The Garden Tower Planter, for Gardeners Working With a Patio
If your growing space is a balcony, a deck, or a strip of concrete behind a rented house, most gardening advice assumes something you do not have: open ground. No rows, no raised bed, nowhere to put a compost heap the neighbors will tolerate. That is the constraint this collection answers.
The Garden Tower 2 takes on both halves of it. It is a rotating vertical planter with 50 individual planting spaces in roughly four square feet, holding 6 cubic feet of soil, with a vermicomposting column down the middle for your kitchen scraps. Worms work through them, the castings and the liquid draining through the soil become fertilizer, and it runs odorless. Below: the tower, the same tower with wheels, and the wheel kit alone.
Which Version to Buy
The Garden Tower 2 on its own is the planter with nothing added: Terracotta, Warm Sandstone, or Succulent Sage, and right if it will stand in one spot all season.
The Move and Grow Bundle is that same tower in those same colors, with the Premium Caster Wheel Kit added. In operation a tower weighs around 220 lbs, which is the argument for wheels: on a deck or balcony, moving a planted tower matters more than in an open yard.
The kit is sold on its own for anyone who already owns a tower. It is three heavy-duty, double-locking, triple-ball-bearing black casters — black-zinc dipped for weather resistance, on 3" extra-wide polyurethane wheels rated to 220 lbs each — mounted to a USA-made structure of 0.24" laser-cut American structural steel, double powder coated. The structure sets the wheels wider than the tower's own feet, so the base keeps its stability. Hardware is included, and the steel supports carry a lifetime warranty against mechanical failure.
One warning from the manufacturer: do not install the caster kit while the tower is loaded with soil, and never set the wheels directly into the tower's feet.
The Column Down the Middle
Starting the composter is the part people underestimate. It wants 250 to 500 composting worms in the center tube and 25 to 50 earthworms in the soil column — none of which ships with it, nor soil, seeds, or bedding. Composting here is aerobic, so light fluffy soil is best; straw, grass, leaves, and coir go in periodically as bedding to keep the column from compacting.
After that it asks little. A handful or two of scraps every couple of days is enough — fruit and vegetable trimmings, coffee grounds, crushed eggshells — while meat, dairy, fats, onions, and hard fruit pits stay out. Worms are content between 40°F and 80°F, survive two weeks without new food, and regulate their own population. Water 4 to 6 gallons every two or three days in the growing season, poured from a container rather than a hose. Once the column fills, finished vermicompost drops into the drawer at the bottom.
What Fifty Spaces Will Hold
The recommended planting list runs long and pleasingly ordinary: arugula, kale, chard, lettuce, spinach, collards, broccoli, cabbage, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, peas, beans, strawberries, tomatoes. Squash and melons go in the bottom holes so the vines trail onto a trellis or a railing. Herbs take the upper pockets — basil, cilantro, chives, mint, oregano, parsley, rosemary, thyme, lavender — with edible flowers such as calendula, nasturtiums, marigolds, and violas filling in around them.
The tower is molded from food-grade, USA-made HDPE — non-toxic, BPA- and PVC-free — with FDA-approved dye and a UV-protection antioxidant package. Made in the USA, it carries a 3-year manufacturer's warranty and works indoors as readily as outdoors. In mid and northern regions a milder winter allows overwintering in place; in a hard one, the compost column and its worms move to a foot-deep hole outdoors or an indoor worm bin.
