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Grow real green food with ease

Laura Lynne Dyer – www.globe-democrat.com

Friday, April 2, 2010

Fantasize about growing your own food? Want self sufficiency, confidence and control to know your food and body are free from toxic chemicals and sprays that make your veggies, herbs and fruits inedible? Choose life enhancing food grown locally that is alive for you and your children’s growing bodies? Concerned about carbon footprint and water waste? Remember Grandmas’ strawberries?

Twenty-five years ago I saw my first hydroponic garden. The produce was magazine-ready, complete with wrapper and bow. My brief tour of the greenhouse embedded a longing for a hydroponic garden. The enterprise seemed daunting.

Two weeks ago I met the inventor of an amazing self-contained Hydroponic Tower Garden – Tim Blank, from Future Growing, LLC., in Florida. Blank worked for Disneyworld’s Epcot Center for more than a decade. His background in entomology (study of insects) and scientific knowledge about nutrition (working with NASA and the space program) prepared him for the creation of this incredible product. Seven days later I was sitting in an intense workshop in Pennsylvania digesting masses of information about a subject near to my heart – hydroponics and growing real food.

Hydroponics is growing plants in a soil-free environment with nutrient rich water as its source of life. Hydroponics utilize only 5 to 10 percent of water that a traditional garden wastes. Plants are held in a base material that supports tiny roots while they sprout in a seed starter then transferred to a small cage that fits in the palm of your hand. What happens to the need for soil? Plants seek nutrients in soil, not soil itself.

Clients ask me about organic gardens and how to grow their own yummy food. The Tower Garden is a simple self contained closed growing system. You can produce food in a “green” or sustainable way with a footprint of 2.5’ round and 5’ tall. Twenty separate growing spaces yield incredible quick delicious healthy food such as:

• Vegetables: Fancy lettuce, peppers, cucumbers, pumpkins, tomatoes, green beans, etc.
• Fruits: Luscious strawberries, cantaloupe or watermelon…
• Herbs: Love to cook? Harvest gorgeous bouquets of basil, cilantro, spearmint, chives, etc.
• Passion for flowers? Try edible flowers or any variety you love to cascade down your Tower Garden.

This easy vertical system sits on your patio or balcony. Add a kit to make a total of 36 plants, 9’ tall. It wards off creatures like rabbits. A small pump (pennies a month) housed in 20 gallons of water in the basin cascades fresh highly oxygenated mineral rich water through roots of plants with nutrients needed for flourishing. Grow fancy lettuce in four weeks.

A complete unit with all the goodies for success is only $500. I put one together in minutes. You can even add a low watt heater for colder climates that warms the water and extends the growing season. Optional components like tomato cage or rolling base are handy. We harvested a salad for lunch from fresh greens cut from the Tower and the flavor, texture and scent where out of this world.

The Tower Garden has a patented USDA approved food grade plastic – sturdy and safe for you and your family. It harnesses some serious powerful food without dirt. I am excited to jump in and begin my hydroponic experience so I may be of greater service to those who also love self sufficiency, nutrient rich food, control, saving money, energy efficiency, healthy conscious and mindful of what they place in their body – and FUN. Add a small greenhouse out back to grow year round.

In six weeks you too can eat happy, healthy, whole foods right from your garden. No gassing, no shipping and no chemicals or pesticides coursing through your cells. Just joyous nutrient rich food.

• Envision harvesting fresh salad every night complete with trimmings.
• Great for children who are fascinated and involved in every step of growing. Children actually want to eat food they grow because it tastes incredible and they were a part of the entire process.
• Family and friends peek over the fence hoping for “extras”.
• Restaurants have access to fresh food and herbs for their patrons 24/7.
• Nurture health by lining the entrance to a doctor’s office or hospital.

It’s amazing how long some dreams take to come to fruition. After 25 years I found the solution. The options are infinite. Let fun begin today with an easy system for home gardening and hydroponics. There is so much to learn about the natural aspects of organic gardening in soil and that will be part of my Eco-Village in the country. However, with the Tower Garden, I can plant today. Check it out at www.mytowergarden.com/