Why Buying a Tower Garden May be a BIG Mistake

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John from http://www.growingyourgreens.com/ shares his opinions on the tower garden by juice plus. In this episode you will learn why purchasing a tower garden may be a big mistake. You will also learn some alternate ways to grow food at your home that is less expensive than the $500 Juice Plus Tower Garden. After watching this episode, you will have a better understanding if you should spend your hard earned money on a tower garden or not! Learn more about the Garden Tower at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlMNXAV4M7M Learn how to grow microgreens at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blBwFvAghTs Learn how to Grow in the Snow - Will Allen's Growing Power https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRnulbOqo0k Grow thru the winter using Compost to heat your hoophouse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EqaYohUNas Subscribe to GrowingYourGreens for more videos like this http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=growingyourgreens

Comments

I used to like this guy but this is pure garbage. Any scientifically literate person knows that plants don't care if their minerals (aka chemicals) come from manure or mined, ground and put into a nutrient solution. Furthermore, there is no reason that these cannot grow organically. The problem is, organics, being living, are volatile. Imagine having to shovel in poop every day (or at least once a week) into O'hare just to grow some greens... This guy is spewing lies and misinformation. Aeroponics and hydroponics are going to save our population someday and will take farming out of the hands of companies like monsanto. Organics grown in soil will never do that.

the problem is it's hard to find pure clean soil.

"Synthetic chemical fertilizer". That's funny. All of these minerals are naturally occurring earth "chemicals". Do the research. pH has to be tested as well, which can be "naturally" adjusted. Soil is only 5% "organic". That organic part is converting to "chemical" nutrients.

While growing food in dirt is certainly the oldest method. Food production HAS to go vertical as the population increases.

This grow set up is for publicity, and not very sustainable.
A lot of the red flags were mentioned, but not explained.
Growing with artificial lights is extremely energy inefficient.
Having 15 independent reservoirs that each need to be checked is also extremely inefficient.

Just some rough estimates.
For each tower+light setup, you're looking at ~$800 to grow ~10 or so heads of lettuce/week
At about $20/week on (mostly) electricity, nutrients, wear/tear on equipment, etc.

your not completely in the know about what you talk about.. its not a chemical fertilizer bro.. its minerals..

Well played John!
I've been watching a lot of these window, indoor, tower gardening... NEVER did they mention the waste of hydro-/aerophonics!
I've studied economics, so those are the first things I think about: the indirect costs we(the humanity) are paying for mass scale production. 500 dollar would've been a great price if the makers would've completed the product cycle(like for example take the broken towers back and recycle them 100% instead of burning it) Thanx for thinking about the Ocean too!
What do you think about growing plants UNDER the water?(maybe a new video idea..) I've seen some positive news about that!
Keep on Enlighting our Green minds!

Let us do our research. I was all ready to buy the Tower Garden at over $600 to me. Why could we not use organic fertilizer in this Tower Garden?

I lost all respect for you once you start bashing hydroponics. You are very uneducated on what mineral organic nutes that can be used hydroponically. Obviously you have not been to European farms. They consider hydroponics to be mineral organic. Now run along and go play in the mud. Let the adults grow the food.

An uneducated fool, babbling like a brook

Great video!! I agree with you John 100%.

Very thought provoking in a positive way. Keep up the great work that you do. You have inspired ALOT of people. :)

From a person who studies permaculture, he is NOT wrong.

why does this have so many thumbs down? I'm appreciative of this video. very informative. thank you!

So I understand the wonderfulness that is organic really it's great but I live in Canada. A very snowy part of Canada so growing outside all year doesn't quite cut it here at all. Sure there are hardier crops but If I have to shovel my crops out then I'm fairly certain Aeroponics is a better choice. In the summer I have some raised beds (Yup we get frost here early spring and early fall) so I like to play in the dirt but for all year long growing I'm seriously looking at the Tower Garden.

Indoor tower gardens - SO CREEPY!!
Makes me think of those dystopian films - where we've forced everything to sh*t! I am an outdoors person and being out in my garden is to enjoy nature. The garden is such a hub of activity with all the bug life and wildlife and the elements at play all around you. It feels so synthetic and forced. I've been to airports with tall glass windows and lots of sunlight and large planters. Comments are very critical of John - but honestly me no likee either!

I have a master's degree in environmental engineering from Penn State. The author of this video is obviously not a scientist. He is just a guy with a video camera who believes some crap he read or a video he watched. Someone who thinks that manure-based fertilizers somehow magically wouldn't crystallize when water evaporated... well I wouldn't listen to that person.

Anyone putting down a REVOLUTION in farming that can provide food to hundreds of millions of poor living in areas where they cannot grow food due to water shortages.. when this method saves 95% of water usage???

well......

you can imagine what that person's opinion is worth to me.

There are liquid organic fertilizers. If that is a synthetic chemical fertilizer they are using, that's their choice. It's not always so black and white, as this demonstrates.

Hi. Thank you for the very informative video. I shared your concern about the nutritional deficiencies of hydroponic gardening. However, I just watched a video from Dr. Greger's NutritionFacts.org and think this may provide some evidence-based insight of why nutrient content of hydroponic plants are higher. As you suspected, plants don't like it...but the funny thing is that this makes them produce even more phytonutrients in such a hostile environment and we get the benefit of the increased nutrient level. It's a rather cool study about the nutrient quantity of hydroponic basil compared to the same seeds grown in soil. I'm generalizing a bit to think this works for other vegetable plants, but at the least, I'm not quite as concerned. http://nutritionfacts.org/video/is-hydroponic-basil-as-healthy/

Too bad he doesn't have his facts straight and misleading people with personal opinion without the research behind him.

It's an aeroponic system... the entire point is that you don't use soil.