Tastings at Patriot Place Introduces Tower Garden

Tastings Wine Bar & Bistro at Patriot Place has added aeroponic farming to its growing list of green initiatives through the implementation of Tower Garden – an eco-friendly tower-to-table garden designed to grow vegetables, herbs and flowers in less time and with far less water than in soil.

The state-of-the-art vertical aeroponic growing system was invented by a NASA scientist with a large commercial version created for Epcot Center’s “Living with the Land” exhibit. A smaller-scaled version of the garden was then invented and is what you will find on the plaza overlooking Gillette Stadium outside of Tastings Wine Bar & Bistro at 201 Patriot Place.

Tastings’ owners and long-time Foxborough residents Bill and Patti Martin first learned of Tower Garden through a friend and instantly thought of introducing it to their Patriot Place restaurant this summer. The garden was installed outside their restaurant just after Memorial Day and is an extension of Tastings’ partnership with the Hockomock Area YMCA where Bill and Patti farm their own garden plot at the Hock’s Healthy Futures Community Garden in Mansfield.

“We work with area children on educating them about the importance of local farming and healthy eating habits,” Bill Martin said. “That’s been very gratifying and a great partnership and very popular with the kids. I’m sure we are going to loop in the kids from the YMCA to come and see the Tower Garden.”

Still relatively early in summer, Tastings’ Tower Garden is taking off and has already produced plenty of fresh ingredients for the restaurant’s locally-inspired menu.

“We have 144 different plants in the Tower Garden,” said Bill Martin. “We are growing squash, tomatoes, 10 different herbs, four or five different lettuces, zucchini, cucumber, peppers (hot and sweet), beans, peas, edible flowers, egg plants, a ton of stuff. The chef can go out and see what’s ripe and pull something off and bring it in and make a salad or whatever happens to be ripe at the time.”

Patti Martin added the Tower Garden plants expand to the drink menu as well.

“It’s all about the cocktails too,” Patti Martin said. “We are using all the herbs, the basil, mint, chocolate mint and lemon balm. It doesn’t get much fresher than that.”

The Tower Garden ties in perfectly with Tastings’ farm-to-table philosophy to deliver only the freshest, tastiest ingredients to your plate and is a natural fit for Patriot Place and its commitment to environmentally responsible and sustainable design practices.

“Our whole concept at Tastings has been farm-to-table before farm-to-table became trendy,” said Bill Martin. “About 85 percent of what we serve comes from farms within 25 miles. We get beef, veal, chicken and pork in Norfolk. We have fish and lamb from Rhode Island. We get produce from all over and now with the Tower Garden.”

Just as importantly to the Martins and Patriot Place, Tower Garden helps the restaurant further reduce its carbon footprint in an eco-friendly way.

“One of the features of farm-to-table is what it does in terms of our carbon footprint and our carbon footprint is a fraction of what it would be if we were a corporate restaurant getting our food from Sysco,” Bill Martin said. “We kind of like the idea of the local thing not just to reduce the carbon footprint but to also support the local economy. If you look at the dollars a chain restaurant will spend, less than 40 percent goes into the local economy. It’s more like 15 percent. Whereas with a loca-vore, or someone that sources locally, it’s like 80 percent. It makes a big difference and keeps farmers in business.” 

Because of its unique aeroponic technology and vertical design, Tower Garden uses less than 10 percent of the water and land required by traditional, soil-based agriculture while still growing nutritious, great-tasting vine-ripened vegetables and fruits onsite. The absence of soil reduces insect and fungal infestations thereby reducing or even eliminating the need for chemicals. Plants can grow in less than half the time of a traditional garden.

“In the past week the Tower Garden has exploded and what’s great about it is there’s no dirt so there are far fewer insects,” Bill Martin said. “The Tower Gardens are more disease resistant and they grow in less than half the time.”

The notable difference between the Tower Garden and a traditional soil-based garden can be seen onsite through the tomatoes planted outside of Tastings.

“The soil-based tomatoes were planted a good three weeks before the Tower Garden tomatoes,” Bill Martin said, showing the Tower Garden tomatoes are well ahead of the soil-based plant. “The Tower Garden is going to be a real cool thing. This is still relatively early in the process and in two weeks this stuff is going to be ready to start harvesting.”

The Martins expect Tower Garden to be in use at Tastings through late September.

“We’ve evolved from sourcing from 50 to 100 miles because we’ve gotten to meet local farmers and seek them out,” Bill Martin said. “We’ve gone from 50 miles to 25 miles and now 25 feet.”

Be sure to check Tastings’ and Patriot Place’s Facebook pages regularly throughout the summer for updates, pictures and the latest harvest news.

If you are interested in learning more about Tastings or Tower Gardens, please visitwww.tastingswinebarandbistro.com. For more information on sustainable projects at Patriot Place, please visit www.patriot-place.com.