Garden Towers

Last year we bought two Garden Tower 2 planters (Garden Tower Project).  They look almost identical to this picture except that ours have casters (wheels) on the three legs, and ours have dirt (and plants).

We had decided to try these as an option for container gardening that Diana could reach from her chair.  The total depth of soil is probably 4 feet, but they are designed such that there is a section in the middle where you feed compost into the center of the top, you put in Red Wiggler worms (the kind used in vermicomposting), and the worms and the compost is supposed to make them awesome.  There are 6 layers, and at each of the lower 5 layers there are 9 openings (45 total), then the top is shaped the same around the edge (9 "bumps"), but there is more width of soil, probably at least 6 inches from the edge to the edge of the center tube (which has a cover).

These were actually the first containers we planted, and when the nights were getting down into the 20s we used 55 gallon clear plastic "drum liners" to cover them to keep in the warmth and moisture.  The spinach on top of one even survived the ice storm when we ended up with two inches of ice over a five inch wide oval part of the soil.

At this time I can say that the experiment is sort of working.  We haven't started with the compost or worms yet, and the fact that we don't have anything working in the center means that we have to water these more than the other containers, but we have Spinach that is almost 2 inches high, and we have so many lettuce plants that we are going to have to thin some of the varieties soon.  Also, watering these when the seeds were freshly planted ended up with some of the seeds washing down to the next level.  I would say that next time we plant these we will want to soak the soil first so that we don't have to water the plants for a few days.  Extra water collects in a drawer that pulls out of the bottom, and once you have compost and worms working the center, the water that falls through becomes worm-compost tea.

We may not have them set up optimally, but as we progress I expect they will get better.  The worms should be able to survive our winters if we pull these into the garage or at worst the back porch.

Oscar