Tom Corson-Knowles

ABC News recently did a story on an amazing way of growing your own organic food – Vertical Gardening. The O’Hare airport has embraced the concept of vertical gardening in full force and now grows much of the produce for restaurants at the airport in their vertical gardening display, seen here below.

Vertical Garden display at O’Hare Airport. Much of this produce is fed to travelers at the airport’s gardens.

Vertical Garden

The Vertical Garden is truly remarkable! Have you ever seen “The Lands” at Epcot? The inventor of these Vertical Gardens, Tim Blank, used to work for the Epcot center and helped design their aeroponic gardens and technology. He’s now taken this technology and made it accessible to every homeowner, not just huge organizations like Epcot.

This type of planting crops is called aeroponic gardening. It takes no soil and uses less than 10% as much water as conventional farming in soil. It’s a very green and eco-friendly technology! Furthermore, you can produce as much as 6 times as much produce in one acre of land using aeroponic vertical growing due to the increased growth rates, efficiency and more space when you go vertical!

With the growing trends in eating organic foods and local foods, the Vertical Garden may be a perfect fit for people who want to grow their own food without any of the weeding, tilling, fertilizing or other typical chores of gardening. Many restaurant owners in New York are now growing food on the rooftops using their Vertical Gardens (available online here).

Look at the size of those squash and zucchinis and all those greens in the background!

Vertical Gardens simplifies traditional gardening, using a unique vertical garden system that makes it easy to grow your own fresh fruits and vegetables at home.

Put a farmer’s market on your back porch. The Vertical Garden is a state-of-the-art vertical aeroponic growing system. It’s perfect for rooftops, patios, balconies, terraces—just about any relatively sunny place outside. No soil, no pests, no pesticides, no stooping, no weeding and FAST GROWING TIME (4-6 weeks) of fresh, ORGANIC produce on your back patio or deck!

Using aeroponics specially formulated plant food, you can grow almost any vegetable, herb, or flower—and many fruits—in less time than it takes in soil…using FAR less water as well.

Aeroponic Crops Grow Up To 3X Faster!

I was told before I ever started growing hydroponically that crops would grow up to three times faster – but I didn’t believe it! Not until I did my own at-home test was I convinced at the amazing growth from aeroponic gardening. Here are some pictures of the test:

Mustard green seedlings planted in soil (5 weeks growth).

These mustard seedlings growing in soil are from the same exact seed source and were planted at the exact same time as the seedling below in the Vertical Aeroponic Garden.

Mustard greens grown in vertical aeroponic garden (5 weeks growth)

These mustard greens above were grown in the vertical aeroponic garden and look at the difference in growth! And not only that, but I harvested and ate several of the leaves from the vertical garden before these pictures were taken because they looked so good I couldn’t help myself!! That looks like at least 3-4 times the growth rate as seen from growing in the soil.

Update: May 1st Pictures of the Mustard Greens growing in aeroponics vs. growing in soil.

Mustard Greens photo (update on May 1, 2012). Both central leaf and left leaf are now 21 inches long. Right leaf (in previous photo) was eaten. Note silver ruler is 12 inches long.

Look at the size of those mustard greens! 21 inches long!

Look at the size of the mustard greens in aeroponics vs. growing in soil!

Snow peas and Mustard greens on May 1, 2012 growing on Tower Garden. Compare to soil grown snow peas (planted same day from same seed packet. Same nutrient solution used for watering. Soil grown snow peas in blue pot at bottom left. Volunteer sprouts of mustard greens grown in dirt-filled black pot at bottom right is source of transplants of Tower Garden mustard greens put in Tower Garden in early March in Northern Indiana.

21 inches of pure mustard greens!

But what about taste…?

Well, all I can say is that the taste of the mustard greens from the Vertical Garden was much better – more flavor and less acidic spiciness.

Vertical Gardening Videos

Watching these quick videos will help you understand why Vertical Gardening is such a great idea:

ABC News Segment “Rooftop to Table” about farming produce on rooftops in Manhattan, New York.

Where Can I Buy A Vertical Garden?

Vertical Gardens are now available in the 48 contiguous United States (will be available in Alaska and Hawaii within a few months). You can buy your Vertical Garden online here at www.new.towergarden.com.