The Flemish Windowfarm Project.

Hi Everyone, maybe it is best that i introduce myself before commencing with the project and my R&DIY.

I am a guy that is self-educated, i have no college degrees, but i now a lot about everything but not everything. Everyone in my family, including my father were engineers but my father died years ago and i don’t have contact with other members of the family. Everything i know about gardening i learned from both my grandfathers and the rest i learned through surfing the net and reading. I am not perfect, far from to be exact, but i am a team player. I am 36 years old an disabled so i have lots of time on my hands for researching and building my projects myself. In Aqua or Hydroponics my interests lie in different fields such as Windowfarming, Backyard Hydroponics using IBC containers and indoor growing.

I am allso an electronics guy so when my project’s hardware is running flawless i tend to automate it all through my favourite microprocessor, the arduino. Off course i have a network of people that are interested in the same things. I live in the Flemish part of Belgium so most of my growing outdoors stops in wintertime. Windowfarming is one of the projects i hope to build for indoor use.

A couple of months ago i started with the windowfarming project. I first researched and developed it all on paper. Since a month i am building from scratch with recycled materials, needless to say is i want my project to be as “green” as possible.

My setup is now two columns of four bottles with an old drink cooler as reservoir. I have a loop going in the container, water is drawn through a needle for inflating footballs. The only problem is when the airpump shuts off, air blows through the needle, but i’m tinkering with it as we speak…

I’m cleaning an old trashcan in wich i’m going to drill a hole in the bottom and then add air throug a T-joint in the tube, maybe the water pressure at the bottom of the container will simplify things and resolve the problem with the inflation needle wich i will not have to use in this configuration.

This adaption works like a charm. It has been working for the whole day now. Tomorrow i will hook up another two rows of four bottles…

I’m allso warming the water with an aquarium heater, i have a circulation pump to keep the nutrient solution mixed really well and an aeration pump for adding oxygen in the water. I allso plan to release co2 in the water.

I have only done this outside but it probably works good inside too. The advantages are, no pump, can use dirty water, very low tech, can work for a long time unattended.
Best vid for understanding it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3yQOVUR1TpQ

Playlist is at http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkzXlmAwZTZdjGtjJpCYm2gSGVGwA033M&feature=view_all
Brian

Lets cut to the chase we waste 2 gallons of water everytime we flush worse yet when the water is not being used it sits idle doing nothing. i am working on a design to use this water in hydroponics heres a picture.

I still do not have a windowfarm. Too many other projects, I guess. One recent project was to show how a gravitational vortex power plant works for the local mini makerfaire. There was no electrical socket near my booth so I moved outside and used a 15 Watt solar panel connected to a 12 volt DC bilge pump to work my model. The vortex power plant model developed a surprising amount of torque so maybe if scaled up it could work a little mini compressor for supplying your airlift needs? An electrical engineer said that neither the solar panel or the bilge pump would be damaged by low wattage in the morning and evening through the system (the water prevents thermal runaway) and this was confirmed by the company who made the bilge pump! So, now, what we need to do is either adapt that system to produce air under pressure. (a little trompe) or find a low watt 12 volt dc compressor that will not burn out in low watt situations. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPh4GymUGSg
Brian

MANY THANKS, DAISY, for your inspiration.  Just after I took down my aquaponic system Daisy’s post came on.  This is how I worked it out for my window with the soil and the bottles I have available.  I do need it to make things easier for now.   After knee surgery I hope I can get my aquaponic setup back in place.  The red drinking cups, filled with soil, have holes drilled in them so that the water leaches up through the soil and into the roots.  The plants are low enough  so that water can be poured into the cut off pop bottles without stepping on a ladder.  The plants are spearmint - basil - a small aloe vera plant – thume – greek oregano and hot n’ spicy oregano.  It looks like this soil uses more water than my aquaponic system.  Interesting!!!   Happy windofarming.  Sylvia Indiana USA

Hi, I will like to know if anyone knows how to make a system of irrigation such that by using valves or other materials and a storage of rain water it can irrigate the plants while I am not home. If anyone knows of  websites that might help me I will appreciate it.

