Well a semester has gone by, and I have to say, I am really happy with the progress I’ve made on my Learning Project!
I have taken my Tower Garden from assembly to full bloom with a ton of homegrown veg. It has been a cool journey that has been a tonne of fun. Here is a summary of what I did…
Here I introduced the concept of what a Tower Garden is. I included the story of how my wife had bought this Tower used for a huge deal. The previous owner had never even set it up! I vowed not to let that happen to me and I am proud to say mission accomplished!
Starting Seedlings for Tower Garden
This week I started growing seedlings for my Tower. The video I decided to use was from the Tower Garden YouTube Channel. I wanted to start with info right from the manufacture to start. I have to say, I am not a fan of the official Tower Garden videos as they usually don’t have any voice over, just written instructions with music playing.
The 3rd week, I got my Tower set up. Out of curiosity, I took a look at the Tower Garden instructions on YouTube, and it also had no voice over instructions, and flew through things really fast. Instead, I found this video (also on YouTube) that I found much more helpful. It was great having a human who had experience setting these Towers up explain the process step by step.
Filling Reservoir and Adding Nutrients
This week, I tried out TikTok as a source of information! I had never used TikTok in any capacity, so it was a bit of an adventure! I actually found that the short format of TikTok actually worked well for instructional steps that are relatively small like this one.
I had some tomato plants that had been growing outside in my garden. I had planted them late and they weren’t going to survive to fruit before winter. I had brought them inside to live in my grow tent, but had seen people growing tomatoes on their Tower Gardens. In the spirit of using social media for info like TikTok last week, I tried out using Facebook Reels and found this Reel that was a perfect, quick explanation of the transplant process. It ended up working great and my tomato plant is thriving!
By this point I was getting tempted my the yummy green lettuce growing on my Tower, so I decided it was time to try harvest some! Since I didn’t want to just start pulling veg out of the Tower without knowing how, I took the time to read this resource of when and how to harvest. Since it wasn’t as detailed on removal as I wanted, I also checked out the Tower Garden video on the subject for extra guidance.
After having the chance to actually taste my lettuce, I was feeling a little down. The lettuce as good, but was pretty limp. I looked up explanations on why this might be, and found recommendations of adding a fan to the Tower to simulate the affect of wind on the plants. This is supposed to make the lettuce leaves grow firmer to resist the blowing wind. I am not sure if its the wind or just having more time to grow, but my lettuce has firmed up!
This week, I had the inspiration to transplant one of my strawberry plants that had survived late into November outside in my garden !I found an awesome resource on growing strawberries hydroponically on YouTube that covered transplanting and caring for strawberries. It was a successful transplant, and I am almost getting a berry on the plant now!
After transplanting the strawberry from my garden, I noticed that there was a few of the leaves that had been turning brown. I looking into reasons this might be using the resource from last week, and found out that the pH of the water should be close to 5.5 for strawberries. I hadn’t even checked the pH since filling the reservoir, so I found this useful instructions on pH testing from Keep It Watered that I used to test and adjust the pH.
After about a month and a half of growing, my Tower was in need of a refill. Inspired by our class on AI, I used Googles AI assistant Gemini to ask for directions refilling the reservoir. I was pretty impressed with the results!
So here I am, a semester later, and I have a constant source of fresh veg in my home. I am so happy to have had this opportunity to do this project. I discovered some things about online learning in the process. I still think that YouTube reigns supreme for content on how to do anything, but I would keep an open mind to learning from short form videos from social media sites too! I had success finding quality info from Instagram, Facebook Reels, and even TikTok.
Again, I am happy and grateful to have had the opportunity to do this project. it hadn’t been part of my classes, I don’t know how or when I would have found the time and motivation to make this happen! I would recommend a Tower Garden for anyone with a bit of green thumb and wanting fresh veg all year round!
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