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Justin White
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Hydroponic greens, tower to table

A soil-free indoor garden. Vertical towers in a grow tent turning out lettuce, greens, herbs, peppers, and tomatoes year-round.

hydroponicslettucevertical-garden

Two vertical tower gardens growing greens inside a reflective grow tent

Growing food without soil, indoors, all year. It runs on vertical tower gardens (the tower and its grow pods are 3D-printed) in a grow tent under LED bars. A pump lifts water to the top of each tower and it trickles back down past the roots (that’s two towers in the tent, up top).

A big head of hydroponic lettuce growing in the net-pot system

The towers pack a lot of plants into a small footprint. Lettuce, greens, herbs, and peppers, fed from a reservoir in the base and lit on a timer:

A vertical hydroponic tower garden under grow lights in the room

And the harvest:

A colander of fresh-cut salad greens

Once the towers fill in, the footprint disappears under leaves. Greens and herbs early on, peppers and more as things mature:

Vertical hydroponic towers full of lush green growth under the lights

The towers grow more than salad. Peppers flower and set fruit indoors, out of season:

A white pepper blossom and buds on a leafy plant growing in the tower

And the tomatoes go the whole way. Full trusses ripen on the vine, in a tent, in the off-season:

A truss of green tomatoes ripening on the vine in the tower

By late summer the canopy spills out of the pods until you can barely see the towers underneath:

A dense canopy of tomato and pepper foliage growing out of the tower pods

Water chemistry is most of the work. pH and nutrient strength drift constantly, which is why I built PicoPH to keep an eye on it.