The most frequently asked questions we get regarding adding Tower Tonic are “How much should I add and when should I add it?”  The instructions are simple, really.  For every gallon of water you add to the Tower, you add 20ml of Tower Tonic A and 20ml of Tower Tonic B.  However, think back to science class at school for a second.  What happens to water when it gets hot?  You got it, it evaporates! The water evaporates in a Tower Garden but the minerals in the Tower Tonic do not.  So how do you know how much to add in the warmer months?  We often hear from concerned Tower Garden growers in the summer months, when they have skipped over an important part of the growing guide and find themselves adding minerals at a rate that puts their savings in jeopardy!
As a general rule we suggest adding minerals at half strength (10ml of each per gallon), or every other time, when temperatures are over 90 degrees consistently, as it says in the Growing Guide.  Don’t worry if you managed to skip over that part of the manual.  You aren’t the first and you certainly won’t be the last to do so! You could even drop that to quarter strength (5ml of each per gallon) when temperatures are over 100 consistently. But why?  I already mentioned that water evaporates and minerals do not.  Over time, as the water evaporates the minerals in the water will become more and more concentrated. Plants transpire (which is basically the same as us perspiring) so just as humans need more water in the heat, so do plants, yet they do not require more food.Adding at Half Strength Vs Every other Time
Let’s just say that you check your reservoir levels one day and you add 5 gallons.  Then you get caught up in your day to day things and the next time you check it you add 12 gallons.  You find yourself back on track checking every few days and the next time you add 5 gallons again, can you see where I am going with this?  If you add minerals every other time but you never add the same amount of water each time you could end up with a diluted mineral solution or a really concentrated mineral solution.This is the easiest way to add Tower Tonic to your Tower Garden.  Don’t forget, the Tower Garden was designed for those without any gardening experience to be able to grow their own food at home in a food safe plastic, without any growing experience.  There is no need to know what all the numbers on the Tower Tonic labels mean (2-0-0 and 0.5-1-3) nor do you need any kind of horticultural degree or similar qualification. You only have to look at the picture of my Bromelaid that I managed to kill to see that (Jason and I are skydiving instructors and not growers by any means.  See an old post here). I don’t know if I over/under watered it or if it wasn’t getting enough light.  Either way, I think it is toast! Maybe there are some green thumbed Bromelaid growers out there who can shed some light!

If you really must know how much minerals are in your reservoir then there is a way to find out.  We’ll talk about this more in our next blog post…


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