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Tower Garden Review : In-depth look at Tower Gardens

At SuperTinyHomes, we’ve recently discovered Tower Gardens and have fallen in love with them. Over the next few months, we’ll document our experience using the product and watching the products grow – now, onto our tower garden review!

Tower Garden Review: Are tower gardens worth it?

old lady with tower garden

Anyone who is interested in saving space and water while also growing their own delicious vegetable garden should look into a Tower Garden.

The way these systems work to cultivate healthy plants in as little as three square feet and with only a tiny amount of maintenance is appealing to anyone with a busy lifestyle or limited space, or anyone interested in indoor growing.

In short, a tower garden lets you have your very own vegetable, herb, or even flower garden, no matter where or how you live.

This Juice Plus Tower Garden review will explore the aeroponic gardening system and help you understand how it is, and how it works, even if you’re a beginner.

What is a Tower Garden?

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A Tower Garden is an aeroponic system that lets you grow healthy plants and vegetables in very little space, either indoors or outdoors, and with far less water than you typically need. The aeroponic tower garden completely does away with soil too.

Aeroponics is an evolution of the hydroponic garden. Instead of growing plants in beds of water as with a hydroponics system, aeroponics systems let the roots and plants hang suspended in air, and it supplies the nutrients and water needed through a fine spray or mist.

A hydroponic tower would be heavy and cumbersome, aeroponic Tower Gardens solve this problem and make hydro easier and more efficient.

There are dozens of types of indoor hanging grow systems. You may have heard of Mr. Stacky Hydroponics, or the Lettuce grow tower. Tower Garden is an innovative take on these systems.

The base Tower Garden Flex consists of:

Vertical grow tower for up to 20 plants

  • Seed germination tray
  • 20 rockwool cubes
  • Vermiculite and net pots
  • Pump
  • Timer
  • Drain tube
  • Two gallons of tower Garden Mineral Blend plant food
  • A pH test kit and one bottle each of pH adjusters
  • Starter crop of:
    • Arugula
    • Bibb Lettuce
    • Rainbow Chard
    • Gourmet Lettuce
    • Black Magic
    • Dino Kale
    • Sweet Basil seeds

You’ll also get dedicated customer support as well as educational resources and growing tips to help you move from beginner to expert.

From there, you can expand to a larger Tower Garden Home for up to 32 plants, and you can add accessories like grow lights to help support your indoor Tower Garden. The grow lights are designed to integrate with the grow tower.

How Does a Tower Garden Work?

Setting up a Tower Garden is easy, you simply pour some water and the nutrient blend into the reservoir. Then, you place the seedlings for your veggies, herbs, or flowers into the small Rockwool cubes. These cubes act as the soil would in that they support the roots of your plants while they’re growing.

A water pump set to a 15-minute time disperses the water and nutrient blend mix down over the plants to help them grow. The whole system takes about 25 minutes to set up and from there takes just a small amount of weekly maintenance to keep on growing.

There are grow guides and resources on the Tower Garden website to help guide beginner green thumbs through your first growing season, so you can quickly become comfortable with growing and harvesting your own crops.

How often do you have to water Tower Gardens?

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You only need to water the system once every 10 to 20 days. This depends on what type of plants you have, and how mature they are. Larger, leafier, and more mature plants usually take more water than smaller seedlings.

What are the pros and cons of Tower Gardens?

Tower Gardens have benefits over a traditional garden, as well as alternatives like buying your herbs and vegetables from the store.

Benefits of the Tower Garden over traditional gardens include:

  • You can grow indoors
  • You can grow on balconies
  • You don’t need a garden
  • Herbs and veggies grow faster
  • Tower Garden uses less water
  • Tower Garden works in a small space
  • It is less susceptible to pests and bugs
  • You use less water
  • You don’t need to do any weeding

The pros of growing your own food versus buying it from a store are plentiful. They include:

  • You save money on fresh food
  • You control production in your organic garden
  • You know your food isn’t tainted by chemicals
  • You choose what to grow from as many as 152 different plants
  • Food has more flavor and nutrients
  • You can grow any herb or vegetable you like year-round
  • Growing your own food has mental health benefits
  • Kids are more likely to eat leafy green veggies they helped grow

There are some things to consider before deciding if a Tower Garden is right for you. Cons of this growing system include the fact you can’t grow root vegetables or fruit in a Tower Garden.

You will need to test and balance the water in your garden frequently to make sure the pH level is correct. The aerogarden needs to be dismantled and cleaned out at the end of every growing season.

It is worth noting that the water pump in this aeroponic system can be noisy, so you will want to make sure your indoor garden is away from bedrooms.

A Tower Garden system will work best for you if you have little space, like leafy greens, and enjoy gardening.

How much does the Tower Garden cost?

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The Tower Garden Flex growing system starts at $810, which you can pay in 12 monthly instalments of $67.50.

You can get the aeroponic Tower Garden Home for $870 or $72.50 per month for 12 months.

Both systems are backed by a 12-month warranty.

High-quality accessories like grow lights, an extension kit, and other tools to help you grow up more efficiently start from as little as $10.

The monthly payment system makes it easy and affordable to start your DIY garden tower project without breaking the bank.

If you move out of a small space into a larger one, or you grow your family, you can expand your garden tower 2, 3, or 10 times over. You can even buy Community Tower Gardens.

