jealous. Love seeing all of the pics of the veg .

 

[IrishLass]

Can't believe the growth you get out of it, I'm jealous. Love seeing all of the pics of the veg .

It really is amazing how well things grow in this thing, Relle. I absolutely love it! I've been picking more cucumbers off it throughout the week. I think I've picked a total of 7 or 8 so far....and there are plenty more queuing up.

My sis has 5 of these Towers set up in her back yard, plus an in-ground garden (she lives out in the boonies on 1.5 acres of land). She grows all her greens & herbs on the Towers and all her fruiting and root veggies in-ground. I can't imagine how I'd ever be able to keep up with the amount of greens coming off of 5 Towers (one is plenty enough for us!). I'd have to open up a roadside stand or something for sure. lol What my sis can't eat, she feeds to her chickens and her giant desert tortoise, who just gobble it up like candy.


IrishLass

 

[Relle]

My sis has 5 of these Towers set up in her back yard, plus an in-ground garden (she lives out in the boonies on 1.5 acres of land). She grows all her greens & herbs on the Towers and all her fruiting and root veggies in-ground. I can't imagine how I'd ever be able to keep up with the amount of greens coming off of 5 Towers (one is plenty enough for us!). I'd have to open up a roadside stand or something for sure. lol What my sis can't eat, she feeds to her chickens and her giant desert tortoise, who just gobble it up like candy.
IrishLass

5 towers , I was thinking she must be a vegetarian, but the critters have to eat as well and I know with a bun the greens get scoffed down, it takes a lot to fill them up. I'd love to have one now that I've seen how much they produce, but would cost too much to get one sent here .

 

[Steve85569]

I just may have a "do it yourself" project coming.
Except for the hydroponic part. I have an abundant supply of space and mulch as well as some 6" pipe just taking up space....

 

[IrishLass]

Day 50! What my Tower looks like this morning after a bit of pruning (I call it 'managed chaos'!):

Although it's hard to see them for the leaves, there are lots of tomatoes growing in there on every one of my 6 plants. All of them are topped off now except for my Principe Borghese and my Fruit Punch.

The big, tall tomato plant that you see there more towards the left is my Black Cherry, and the shorter one just to the right of it is Earliana. Going further to the right, popping up just above my cucumber plant is Fruit Punch.

My cucumber plant keeps throwing cucumbers at me if not every day, then every other day. I cut a 6-incher off it the day before yesterday (an inch bigger than 'normal' for this type of cucumber). I may have to try my hand at turning some of them into pickles because they are starting to take over my crisper drawer in the fridge! We can hardly keep up with them!

My celery is finally big enough for cutting off individual stalks now, and my cilantro is finally substantial enough for daily snipping.

I had to remove my peppermint and my chocolate mint from their slots. The maters were shading them too much. I set them up in foil-covered Mason jars to let them grow 'Kratky-style". You can see them there sitting on the reservoir cover. They seem quite happy and content so far. I may end up having to do the same to my 2 basils.

In the background on the right you can see one of my orange trees. It's positively loaded- we're going to have lots of oranges from it this year. Last year we only got a small handful off it (it's an Arizona Sweet). That seems to be the way of it with this particular tree. Like clockwork, it produces like crazy one year then takes the next year off to rest. My other tree is a Navel, and to date, it has never taken a break.


IrishLass

 

[IrishLass]

Day 57! My cucumber plant is waning, while my Alpine Strawberries are waxing. Found my first strawberry bloom yesterday!:

IrishLass