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I just bought a new tower garden kit with a watering tray to deliver water evenly to each tier rather than trickle down from the top. I got the dolly for it too since I have also had problems with the plants growing well only on one side of the tower. I have had some other towers before that I made from stacking terra cotta pots or putting holes in pvc pipe. I always had the same problems. Too much water at the top and dry in between with some plants being too big for the space or in the case of mint, it just took over all of the slots.

Has anybody had experience growing with a vertical system and are there any tips on what you can and should not plant in a tower garden?

Well, I put the tower together yesterday and planted it. I made a mistake and did not fill the sections up all the way to the top. I will see if that comes back to bite me. It rained last night and this morning all of the plants I put in looked good (so far) even the two lettuce seedlings that were wilted from thirst (I watered them in the morning but they were bone dry by the afternoon), were up and looking good. The tower is a little tall and it is a stretch for me to water it. It is not on level ground which is obvious when I fill the watering tray, but it isn't too bad. It took 3 cu ft peat moss, and 2 cf of perlite plus fertilizer to fill it. I have an extra bag of organic fertilizer that came with the tower but I will probably put that in the raised bed garden instead.

I haven’t had much experience although I’ve been reading about it a lot and dabbled a bit — some successes and failures — so I was hoping someone else would weigh in....
- I have a “plan” in the works for a vertical wall garden — a diy made with two wire fences lined with coir sheeting (a used for wire baskets and troughs) sandwiching potting mix — pockets cut to plant. Still working on irrigation scheme.
- I’ve experimented with tallish (3 rows of holes in side + top) clay strawberry jar
- and a DIY small plastic “drum”


but my “take” on this is

- it’s a good idea to plant water tolerant and lower light tolerant plants in the bottom tiers and gradually plant more drought tolerant plants that can take full sun towards the top.
- Successful irrigation is important, especially for the top and upper tier plants — Particularly in drought-prone climate. (For my big project, I will probably end up with some kind of air-lift pumped re-circulating irrigation from bottom reservoir to top “sprinkler” ir “drip” irrigation)

...and (this is what you are talking about I think?) The potting mix settles as time goes on, and side-hole planted starts can get dragged down into the hole if not well established. It also helps for the plant to be tolerant of being back filled and “hilled”, which means “rosette” type plants are not always the best choice.

Thanks for weighing in Applestar. There was a MG project that tried different types of gardens. There was a gutter garden, a pallet garden, containers made of hanging burlap bags, and plants planted directly in bags of potting soil. You are right, that choosing the right plants and watering was key. The gutter and hanging bag gardens were on a drip line but hung up they were exposed to the wind and the small soil volumes dried out very fast. It didn't help that there were also water unavailability issues as well. The bag garden worked but it tended to spill out and not be able to keep its shape, but it did work the best. The pallet garden was the most successful since it had the potting mix sandwiched so the soil volume was larger.

I have made tower gardens with terra cotta pots and there was the issue of the uneven watering. The top actually got a lot of water, it was the lower pots that sometimes did not get enough and stacking pots inside each other gave a relatively large volume of soil but a narrow growing space. It was hard to plant those pots with large plants that would block the other pockets of plants above it and it was a
problem because mint is not fussy, but it basically took over the pot. It took over the strawberry pot too, so not every plant was suitable.

I planted this planter by watering each soil layer as I went up. And the next day everything looked good (it rained the night before). I did the watering in the tray and I was not sure if I watered enough because I really did not see any water coming out of the drain. Just to be sure, I watered the pockets as well. It is not how it is supposed to be done, but I guess I really don't trust the system to work as advertised.

I must say, I was impressed with the size of the tiers. The lowers 3 tiers had six sections to plant and each section held 1 cu ft of soil. I planted the peppers in those pockets. I had some old seeds from Burpee. Experimental pepper #5 . I haven't bought anything from them for some time, but the seeds were in a foil pouch and kept in the frig the whole time. I could not find a date on the package. So, I put a lot of seeds in the compot and over thirty sprouted. I transplanted them to 3.5 inch pots and most of them survived. I have one limp one still hanging on. About half of them went into this vertical tower. I transplanted one other variety of pepper that was ready ,2 green onions, tangerine gem marigold seeds, contender bean seeds, and stevia seeds. I bought some lettuce 4 packs and planted 3 of those. It was actually challenging to find enough stuff to fill 36 pockets. I have to try to go vertical because I am running out of space in my back yard where I keep almost all the edibles. I have a few edibles in the courtyard, but they need to go to the backyard too. I have a few ornamentals in the back yard that cannot be moved and a few edibles in the front yard (superchile) that are already in the ground and I could take them out of the front yard, but they are too big to move.

I have had to kill a lot of volunteer peppers because I have too many already. I am trying to rehome some of my bigger peppers. My mom and my sister only want Hawaiian chile, but if I give them superchile, they probably won't know the difference.

I am up potting some of my larger and older plants so they can go a little longer before needing to watered. I still have a lot of them to go. The bigger pots take up more space. I am trying to rehome some of the seedlings otherwise I will have to destroy them.

Only Homemade ones.
When I built mine I put in 4" pipe with wicking material that had a few tiny holes, this went in the center of the towers, I eventually stuck a copper pipe in one with a few slits and a smaller diameter PVC in the other and hooked up to irrigation.
They will dry out really quick once those leafy veggies take off.
I had great success with them and would still have used them if changing out the soil wasn't such a chore (roots).

If I ever made Tower gardens again, I would either have a removable bottom or have it cut in half and use latches to keep it together then once I wanted to change out the soil, open it up and dump it out and redo the soil (potting mix).
At one point I was going to install a "Lazy Susan" Type base and hook it up to a rotisserie motor and timer to expose all sides to the sun. Yeah I know...too much time on my hands.

You may have issues with sun exposure unless you can spin it every so often
If you have the ones I think you have, this isn't a problem as you would just take off each tier.

Place it on a Lazy Suzan and spin every other day or 3rd day
Herbs on the side, peppers on top and if you do leafy vegetables try something that you can use the "cut and come again" approach to keep from shading other plants, maybe something like spinach.
You're going to need to stay on top of it for watering, trimming and turning (if possible).





















Tower #2












This guy was on the side but shaded a lot of his neighbors out. You can also see the copper pipe in the top center that is fed with drip irrigation.

I tried to make one of those barrel ones, but it was not that easy to cut the barrel so I tried to use a wire cage and lined it with weed block. I planted through the wires in the cage. Like you said. Only one side grew well because the other side faced the wall and it was not possible to turn it. It also dried out too much, I could not keep it wet enough in summer so most of the plants died. I could not even keep the gobo alive in the top of the container because it dried out so much. Looking back I probably should have used a contractor trash bag as a liner since I could still have put holes through the bag to plant but the plastic bag would have kept the soil from drying out so fast.

This is what my planted tower garden looks like. I did get the one that had a tray and wheels so it is able to turn. I haven't tried to do that yet. I planted the warm season crops on the south side and the lettuce on the north side. It is probably the last time I will be able to plant lettuce before it gets too hot. I can plant lettuce again in October.