Container garden | Shawndra Miller

Faithful readers of this blog will remember last year’s midseason efforts with a new gardening technology. Due to some missteps and a late start, I had pretty low yields. But this spring the Garden Tower Project, offering a vertical garden design with worm composting right in the tower, is my best friend.

I’m following the instructions this time and fertilizing with organic fish emulsion till my worms get going, and I can already tell a big difference.

I sowed radish and beet seeds in the top of the Tower over a month ago, and it was so exciting when they sprouted.

In late March I bought starts from two of my favorite farmers at the winter farmers market, Stout’s Melody Acres and KG Acres.

Sweet little chard seedling in one of the pockets.

This year I’m not asking each pocket to hold more than one plant (last year I was loath to thin my babies, resulting in spindly, sad specimens).

Beautiful lettuce (actually two plants, before I thinned).

Soon I was able to eat my thinnings. Just last week, I harvested a bumper crop of radishes.

And the radishes are still coming!

This week I’ve made my salads solely from my own garden (with a few foraged weeds for good measure), and I’ve begun snipping kale leaves to use in green smoothies.

More radishes on the way. And here come the beets! I will probably slip a tomato or pepper plant in here before too long.

Here’s what my Garden Tower looked like before I started majorly harvesting a few days ago.

Still room for a cucumber or zucchini seeding on the bottom row. (Yes I do love my greens!)

Still room for a cucumber or zucchini seeding on the bottom row, where that one pea sprout is lagging behind.

And another view.

Yes I do love my greens– of all kinds!

I learned more about the Garden Tower Project when I wrote a piece on it for the May issue of Farm Indiana. I was impressed with the vision of the project’s three partners. For example, at some point in the future they hope to switch from a petroleum-based plastic to plant-based.

According to partner Joel Grant, the type of polyethylene used in the Tower is simple to produce from plant-based sources. “You can produce polyethylene nearly as easily as biodiesel,” the environmental scientist says. “It takes more processing but…in some countries people solely manufacture it out of plant products.”

For more on the Garden Tower Project, visit their webpage or see my story in Farm Indiana (navigate to page 24).

Now I’m off to saute up some chard and radish greens for dinner!

At FoodCon I met two of the people behind the innovative Bloomington-based Garden Tower Project. Check out their garden-in-a-barrel design with built-in worm composting. Up to 50 plants can be planted in this unique vertical garden.

Garden Tower on Planting Day

The center tube is perforated down the entire length, allowing red wiggler worms to travel between the compost tube and the soil. Kitchen waste goes into the center tube and turns into compost and worm castings. Bonus: The protection of the soil in the barrel means the worms can survive through the winter.

How genius is that–worm composting right in your container garden?

Finished compost, with happy worms

From the website:

“In an era of rapidly rising food prices and industrial farming practices that strip our food of nutrients essential for good health, we believe the Garden Tower is one small step in empowering people towards their own food security.”

The company hopes to nurture a community of growers. They’ll soon launch GrowingCircles.org as a space for networking and collaboration among those with an interest in the Garden Tower Project’s mission. The goal is expanding food self-sufficiency, promoting homegrown vegetables and herbs that are:

organic
non-GMO
low-input
ecologically sustainable

Tom Tlusty tells me that the Garden Tower’s unique design capitalizes on “evaporative cooling and a large thermal mass”–making it possible to plant in hot temperatures normally prohibitive in a traditional garden plot.

So… it’s not too late to start gardening this season!

Top view of the Garden Tower.

I’m so excited about this design that I ordered my own Garden Tower, and I’m picking it up from the Good Earth later today. I’m psyched to sow some crops I didn’t have room for, like beans and carrots. I’ll also scour local garden centers for leftover seedlings (probably quite sad and stressed by now, but maybe a little TLC would bring them along).

It’s nearly time to start fall crops, like kale, lettuce, peas, and spinach. That’s something I always intend to do and never seem to manage in the thick of late summer. But this is the year, with my sweet new protected microclimate as incentive.

Plus I’ll finally have livestock on my homestead, if only in the form of worms. I’m in heaven!

Time to harvest from the Garden Tower

The only drawback I can see is the need for potting soil to ensure that the growing medium is not compacted in the barrel. I hate buying bagged soil for so many reasons. I’ve seen recipes for homemade potting soil. But being eager to jump in, I probably will break down and purchase. (If you’ve found a good peat-free variety available on the market, please leave it in the comments.)

The inventors believe their design will allow people of all abilities to garden in any clime. According to Garden Tower users in the arid Grand Canyon region, this model results in immense water savings. Tom says they used ten times less water with the Garden Tower than their traditional plot or raised bed.

Really can’t wait to dig in!

All photos courtesy of The Garden Tower Project.