A little while ago I answered a post on what to do with unused ports.  http://our.windowfarms.org/2012/01/14/can-i-use-a-petco-4-output-pump-for-a-2-column-farm/  I answered with what I did, but that got me thinking as to what should I do.  Now, I would say that the correct answer is that you should cover the ports.  Take a look at my video here.  http://youtu.be/6KvfJyWso8E

So what does this cost me?  Let’s say the pump runs at 1 watt.  This is 0.001 kilowatts.   The pump runs a total of 2 hours a day for me.  That’s 0.002 kilowatt-hours and I pay $0.10 a kilowatt-hr.  That is only $0.0002 per day or $0.073 per year.  That is insignificant!  I probably have wasted more power in writing this email than what it costs to run my windowfarm for the year.

So if you are very environmetally conscientious and I think most of us here are, I would say don’t worry about putting an air pump on your WF.  Look else where in your life to save energy.  The biggest energy consumers in my house in order are heating, hot water, clothes dryer, refrigerators, stove, computers.  These are the places to make a big difference.

Buy the way, the power monitor in the video is a Watts Up Pro and I got from Fry Electronics for $120.00.

Updated 1/23/2012

After doing the first video I decided to open it up and see how the pump works.  http://youtu.be/4JqaQV48KFk

In an effort to build a pump-free system, we put together a wicking system that can fit in a window. Yay no electricity! (At least until I add lights). We’re new to hydroponic gardening (pretty new to growing anything anywhere actually), so we’re making it up as we go, but this is what we’ve got…

Basically it is a couple of PVC pipes sealed at the ends, with a bunch of holes in them for the plants. You can kind of see on the top one that we cut a hole in the end and put in clear plastic so we can see the water level. There is a drain in each pipe which you can see is attached to piping making it easier to drain when its time to switch out the water. It will also make it easier to convert to some kind of flow system if this bombs. There is about an inch of standing water in the pipes. So far, only the top pipe has nutrients as those are already sprouted.

The materials cost about $70 without doing any shopping around (not including the stuff from the hydroponics store…nutrients and the grow medium). I’m pretty sure that’s cheaper than most everything else I’ve seen on here. Right now it will hold 17 plants. The top has 11 spots for things like herbs and greens and the bottom holds 6 for things that need more room, like peas. Adding up to 22 more should be easy…just waiting to see if it will work before I spring for the investment! We made sure to space them so that the holes line up with the one above, so if we need to go with a drip system later it will be an easy fix.

The seeds are sitting in yogurt cups with this stuff we got at the hydroponic store. No idea what it is. The guy who worked there said it would work and shouldn’t decompose and throw off my water. We found these silly Trix yogurts are actually a really great size and don’t have a glued on label, so I’m eating neon colored yogurt now. I put nylon rope into the material, cut a hole in the bottom of the cup, and the rope hangs into the water. The wicking works beautifully. The top of the spongy material stuff is always damp. Two weeks in and there’s some growth.

Arugula is shown. It took off after about a week even in my chilly sunroom (it rarely tops 60 degrees, low to mid 50′s are more normal.) I’m also seeing signs of life in the sugar snap peas I put in about 8 days ago, but pretty much just huge roots. They haven’t popped above the surface yet. Other things seem like they will need to wait for warmer weather (i.e. the basil, and the tomato).

SO, my question to you experienced folks is this: what to do about lights?? I want to stay very inexpensive because I don’t even know if this wicking business is going to work. Despite my south facing window, I know I need something because it IS January, and I DO live in Minnesota (our days are sunny and getting longer every day, but its still only about 9 hours of daylight). My boyfriend thinks we can do a string of LED Christmas lights and tuck them into a smaller PVC pipe cut in half and lined with foil. Thoughts? Ideas?

Did I miss something else that is going to make me fall on my face here?

Has anyone an idea, whether a smal solar panel can run the air pump? I want to build up a absolut green windowfarm, so that the air pump didn`t use normal electricity, but with solar energy. How big has that panel to be? Has anyone tried it?

Greetz Matthias

I am a biology student in the Ben Gurion University in Israel and our faculty building has a huge 2 story window which is not divided between the floors and would love turn it into a huge window farm! I do need some help in writing a proposal to the University on the environmental benefits (and maybe other benefits) of windowfarms.