Volusia County Jail Farm: Volusia County, Florida

Why Choose Tower Gardens?

The facility wanted a growing project that participants could get involved with and learn from. According to the original account, Tower Gardens appealed for three practical reasons:

• Visible progress. Fast-growing crops gave participants a chance to see plants develop during shorter stays, with some able to experience a planting-to-harvest cycle.
• An approachable growing system. Growing without soil removed digging and weeding from the routine, while giving beginners a clear set of plant-care tasks to learn.
• Practical experience. Planting, caring for crops and harvesting offered skills participants could take into future growing projects.

No one needed to arrive with years of gardening experience. The project gave them a place to start—and a living, leafy reminder of their progress.

More Than Gardening: Something to Care For

There’s a satisfying moment when a small seedling becomes a plant ready to harvest. For the people tending these towers, that progress was part of the project’s appeal.

The original feature described gardening as a welcome way to relieve stress, particularly for the women who maintained the towers. Caring for the plants offered a constructive routine and a chance to see the results of their work.

The harvest mattered, but so did the experience of helping something grow. Checking plants, learning what they need and returning to see new leaves gave participants a practical role in the farm.

A Harvest That Reached the Community

The benefits extended beyond the facility. The original project account reported that produce from the Tower Farm was donated to the local Domestic Abuse Council and BEACH House.

Those donations gave the growing work another purpose: helping provide fresh food to people in the wider community.

For any organization planning a farm, this is worth thinking through early. Who will receive the harvest? How will it be collected, stored and delivered? A plan for the produce helps turn healthy plants into useful meals.

What Was Growing in Volusia’s Tower Farm?

At the time of the original feature, the project was described as having 50 Tower Gardens growing lettuce. The account also noted that the facility had grown a variety of vegetables and herbs over the years.

Lettuce makes the growing process easy to see: small plants develop into leafy crops that participants can care for and harvest. That visible progress can be especially useful in a teaching project.

The tower count and crops describe the farm as originally featured, rather than a current inventory of the program.

Planning a Tower Farm for Your Organization?

Volusia’s project illustrates how a Tower Farm can combine food production, practical learning and community support. Your own project might serve a school, nonprofit, community center or another organization with space to grow.

Start with the purpose behind the plants:

• Who will participate? Identify the people growing the crops and the staff supporting them.
• Where will you grow? Consider space, light, water, power and access.
• How will the harvest be used? Plan for meals, donations, teaching or sales.
• Who will keep things running? Assign daily care, planting, harvesting and maintenance.

Living Towers can help with the system planning. If you have a space in mind, we can help work out how many towers will fit. If you know how much of a particular crop you want to produce, we can help estimate the tower count needed for your growing conditions and harvest schedule. We can also help explore options around your budget.

Visit our Tower Farm Planning Guide to work through the steps, or explore our Tower Farm systems.

Ready to get something growing? Contact Living Towers and tell us about your project. 🌱