Garden Towers!

So, one of the things I discovered online (and I can't remember from where, I think someone posted a link to it on FB or something) was the Garden Tower Project.   I was living in a townhouse-apartment and I had a decently sized patio, and had a lot of container plants going (actually using 30 gallon drums I had recycled from work).   But when I saw this project I pretty much fell in love.

In the middle of the container, there's a composting tube, so I can put my kitchen scraps and compost them using red worms.  And on top of creating delicious compost for the garden, they also crawl in the soil surrounding the tube, which disperses even more  nutrients to the plants.  And I believe it works, because I've tried conventional container growing against the garden tower plants and there is a sizeable difference.

And it's so much more efficient and fun!  And I don't have to "waste" my kitchen scraps!

On the list o "unintended consequences" - I eat a lot of tomatoes and squash, so I had a lot of volunteer plants from the compost that I used from the central tube.
Even with the insane winter we had, the worms made it through the winter A-OK.

I got my first garden tower (what I call the 1.0) in November of 2011, and then I kickstarted their newer version (it's 2" shorter, which significantly reduces the postage), which is the v1.5 (or Junior)

Last summer I had crap tonnes of squash, but for some reason they didn't grow as well this year, but this year I have crap tons of tomatoes, which I only had a few of last year.  And O.m.g. I love my zinnias!  whoohoo!

Here is my Tower 1.0

April 27	April 27	May 10
May 20	May 20	June 3
June 3	June 24	June 26
June 26

On the "house" side, the chard and onions all overwintered just fine, so they're rather mega huge.
I love the nasturtiums at the top - I couldn't get them to bloom last year, but they're happy this year, and I have enough tomatoes on that thing that it's crazy.
In the last picture, you can kind of see my tomatillo plant - it's INSANE, at least 6' across, all coming out of one little pocket/hole!

The tomatoes on the top are green zebra variety, they aren't large, but boy are they sharp!  I have a few "empty" holes, either from lettuce that I removed because it was starting to bolt, or from the squash that mysteriously died off (all of the squash in the garden died at the same time, rather disconcerting!

Here is "Junior", my 1.5 garden tower.  Lots of Kale and flowers and good stuff.

April 27	April 27	May 10
May 20	May 20	June 3
June 3	June 14	June 26
June 26

I love these towers and am always pimping them out.   Some stuff overwinters nicely (like the snap dragons and the rudbeckias), and I have covers for them for late cold snaps.   The neighbors regularly poach herbs (of course they have my permission), and I'm SO EXCITED that I have bees this year!!!  (I had a hard time getting them in last year).

Here are some close ups of the tower (flowers will be a different post):

a broccoli plant that overwintered and then went crazy

It took me until it bloomed to find out that these are some bi-colored snap dragons.  Hilariously, I bought the same plants at the nursery to plant later.  Oops :)

Lemon Verbena.  I keep whacking it back and turning it into tea, it just keeps growing.

Delicious chard

peppers, tarragon, onions, salvia, all the good stuff

I call him Fuzzy Wuzzy.  I get a ton of caterpillars (butterfly and moth), but I've stopped growing brassicas because I got tired of fighting cabbage moths.

Green zebra baby 'mater

My only zucchini.  I'm a little cranky about that, especially because I had bought a bunch of seeds of different varietals to try, and the only one I get is a standard Black Beauty.  Argh. (though it was huge and delicious!)

Cherry tomatoes.  I have so many different vareities going I can't even keep them straight.  The Tomatoberries are the best, and for some reason they're the only ones that didn't take this year!

Sweet thing pepper, a bunch of baby bells, tomatillos and my lone zucchini.

Black Krims, Green zebra, and tomatillos!

Clearly, I'm super happy with my garden towers. I learn every season, and I'm trying to fine tune placement on the towers.   This year I don't have nearly the produce I did last year, but I also have a lot more flowers involved, which make me happy.   I wish I had more squash, but I will just try again next year.  I definitely love the tomatoes and eat a ton of those, snacking as I garden.