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http://pesn.com/2010/09/19/9501704_Tower_Garden_modular_hydroponics_solution_for_organic_produce/
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19, 2010 |
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Tower Garden provides modular hydroponics solution for organic produce
The features of the Tower Garden include using only 5%10% of the nutrients and water compared to conventional and organic farming Grows 20 plants per tower, or 36 with add-on kits Grows almost any vegetable, herb or flower Fast growing, producing crops in half the time of traditional soil Easy: no weeding, tilling, kneeling, or getting dirty!
by Sterling
D. Allan
Pure Energy Systems News
Copyright © 2010
A restaurant owner in New York City
demonstrates his rooftop garden that will grow enough food to supply his
86-seat restaurant, Sailbook and Candle(?).
(Source: ABC News / YouTube) |
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This morning, my brother, Nathan, brought to my attention a company in Florida
that has a patented gardening technology that involves a short
tower that circulates nutrient-rich water for three minutes, four times an hour,
to feed the root system of plants situated up the sides of the tower.
Not only does it conserve on water and nutrients by 90% to 95%, but it doubles
the growing speed -- all while making gardening much easier by eliminating
weeding, tilling, kneeling, or getting dirty.
It also makes porch and rooftop gardening more feasible by compacting how much
food can be grown in a small area -- growing vertically, rather than
horizontally. This makes urban gardening more plausible, which cuts down
on food costs and transportation, eliminating the associated pollution that
comes with shipping our food. Estimates of average "food miles" traveled by fresh produce consumed in the U.S. range from around 1100 miles (Austin, TX),
to 1500 miles (Chicago terminal market), to 1700 miles (Jessup , MD terminal market).
(Ref.)
That average goes to zero for people doing their own gardening. By making
gardening more easy, efficient, and affordable, the Tower Garden can result in
more people doing their own gardening.
Energy efficiency ties into the concept of free energy in that by using less
energy to accomplish the same task, it's like creating more energy to do more.
The Tower Garden immediately resonated with me inasmuch as I'm familiar with an awesome technology being developed by my friends at
GreenStep Farms in Salt Lake City. They are developing a climate-controlled growing system that will enable an indoor, one-acre plot to grow as much as a 40-200 acre farm using traditional methods; cheaper than the cheapest produce while being higher quality than typical organic produce. Multiple grow cycles per day, hydroponics, vertical growing, etc. It makes "growing local" plausible anywhere in the world. We hope to be one of their beta testers on our
Safe Haven Village
at White Hill plot here in Utah. I stopped by there last week again and was amazed by what they are accomplishing. They are getting very close to being ready to launch both the home farming units and the larger commercial versions.
I did a video
interview with sEnergy (a division of GreenStep) CEO, Paul Isom in January of 2009, featuring some of the other energy efficiency products that they have. My associate and mother-in-law, Susan Manning-Carter shot that video, and for the past nine months she's been working with GreenStep as part of their company. They are the ones who are involved presently in getting us a 5-acre solar farm on our Safe Haven Villages land. PES News will have the first interview when this technology is officially
released.
GreenStep is not yet ready for wide disclosure of their farm system, but it has certainly gotten me aware of certain growing principles, making me anxious to see them implemented and made available. So when I saw the Tower Garden, I immediately recognized the value of several highly advantageous things they are doing: 1) hydroponics, 2) vertical growing, 3) recycling of the water.
Here's a video from an ABC News story about a restaurant owner in New York City
who is growing enough produce in his rooftop garden using the Tower Gardens to supply his
80-seat restaurant for ten months out of the year -- purportedly the first
restaurant to accomplish this in the world, thanks to the Tower Garden
technology.
I'm thinking that this Tower Garden could be a great addition to the Walipini
underground greenhouse project we're also doing on our property. But it
will take electricity, so those of you with free energy devices who have offered
to beta test your devices on our property, we could be ready to implement this
application within about two months, as we have begun digging our holes, and we
hope to begin growing through this coming winter.
Here are a couple of photos of my brother's friend, Tim Harrell's towers in
Florida.
 
Tim wrote:
"I'm also just became an authorized distributor of the TowerGarden. My website, (online soon) is TowerOfEden.com. I'll be helping a customer
assemble a unit tomorrow and will post some video of that to show how simple it is to get these up and going. My father and I are considering getting a
booth at next spring's Solar Fiesta in Albuquerque, where we'll demo the units including an off grid option."
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Page composed by Sterling
D. Allan Sept. 19, 2010
Last updated October 13, 2010
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