by Kris s
Wooden-frame windowfarm from Montreal (unique uplift system)
8:31 pm in Completed Window Farms, Getting Started, made from scratch (without a kit), posts with pitcures! by Kris s
My first attempt at a windowfarm followed Ver2 from the website pretty closely. I built it at a friends place though and it got neglected for several weeksand everything died.My current incarnation is the result of my desire to combine woodworking with vertical gardening. It is still very primitive and I would change a lot of things if I were to rebuildit but that would be in the fall if ever. The biggest difference between this farm and the traditional hanging farms is that, well, this one does not hang. It is supported from the bottom by a wooden structure and instead of the planters being suspended by chain or string they are firmly nested into vertical slats of wood. This allows me to easily move the pots around and arrange plants according to type and size. The basic concepts are all the same though, vertical hydroponic growth using bottles as pots.
This system does not use any checkvalves or air-pump needles. Checkvalves don't seem to be necessary as long as the pump is above the water level and the air-needle does not seem to be necessary at all.
The water pressure in the resevoir is greater then the pressure required to lift the water several feet up the risers. No needle or complicated tubing required.
Overgrown spinach, dieing lettuce, healthy chard, different lettuce doing well
Basil, basil, basil, peas
Riser manifold
The aquatic pump I am using only has two line-outs so it was necessary to split them in order to feed the outer two columns. The local hydro store did not have T-splitters, only had X-splitters, so I plugged up the extra tip. This manifold will get renovated in the next couple of days because right now the top row of planters is not usable.
Pea plants seem to grow extremely fast
You can see the holes at the bottom of the bell shape of tubes. These sit on the floor of the reservoir and give me excellent lift.
I’m really curious about your pumping method – since it seems much more simple than the both the t-joint and the air-pump needle methods.
Could you say a little more about it. Where is the small hole located? How large is it? How well does the pump work?
I think your airlift method should work just fine as long as the tubing at the bottom near the hole does not kink. I suggest that the bottommost tubing be wider than the rest. (maybe the 5 to 6 inches of tube near the turn where the hole is could be a “sleeve” fitted round the normal sized tubing bringing the air to and and air/water mixture away from there. Having this wider tubing means you can have a slightly larger hole without losing air through it.
@Joel I drilled the smallest possible hole that didn’t just close up when I took out the drill but. I am not sure exactly the size but I just started with the smallest and worked up until the hole was tiny, but stayed open. Then yeah, I had trouble with the hose pinching around the hole so I just allowed enough slack for the hose to form a bell shape. I put a picture of it in this post now. As to how well it works, extremely well. My reservoir can hold 13″ height of water but I usually only fill up to 6 or 7 inches because any more causes the water to squirt out with to much force. From the bottom of the reservoir to the top is about 6″. I think if I were to test it I would able to have the water surge as high as my ceiling. The only trouble I have had has been with the little holes getting clogged up with debris.
@Brian, good idea but a thicker tube would be harder to bend back on itself.
the reducing of the water-in is a key factor of how smooth and reliabel an airlift system will work. I’ve had the same expiriences like you and my workout was also to reduce the water-in. http://windowfarm.tk/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/structure-water-and-nutrition-bottle-1.1.png
But your solution is much more elegant and i’ll soon try out your famous solution.
thanks & happy farming, joha
@Johaben
Yeah this method seems to really work well, way less hardware to worry about then some of the other methods used. I don’t really understand how your wire-reduction works, can you explain a little more please?
Construction details: The inner-diameter of the watertube is 4 mm. The ballneedle entry in the watertube is in a height of 12 – 17 cm above the water-entry. In these 12 – 17 cm from bottom to ballneedle-entry i reduce the inner diameter of the watertube to 1 mm.
http://windowfarm.tk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/airlift_system.jpg
The air-pressure is very low. The lifting of waterbubbles is very slow. The system is a very silent one.
Have a look at:
http://windowfarm.tk/?cat=3
http://windowfarm.tk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/artesischer_brunnen_2.jpg
http://windowfarm.tk/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/structure-water-and-nutrition-bottle-3.png