I can hear the question being asked: “What is a hydroponic tower?”

A hydroponic tower is a way of cultivating plants with water and nutrients without soil. I have two towers, each standing around five feet tall. The bottom of the tower holds a water reserve tank with nutrients. A small low-voltage electric water pump transports the water to the top of the tower and descends by gravity, irrigating the plants and returning to the bottom tank. The plants grow out of small holes in the tower. One can plant lettuce, herbs, leek, broccoli, cauliflower, Swiss chard, cucumbers, strawberries, tomatoes, and medicinal herbs—just about anything you want.

A company called Future Growing produced my hydroponic towers. The owner and president of Future Growing is Tim Blank, who worked for Disney’s Epcot theme park in Orlando for a dozen years until 2005. Tim has become a good friend of mine. At Epcot, which at one time was an acronym for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, Tim used his training in hydroponic agricultural to manage Epcot’s agricultural showcase of food crops from around the world. “I was responsible for Epcot’s futuristic, cutting-edge agricultural display, open 365 days a year, utilizing hydroponics and sustainable growing practices from around the world,” Tim explained in an interview that he did for the “Perfect Weight America” book.

“I believe one of the greatest futurists who ever lived was a man named Walt Disney,” he added. Walt Disney’s pioneering vision of a better tomorrow is one of the reasons why Tim Blank founded Future Growing with the dream that someday every human on the planet would have access to healthy, pesticide-free food right in their own home and local community. (Check out their website at www.futuregrowing.com.) The company installs residential glasshouses and glass rooms that attach to homes like sunrooms so that people can grow their own organic fruits and vegetables year round. Those seeking a smaller investment can purchase hydroponic towers, which cost around $500 a piece, as a way to get into organic and hydroponic gardening.

With the Future Growing Tower Gardens, people tend to grow a lot of lettuce and herbs, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, but it’s the gourmet lettuce that seems to be making the biggest impact. “People are used to spending good money in the store for healthy, clean lettuce, but with our tower systems, they can grow lettuce in half the time at very little cost with no pesticide on the leaves,” Tim said.

Nicki, Joshua, and I can barely keep up with the escarole, endive, and lamb’s lettuce sprouting from our tower. Tower #2 is our cucumber tower, which fascinates my son Joshua. When I come home from the Perfect Weight America tour, one of the first things he says is, “Daddy, can we go see the cucumbers?” They’re huge, and I’ve eaten my share of eighteen-inch long cucumbers in my dinner salad.

“With our growing systems, you have real quality control of the food going into your body,” Tim said. “Our company, Future Growing, is introducing this technology to the green and eco-friendly community. What I tell people is that lettuce is one of the easiest crops in the world to grow. Commercial lettuce production, however, is one of those terrible examples of leaving a huge carbon footprint on the world when you consider the environmental costs to grow, harvest, and deliver that one head of lettuce from the fields to a grocery store near you. Think about it: farmers of conventional lettuce use lots of water and petroleum-based chemicals to maintain it and grow it. After harvesting, the lettuce is packaged, then refrigerated to keep chilled. All that takes gobs of energy, plus the fuel costs to ship the lettuce across the country. Supermarket lettuce sits on a chilled store shelf for several more days, where it has a very short shelf life.

Tim says the new growing technologies make sustainability fun because the food is exploding with flavor and nutrition. “Children want to eat healthy when the food tastes great, and they can actually help and watch it grow,” he said. “My wife, Jessica, and I often enjoy having our friends and family over for dinner, and they literally cannot believe the robust flavors in the lettuces, herbs, and vegetables they are eating. No matter haw many times someone has enjoyed a meal in our home, we are always asked why the food in the store doesn’t taste nearly as good as our home-grown dinner.”

The technology behind Future Growing recycles 100 percent of the nutrients and water and uses only 5 to 10 percent of the water that conventional or organic farmers use in the field. Obviously, you have to use a tiny bit of electricity to run a recirculation pump, but you don’t have to store your lettuce in the fridge to keep it cool or chilled. Just pick it when you’re ready to make a salad. I see this as being an excellent component to the future sustainability of our planet.