The best place to buy your vertical container garden is directly through Tower Garden. You won’t find it on Amazon.

Tower Garden Flex vs Tower Garden Home

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tower-garden-home

Tower Garden Flex on the left, Tower Garden home on the right.

The Flex edition of this vertical garden has 20 spots for plants, but it is larger than the Home model, which has 32 spots. That’s because the Flex is designed to grow larger plants and veggies like lettuces or cucumbers and tomatoes, while the Home is intended for smaller plants and herbs as well as edible or ornamental flowers.

The Home kit includes one gallon of mineral blend, and the Flex includes two gallons. While the Flex has less plant compartments, they’re larger, and the whole unit is 62 x 30 x 30 inches. You can also buy a support cage to help prop up larger crops.

The Home is great for microgreens and small spaces like apartments. It measures just 58 x 24 x 24 inches and has a smaller reservoir at the bottom.

Some families buy both systems and use one for smaller herbs and flowers while growing larger staple crops like tomatoes or even cauliflower in the Flex system.

Are Tower Gardens worth it?

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It’s nearly impossible to put a monetary value on the peace of mind and satisfaction that comes from growing your own food for your family with your own two hands. Knowing that you are eating food you grew, free of pesticides and other chemicals.

The accomplishment of watching a seedling develop into a salad is a proven source of endorphins, and gardening is a great way to improve your mental health. An indoor Tower Garden can also add greenery and light to your home, helping you feel calmer, and more relaxed.

As an added bonus, you get to eat what you grow, saving you money at the store. Tower gardens also make it more likely you’ll eat greenery which is highly beneficial to your health and longevity.

These grow systems will begin to pay for themselves the moment you grow your first crop of herbs or vegetables and will keep giving back for years to come.

One study by Urban Farms planted a variety of vine plants like cucumber, tomatoes, and eggplant alongside celery, lettuce, herbs, peppers, and leafy greens including cabbage, lettuce, and chard in a Tower Garden for over six months. The study calculated the net value of produce in that time at $796. That was in 2014, long before the cost of groceries skyrocketed as it has in recent months.

Over the course of a year, you could grow between $1,500 and $2,000 worth of produce in your own home. Long story short: An aeroponic vertical garden is absolutely worth the initial cost over a single year, and that benefit only increases in subsequent seasons.

What grows best in a Tower Garden?

Any leafy green plant grows beautifully in this aeroponic system. There are 152 types of plants available from Juice Plus for your container garden system.

This includes 59 edible and ornamental flowers, 51 herbs, and 42 veggies.

Herbs like basil, mint, parsley, and rosemary thrive in the aerogarden. So too veggies including arugula, lettuce, and even cucumbers or tomatoes.

There’s no limit to what you can grow, but small to medium plants will fit the best in your indoor garden, and get the best results from grow lights.

If it’s leafy and green, you can grow it. Even more delicate plants that might be susceptible to contaminated soil or harsh weather thrive in this vertical garden because there is no soil. Indoor gardens are particularly hardy because they’re not exposed to the elements and you won’t find your vertical garden raided by birds, bugs, or other wildlife.

How to Care For Your Vertical Garden System

It’s important to test and balance the pH levels in your unit on a regular basis. Checking pH weekly will help keep the right balance of nutrients flowing steadily into your plants.

Making sure you trim your plants and their roots regularly, as well as keeping active with harvesting will help keep the plants in the best condition possible too.

At the end of every growing season, or before you conduct a fresh planting, you should clean your unit. To do this drain the water:

  1. Unplug the pump and attach the drainage hose
  2. Place the draining hose end in your sink or tub
  3. Run the pump to drain out most of the nutrient water
  4. Stop before the reservoir is empty so the pump doesn’t run dry
  5. Pour out the remaining water by hand

Then disassemble the Tower Garden in these steps:

  1. Remove the plants carefully – you can replace them later if they’re healthy
  2. Unstack the tower sections
  3. Brush away any roots or plant material
  4. Remove the blue hose from the reservoir lid
  5. Soak the unit in warm soapy water for 30 minutes
  6. Brush and scrub each section
  7. Rinse your system thoroughly
  8. Reassemble

If your reservoir has hard water deposits or stubborn dirt, you can use a solution of vinegar and water, or baking soda and hydrogen peroxide with soap to clean it more thoroughly. Use a toothbrush or other small brush to get into every crevice to really clean your system well.

Choosing a Tower Garden For Your Family

It’s easy to choose the right tower garden and grow crop for your family. First, consider your available space, what sort of crops you prefer, and how many plants you’ll need to grow to suit your needs.

How Will You Use Your Tower Garden?

It’s possible to grow an entire greek salad right in your own home using the Tower Garden Flex, but the smaller Tower Garden Home can still generate plenty of leafy greens and vibrant, flavorful herbs.

You can grow beautiful flowers like Hibiscus, Forget-Me-Nots, or Petunias to place as the centerpiece on your table too, making your aeroponic gardening system a one-stop shop for your entertaining needs.

Conclusion

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Ultimately, we love our Tower Garden a lot and are excited to provide updates and new articles on our experience. If you like this article, or have any questions on how to buy a Tower garden – or set one up, feel free to drop a comment below!