 Welcome to another special edition of the Home Growers Gardening Series brought to you by Private Property and today we're going to be talking about the Tower Hydroponic System with CAS. Just to let us know how the system works, slightly similar to the NFT Hydro System that we aired last week but I believe this one is obviously much smaller, it's vertical and CAS Tower Hydroponics. So we're definitely seeing a tower in front of us. How does this one work as opposed to the NFT Hydro 60 pocket system? Okay, so very simply as you've explained it quite well actually. So the nice thing about this, it's for smaller space, I think it's well suited to somebody that wants to get into hydroponics for the first time that has never experienced it but they know and they've heard lots about it and they want to learn. So I would highly recommend that the first time user, something like this is spectacular and you can grow almost anything in it. There's nothing preventing you from what you can grow because the mere design of it. But the size of it is 20 pockets so you've got 20 different vegetables that will grow in your herbs and vegetables so you're not restricted. So you cannot believe what will come out of this and as I said, so by makeup of the design, so if you look at this you've got all these pockets here, you've got 16 pockets all down the side and you've got the four and the four on the corners. So if you look at it and I'm going to try and explain, if you see the structure, you've got depth in the reservoir, this is individual depth where the pockets will go. So if we take your net caps as an example, they're going to basically plonk into the sides of this vertical tower and these guys will sap up the nutrients from the water but I'll explain how the water gets there firstly. But before we get to the water distribution, if you look at your pockets that are in the left hand or the right hand corners of this reservoir, they are ideal for the deeper rooting vegetables that grow. So for example, if you can picture a tomato bush growing, now as you've seen with tomatoes the root system is quite aggressive, it's got a big, big rooting system that loves to take over. So you've got depth here. So if you had a picture there, you see this massive root system growing is ideal for tomatoes, eggplants and the like but you can put anything in there but chilies growing, you name it, versus on the tower itself but it'll do well. Yeah, I think what I'm learning with all these series and episodes that we've been having with home growers is that all your systems within home growers pretty much allows any type of crop to grow into it, to add a bit of diversity, a crop selection and obviously we want a huge vegetable and fruit selection in our plates at the end of the day. So I think this is quite fantastic that you're coming with innovative ideas that ideal for small spaces, for large spaces, patio, garden, anybody can grow their own food at home using various structures. So I can specifically see on this tower hydroponic system that there's that same pipe or tube coming in, right? And when we have these pockets inside, then hardest in the water or the roots feed into the nutrient system when it's vertical like this. Okay, very easy. So if you look at this and you'll see you've got that, that pipe in the middle, yeah, that run right down into the reservoir, connects to the pump. The pump sucks in the water and the nutrients and it pumps it all the way up to the top of the section over here. In this top section is this cavity, this cavity is filled with stones, with clay pebbles. As that water gets to the top, it hits those, it breaks up and it trickles all the way down like rain. So if you had a picture of rain outside and you sat there and rain hitting you, it's the same concept. You have this trickling down of different splashes of water and they'll start hitting all these little neck pockets, all these neckcaps as the water starts going down. And remember it's not just water, it's water fused with nutrients. So as it hits this, it hits the pebbles, it fuses with the pebble and it provides nutrients to the plant and the plant then grows. And that's what's special about it. What's lovely about the Tower Hydra in terms of this concept versus a typical concept where some people try and manufacture at home, where you've got a plumbing pipe and they got it as a horizontal system, you can never get to maintain because the mere nature in terms of how the cups are or the pots have been designed and cut for pipe purposes, where here you can take your neckcup out, you've got easy access from different points to be able to manage and maintain your roots, which makes it so much easier to work with. This is a fantastic system. The roots ultimately will grow down and feed through, hold a lot of moisture, a lot of nutrient content in the environment that it's created and what will happen is the excess nutrient that will run off will land back into the reservoir and continue its circle of life all the way back up, break up on the top and come all the way down again. That's basically what happens. Yeah. And different to the NFT Hydra system, this is obviously, a person comes and buys this, they don't need to install it, right? Because it's already kitted. Correct. The only thing that they need to put is the cups, the pebbles that we have here and then you have your seedling. That's exactly it. Simple as that. And then you plug it in. And I think maybe just talking about maintenance, which you've mentioned, it's you really take out the cups and clean it, do you have to use any specialized brushes so that you could clean inside? Nothing at all. You're never going to. So one thing again, remember you're dealing with plants, you're dealing with dust, you're dealing with nutrients, you're dealing with anything. It can go outdoors as well. Yes. So that's the lovely thing about it. Yes. So you must understand, there's water splashing. You know, you're going to get all that. So you're going to get markings on this, just take a damn cloth, take a cloth with a little bit of a rough edge onto it. Just set yourself and wipe it down, just with water. There's nothing. You don't ever use chemicals, just keep it as it is. The nutrients that are supplied with it, you just use it again once