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The Ultimate Guide to Cold Weather With Your Garden Tower® Vertical Vegetable Garden

Oct 26, 2020 by Kristi Armes

It's getting colder and you're worried about your Garden Tower® System surviving the cold months—that's completely natural. There are several options for you and your vertical vegetable garden , including moving them indoors and growing cold weather vegetables, too. Here at Garden Tower Project, we've created this ultimate guide to understanding how to properly care for your tower when the weather begins getting colder, no matter what you decide to do with it during these months.

Here we'll review winter options for your Garden Tower® Vertical Vegetable Garden, like:

Moving Your Tower Indoors
Continuing to Grow with Your Tower Outside
Pausing Planting + Winterizing Your Tower

Moving Your Garden Tower® Vertical Garden Inside During Cold Months

How to Go About Moving a Garden Tower 2™ Vertical Garden Indoors and the Intricacies of Indoor Gardening

indoor garden tower with LED lights

If you have the required space and resources to move your Tower inside, this is the best scenario for a four-seasons planting experience. You don't have to continue vermicomposting and growing produce throughout the colder months, but doing so is a great way to keep getting organic, fresh food. Here at Garden Tower Project , our vertical gardening system only takes up 4 square feet and therefore can be placed in just about any home. With a few supplies and a little bit of background knowledge, you can hit the ground running during winter and continue growing produce all year long.

Supplies Needed for the Perfect Indoor Garden

high angle of indoor garden tower with LED lights

There are a few supplies that a person needs to be able to keep up with their Garden Tower® indoors. Some of these include:

LED lights to ensure that your plants are getting the utmost sunlight during the less sunny months
Pruners to keep your plants under control
A tarp or something similar to a water heater basin to protect floor under vertical vegetable garden

Obviously, because your Garden Tower ® vertical vegetable garden isn't in direct, strong sunlight for a majority of the day anymore, your plants are going to need a little bit of help from you so that they can continue to grow naturally. Along with this, pruning your plants to keep down disease and bulkiness will also help the smaller, new foliage get a similar amount of sunlight as it's more mature counterparts. Finally, making sure that your soil is in top condition for your winter growing is also essential to your produce yield. Something else to keep in mind is that if you're moving your Garden Tower ® inside, it should be thoroughly cleaned before being brought indoors to ensure no unwanted insects are brought indoors.There are plenty of other accessories that will help you grow healthier, better produce, but these are the necessities.

Managing Your Vermicompost indoors

closeup of composting food

If you want to continue to compost indoors, there are a few factors to keep in mind. One of the biggest concerns that many people have is keeping the vermicompost smell and pests to a minimum within their homes. When done properly, vermicompost should just smell like soil. To ensure that your compost is odorless, you should be conscious of some compost no-no's, such as adding too much green waste (food scraps) or an incorrect ratio . These alone are enough to make your compost bin smell like ammonia as your green waste breaks down. Another one of the most important things to keep in mind is that if you are going to compost indoors, you must have worms in the compost. Additionally, if composting inside isn't something that you're interested in, you can also simply fill the center with potting soil and a little slow release fertilizer until spring. Being conscious of what and how much you're putting into the compost section of your Garden Tower will limit smell and pests and you can continue to nourish your plants at the same time.

Keeping Your Garden Tower® Vertical Vegetable Garden Outside During Cold Months

Not Enough Space Inside or Simply Don't Want to Bring it Indoors? No Problem.

frosted greenery

Some people may not have enough space to bring their Vertical Vegetable Garden into their home or apartment, or they may simply not want to bring it inside at all. There are several options, such as growing cold weather vegetables and completely putting it into storage for the winter. Whatever you decide to do during the agricultural off-season, we can help you find the perfect outdoor fit for your current situation.

Cold Weather Vegetables for Your Garden Tower® Vertical Vegetable Garden

closeup of romaine lettuce

It all depends on what USDA Hardiness Zone you're in to determine what cold weather vegetables you can grow. By checking your Hardiness Zone, then figuring out which vegetables are able to be grown at what times in your area, you can find the best variety to grow during the agricultural off-season to ensure organic produce during all 12 months. Something that should be kept in mind, however,are the worms within your Garden Tower® Vermicomposting Vertical Garden. Worms can't handle any temperature freezing and below, so be sure to bring them inside if your zone will be too cold for them to survive in.

Options for Those who Don't Want to Grow During the Winter

Storing Your Garden Tower® Vertical Vegetable Garden for the Colder Months

flower

Finally, if you don't wish to grow anything indoors or outdoors and simply want to store your vertical vegetable garden during the agricultural off-season, there's a few things to keep in mind .

The most important thing is keeping your worms alive over winter—bring them inside to care for over the winter so that they don't freeze to death when exposed to harsh weather conditions. Buying a worm habitat and providing them with bedding material and limited food scraps to hold them over will ensure that you have healthy and happy worms that you can continue using for compost in the spring.

Additionally, inserting the compost drawer upside down so that water does not collect in the tray is the only required winter preparation. Optionally, covering up your garden tower can assist in maintaining soil temperature and extend the Tower's life.

No matter your off-season preference, there's always a great option for how you want to use your vertical vegetable garden. With Garden Tower's® vertical vegetable garden, you can ensure high-quality produce for every season, or quick and easy storage during the off-season. Find out more about the Garden Tower and how it can become a part of your daily life.