Hydroponic Garden System

My grandkids and I garden together.

We have had a hydroponic garden system for about eight years. Our system is a Tower Garden. It has a 20-gallon tank for water and fertilizer and space for 20 plants (five tiers of four plants per tier). A hydroponic system requires access to water, electricity and light. We have ours sitting in a sunny spot in the garden close enough to an outside water tap so a hose can stretch from the tap to the tank. It is also close to an outdoor electric socket needed to operate the water pump.

I also used a Tower Garden in a school environment for several years. I found that having it in a classroom near a window was not enough light, but when I placed the system on a small balcony outside the classroom, it was very successful because of the natural sunlight. It can help to place the system on a rotating base, so it can be rotated as needed to ensure all plants get enough light. You can also purchase additional grow lights for the plants if you do have the system inside.

The water pump in the tank pumps water to the top of the tower and then the water drips down past the openings in the tower where the roots are growing. It is important to have the Tower Garden on a level surface so the water flows down correctly inside the Tower. If it is not sitting level, some of the plants might not grow as well since they might not be getting enough water and fertilizer.

My grandkids love helping with the system. We call the Tower Garden our “veggie bar”. In Florida, we grow vegetables during the cooler months. Last September my grandson helped me to set it up again with fresh seedlings of dinosaur kale, blue curl kale, choi and chard. I occasionally start vegetables from seed but usually, we buy seedlings. They are inexpensive and transplant easily. He helped me to measure how many gallons of water we added, and then we calculated how much fertilizer we needed to add per gallon of water. I get the fertilizer for the hydroponic system from a local urban root garden store but you can also order the fertilizer from the Tower Garden company.

We had a small problem at our last planting. We purchased seedlings and left them outside beside the Tower Garden for the night. To our shock and dismay, something had eaten the leaves from the kale seedlings. The rest of the plant looked healthy so we put them in the Tower Garden to see what would happen. They grew and provided us with kale for weeks!

We purchase small blocks of sponge from a local garden supply store or order them directly from Tower Garden. The grandkids enjoy preparing the mini-blocks and seedlings. The seedlings are soaked in water to remove most of the soil. The kids know that this is a delicate process and the roots must not be damaged. The mini-blocks are also soaked in water, to soften them and then they are divided in half. Each half is tucked around the roots of a seedling and then the seedling/mini-black combination is carefully inserted into one of the slots on the Tower Garden.

To help the kids keep track of what is growing where, we usually put all of the same vegetable in one row. For instance, the four kale seedlings in the bottom row and the four choi seedlings in the next row up, etc.

We all enjoy harvesting and eating our vegetables.