every three weeks. Just like we spoke about in terms of the other system, in terms of the NFT system, every three weeks you put your nutrients in. You may have to fill it up on a regular basis because as your plants are growing, they get thirsty as well and as heat as we're feeling right now. The water is absorbed by the plants and the plants are growing. And as a result, you're going to fill up with more water. Right. Going back to nutrients because different crops require different feeding schedules, right? Do you sell nutrients here at Home Growers, specific where one could use the nutrients in these specialized systems or does a customer just come in by the tower system with the seedlings and then they'll have to find their own nutrients? Or do you have any nutrients that you could show us that would fit well into the system? So we do nutrients and we supply a wide variety of different type of nutrients. Remember, whatever you buy from Home Growers, if you walk out of this kit, we give you a kit fully inclusive of everything you need for home. Okay. So that is a supply. Your nutrients will probably last you for between three and six months. So you're well looked after for a very long period of time. And then you can come back and you buy your replacement nutrients. Remember, it's either the soluble or it's the liquid. So the options and the choices are yours. Yeah. So even on the growing program, like I said, there's different crops in the different tower system that require different nutrients. The nutrients that one would have to leave with, is it standard nutrients like an MPK or is it just normal feed that a pepper plant can consume, a tomato plant can consume, a lettuce can consume and maybe a basil. Is it just standard for all the different type of plants? It's a standard soluble nutrient that has been specifically geared for hydroponics. So it's got all the essential nutrients required for proper vegetable growth. So it's been well structured, well put together by scientists. It's used globally in terms of hydroponics rollouts. So it's something that's tried and tested. And it is uniquely positioned for hydroponics, which is special. It covers everything that you need. So you don't have to tinker. That's why when we talk about calibration, we've calibrated the nutrients to such a level, that you just follow the simple recipe. You put that much in with water, shake it up, pour it in there. That's all you've got to do for three weeks. That isn't every three weeks. So there's no hectic, hectic work involved in terms of getting your system running. That's what makes it so special. We don't want people to go home and stress and worry about how to get their systems running. And then they worry about pH levels and they worry about... Time keep it simple. We want to make this easy for people because if we look at the tower hydroponics specifically, this has got to be a starting point. And if a person falls and doesn't succeed on their first attempt on something like this, the chance of them wanting to get into things bigger. So what's important to note with a system like this, we make it so easy for the person to succeed that if they had to have failed in deploying and using a tower hydroponic system such as this, they'll be less likely to want to try something bigger. That's what all our systems are so easy to use. There should be no questions around how to use it, how to set it up, how to grow with it, how to maintain it, how to feed your vegetables. We keep it simple. And this is an easy system to work with. Right. So let's get the system coloured up with some crops. So what are we doing? We've got our seedings here. We've got our pebbles here. We've got our cups as well. And we have some of our nutrients. So let's say I've just purchased this system. Where do I start? So there's water inside the reservoir. And what you're going to do is the nutrients obviously inside there as well. And we basically then take all our vegetables or herbs that we have. And these firstly are the nutrients. Those are the nutrients, correct. So do you put in one whole bottle inside or is it teaspoons? So in your kit that we give you, we give you a calibrated bottle which has got a lawn marking on it. And you only fill to that level. And then the rest of water, you shake it up and you pour that solution that you would have created from this into the reservoir. Simple as that, it is really that easy. The trick here, which I highly suggest is that and recommend is that the corner units go with the bigger plants. So like here you've got some tomatoes, tomatoes and chilies. I would definitely put in the corners so your basil can go in there. So let's just find your tomatoes and your chilies, which is always a fantastic option to put in. That's a tomato that is beautiful. And the reason I put them in the corners is that if you remember, these guys grow pretty big, right? That what you want to do is you want to give them support. So you can use alternate structures to give this whole system support. And the structure can be either bamboo and you can use string or tape just to hold the bamboo rods in the corners. That the plant will grow against that. So you want to give it the easiest and the best mechanism of success from the beginning. So you need a plan. So you've got to look at this and guess, okay, in three months time or two months time, how is my beautiful Tower Hard to Pony going to look? So the point is putting this guy up there or whatever it is or put your tomato here and it grows like that, blocking all of these. So that's the challenge here in terms of where you want to get to. So here I put, like for example, there you've got aubergine, eggplant. You want to put that on the top and your beautiful basil can go anywhere. Your chilies I'll even put on the side here because there's a bit of space for them to grow on the corner side there. Then we just start filling up the rest with all the different herbs. You take a whole variety of what you have to display and get this thing set up. It's really very simple. And as the little pebbles start falling out, the clay pebbles don't stress about it. I'm getting worried. Yeah, don't worry about that. Then we just put them in afterwards. So once we switch this on and you'll see the water will start flowing. It'll be remarkable. And then what we're going to do is we're to fill the top here with some clay pebbles. And I've still got that extra bag that I kept aside, which I'm going to use just to fill up the clay pebbles on the top. Because remember, that is the mechanism that when the water starts to run through that sense of pop, it's going to hit these clay pebbles and it's going to break up and it's literally going to rain down on the veg and the herbs that you've got inside here. Making it rain. I like the sound of that. And let me tell you, people come through and they go, oh, that is amazing. This is like a water feature. I mean, it's amazing. I sit in my house and I hear this water trickling. It is so soothing. It is really something very special. So we've got that. We're now going to plug this in and you're going to see something special happen. There we go. You can hear the water. You can hear the water. And then if we open that and you have a look inside there, you can see the water's already dropping, dripping through there. So it is actually making it rain, sprinkling, you know, onto the. And that's the rest of the nutrients that we're eating. You can see through there how incredible that is. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that is the magic of a tower hydroponic system. And we have shipped these all over the country. I mean, these have been everywhere. It is remarkable. Do you have to clean the water inside? Just in case any dust comes in so that, you know, we don't. Right now, I mean, I could see the water is quite clear. Yes. And we know that the solution is in this, obviously soluble. But like what happens if it's outside, you know, there's dust, there's been a lot of wind. Does it happen that, you know, the water that starts like filtering inside, it becomes brown? Do you have to clean it? So no. So what you'll find is that in the early stages, if you haven't rinsed your seedlings properly, you're still going to get sediment, you're going to get soil that may still be attached to those roots. Yes. That is going to run down and get into the water. The reason why we use a black reservoir is that it doesn't allow a lot to pass through. So you get no macro organisms growing in the water. So the water is always clear, which is fantastic. So you have a great, great, great quality of water. And these plants are going to drink a lot, which means you're going to fill it up very frequently. When it's not frequently, in summer, maybe twice a week when the plants are huge. So I mean, if you've got some of your spinach, for example, we've got leaves about that size growing on these things. So you must understand if a leaf is that size, it's going to drink a lot of water. So that's just one thing one needs to remember. And you need to maybe start harvesting, right? Correct, no, you've got to. And the reality is, although it's drinking a lot of water, it would drink a heck of a lot more water if it was in the ground. And you'd lose a lot of water through evaporation and so on. We hell you won't get that. And this is what is special about it. And remember, as we discussed before, a lot of the nutrients will be trapped in the pebbles. And that will give the plants sustainability in terms of nutrient value. Right, you spoke about the colors. I mean, this box is black and you spoke about the benefits thereof. Is there a reason why this tower is white? Is it allowing for photosynthesis to happen? No, so it's purely because of the accessibility of what's available from raw materials. OK, because this is holding water all the time, it's essential that you're using a dock vessel. So no light passes. Water's not sitting in this. So you're not going to get accumulation of algae or anything like that growing in the system. And that's the reason. But it's really about materials. This is what's available. This is what gets used for manufacturing and easily and accessible and affordable. That's what's important and that's what we have. So, Cass, I want to know, because we've been using the pebbles and you mentioned that the pebbles absorb or take up all the nutrients. What happens when I'm done with my season or with my growing period, harvesting my basil, my spring onion, the peppers, the tomatoes, et cetera? Do I have to throw away these pebbles and buy a new packet? Or can these be reused? So again, reuse them off the season. Take them out, rinse them out, wash them and then start them all over again and start them again. Rinse them. It's important. And remember the last time we met, we spoke about the NFT system, the 60 pocket where we said rinse, wash, wash, wash, get that, the nutrients and then flush it into your garden. Give the excess run or from those pebbles to the rest of your plants or vegetables in the garden. And then start fresh. Those pebbles can be used over and over and over again. There's nothing stopping you. So it's almost just like a once-off buy, once-off purchase. And then you could just obviously reuse the only thing that you keep buying is solution. That's when it's done and the seedlings. That's correct. And the one thing which is also important to note is that a lot of people will propagate their own seeds and they'll use maybe jiffy plagues or different types of medium that's going to allow you to grow without soil in terms of before you put them into the hydroponic system. But doing that, you've got less chance of anything getting into the pump. So that's what we always recommend. If you're going to use seedlings, rinse the seedlings properly because if you don't rinse the seedlings and you pop them straight in, it's not going to do harm to the plant, but it's going to do harm to the pump because those little pieces are going to fall through. It's going to get sucked up into the pump. It's going to trap and burn out the pump. So that's why it's critical that you do always look at rinsing out seedlings and you've got seedlings. Seedlings are great because it gives you a kickstart. You're up and running in a flesh versus having to go propagate from seeds. And that's the upside. But just make sure you rinse your seedlings. Yeah. Cass, you know, in the other episodes, we had different types of growing structures, right? So we have this tower. We had the previous NFT hydrosystem previously before that we had the growing bag, etc. So if a customer had to walk into the store and say, Cass, I'm looking to grow my own basil and tomatoes in my own house with less chemicals and so forth, I want to try the more natural approach. Which system out of the three would you then recommend? How is that customer conversation? You know, how does that? How do you start the customer conversation? Do you understand? Do you try first, understand where they would be growing? Is it a balcony? It's a garden. Yeah. So basically, how do you get to a point to say, I'm going to sell you this type of system based on what you want? So when a customer comes and sees us at home growers, we qualify their need and we find a lot of retired people coming through and they love the system. So if you look at the concept, this particular specifically, this one. And the lovely thing about this is it's ours. If you take a retired person and we talk about retired because I can speak about it from a good experience of people that come into our store. And most recently over the weekend, when I engage with a few people, one is they don't have a garden. They either got a balcony or they don't even have a balcony. They've got an area which is facing a window with a lot of natural arts and sunshine. But I still want to have something to care for and have some pleasure out of growing plants. So that is a fantastic environment to deal with in terms of their needs. If it's another and it's only, let's say, one or two people in that household. Whereas if you've got a household with a family, which is, let's say, two parents and the two children or more children, whatever, then this wouldn't be the solution for them. There you're going to look at an NFT based system, which is going to give you a wider variety. You've got 60 vegetables to grow versus 20. Also remembering that as you start harvesting, if I chopped off salad today and it was lettuces and so on, it's not going to rejuvenate by tomorrow and have another lettuce. You've got to give it time to grow and establish itself. So one's also got to realize and it's got to plan the way they cut their produce back and how they harvest off the system. Because understanding the harvesting is exactly how you're going to get to understand, to maintain your 100 point system. Now, family of four, for example, this would never be enough for them. So but one or two people, this is one. This is perfect. Also a lovely starting point. Twenty eight decent size lettuces is growing. Tomatoes grow. It really is special. So that's what we would do. Do you have garden space? Do you have a outdoor area that will allow you to put this in? You may not have a garden, but you got a patio or you got a window with a lot of natural light coming in and you can display that. This is the right system. You don't have it. You don't have a tap nearby. So you've got to fill up a container to fill this with water. So again, if it's a older person or a younger person, that's going to have to move with with with liters of water. This is a type of system, which will be a lot easier to work with. And also the care of it is a lot easier as well. So that's those are the questions that we'd like to answer and the questions we'd like to answer. Yeah, because I see that you also plug the system. Do you keep it running overnight and how much electricity does it consume? Because, you know, we are living in the days or times of low shedding. That's right. So the systems all run 24 seven that they do the power consumption in terms of the electrical usage is minimal. You barely notice it on your electrical ball, which is beautiful. So from that part, there's no concerns. If you're running a bigger system with a bigger pump, 250 veg and above, except a different story. But then again, you've got 250 plus veg. Yes. So it's a balancing act, you know, for what you're going to get out of this. So let's say you're running your form and you're like all this the formula, your tower form, and you've got beautiful lettuces and you've got tomatoes and whatever. Once it's running and running, it's growing. What's the cost of getting your car and driving to the supermarket? Paying for parking, buying your tomatoes, getting back into your car and driving back home. What's the cost of that? So if you look at the cost of actually getting that done, this is the cost of getting this thing producing for you. There's a significant saving. I can also definitely say, I mean, as much as, you know, there's online shopping, right? I'm just one of those people that like to pick their own fruits and vegetables because you have a preference. But now if you're growing this yourself, you know, you have full control of the planting till harvesting cycle and you get to pick the tomato that you really want at the end of the day. So this is quite a fascinating case. I think I like the system as well for myself because it's quite small petite. And I just like the vertical structure of it. You know, it creates just like a lovely decorating. You have the talking piece, which is also nice. Yeah, yeah, I think this is fantastic. And so thank you once again for just another awesome conversation, just learning a lot with the various systems that you have. And I'm glad that you are meeting the needs of each and every specific customer, young, old, balcony, no balcony, garden, etc. And what I think I like about all your systems is that they're easy to maintain. And if there's any installation that needs to be done, you guys come in and store, but a customer literally leaves home growers with all the things that they need, essential items that they need to start growing their own food. So thank you so much. Thank you very much, pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Well, there you have it. This is the Tower hydroponic system, 20 pocket hydroponic system to be exact. If you missed this episode, you could catch it on our YouTube channel and also contact home growers and follow their Facebook page because I do know that they give a lot of product information or on what goes around these different growing systems. But I really hope that you enjoyed the episode as much as I did. Thank you so much for watching. Catch us next time on the gardening series with private property in partnership with home growers. See you then.