Hello again!

I’m back to pick up where I left off in my last post “What about those who can’t afford to build a window farm?” I said I was going to try and think about cheaper and easier ways of building+ running a window farm, and here what  came up with so far. I found some structural and methodological adjustments to the building process, and some ideas (that I still need to look into) for the maintenance part. I wish I had a little more knowledgeable about hydroponics though, since I have ideas that I’m not too sure would work. I’ll post’em out here though and hopefully someone with more expertise in the field can let me know what they think.

All right, so some of the more expensive tools and parts can definitely be spared. First of all, you don’t actually need a drill to make holes in the bottom of all bottles. Some bottles, like Aquafina bottles or the Poland Spring suggested bottles are horrible to work with since they have such hard bottoms. Yet, other types of plastic bottles have bottoms that can easily be cut into so if one can find bottles of this nature, a drill isn’t needed. Nonetheless, something like an xActo knife will still be needed but these are considerably less expensive than a drill (I bought one for 4 dollars).
Secondly: chains, hooks, zip ties and these things aren’t really essential either. I found that the frame (off which the bottles hang) can be made by using thin flexible wiring and your average nails. From here I’ve come up with a downsized list of essentials one could use to make a cheaper WF. This is based on a two-column window farm, equipped with three plants per column.

The Cheaper Window Farm Necessities
-6 plastic water bottles with easy to cut bottoms! Free
-2 reservoir plastic water bottles with easy to cut bottoms!  Free
-xActo Knife   4$
-a couple of nails  2/3 $
-Spool of thin (but sturdy) and flexible wiring. Comes in colors too. 4 $
-Plants  (cost depends on which you want but I got mine for 10$ tot)
-Net cups (free at your friendly neighborhood nursery)
`    -Pebbles / clay pellets???
- Air Pump and tubing?????

As is noticeable, I’m still uncertain about necessity of the last few items. I know hydroponics is all about a continuous water system, but the cost & maintenance of the pump worries me. Is there any way one could pour water through the system once or twice a day and still achieve healthy plants?
Furthermore, is it crucial that the plants grow in clay pellets or can they survive in pebbles (like little rocks one can find in a park or something)?
I’m wondering about these since if they could be spared and substituted for, the WF would cost much less. If they can’t be though, maybe one could build a non-hydroponic WF with just some dirt & watering instead.
The ‘frame’ of a non-hydroponic WF would be fundamentally the same, but without the pump and hydroponic parts. The plants could be placed in dirt and watered daily instead. What do you guys think about this?
I’ve also been wondering about possible homemade nutrients solutions since those can be expensive too. I intend to do some research on that and see. But until then, do let me know if any of you have some ideas about this stuff!

As always, thank you! Ciao

Hi guys,

I’m a new window farmer and have some questions and thoughts I’d like to present to you all, regarding how we can extend the window farm project to individuals and communities that do not have the resources engage in this movement like the rest of us. I’m very excited by the potential the WF project has to alleviate some of the larger social and environmental issues we are faced with. Yet as I was building my own WF I saw how the currently available designs require many more resources than I imagined.  The tools, time, and money I had to put into building a WF made me realize how individuals without these resources cannot participate in this movement. Drills, air pumps, nails, paint and so forth, come out to be pretty pricey when added up and I feel as though this issue radically diminished the WF’s potential for large-scale change. This is especially true when considering the fact that the earth is rapidly urbanizing and soon most of our growing global population will live in urban settings.
I recently read Planted of the Slums (a paper on future global urban development by the distinguished academic Mike Davis) that shocked me with the expected outcome of current global trends, into thinking how it is critical for projects like the WF to reach out to underprivileged communities. Davis states: “cities have absorbed nearly two-thirds of the global population explosion since the 1950 and are currently growing by a million babies and immigrants each week, [furthermore] the global country side has reached its maximum potential and will begin to shrink after 2020”. The expected outcomes of these global trends will be “ the burgeoning of new megacities with populations of 8 million, and hypercities with more than 20 million inhabitants”. Smaller cities and ‘citized’ towns will also grow, as they will be expected to absorb three quarters of global population growth. This makes me think that there will be an unimaginable amount of people living in tight city spaces, and most of them (as Davis proceeds to point out) will be of lower-income status.  Davis in fact states that we are headed towards ‘a mass production of slums’ as already one third of the global urban population lives in slums. Many of the environmental, social, and public health related issues that will rise from this are freighting to think of.
THIS IS CRAZY, and if we really want projects like the WF to effectively counteract the negative social and environmental consequences of wild urbanization, than we need to do more. I’m curious to hear what you all have to say about this, and what measures you envision we could take to spread WFs and things of the sort. I’d late to make it clear my concern is not only for slums, but for all lower income communities in general. I think its crucial that every one finds ways of self-sustainment and self assertion in our times of incredible dependency on global, capitalistic markets. And the procuring of food should be a first factor in this.
Currently I am myself working on trying to envision cheaper and easier WF set ups, as I am also talking with my school about setting up an organization with funds to reach out to underprivileged immigrant communities in NY state. I’m hoping to be able to aid these politically and economically disenfranchised communities to re-affirm themselves by producing some of their own food.
I’ll post again soon and meanwhile I hope to hear what you guys have to think! Ciao for now

So, as a rebel wannabe and annoying being that I am, I came up with a model for my future windowfarm.

The main objective of this model is to avoid the use a pump as I don’t want to use the money I’ll save from buying veggies to pay more in the electric bill

I got my inspiration from Lousie (http://our.windowfarms.org/2011/03/06/testing-a-waterclock-dripper-system-based-on-brians-plans/) a great idea to keep the tank pressure constant (hence the dropping frequency constant) is to use a float valve, but as I said, I don’t want to waste a cent, so I came up with a float valve of my own, using a bottlenose with a ping-pong ball inside, it should keep the water from falling into the secondary tank (this part may be tricky but I wont buy that float valve)

The other part of my idea is that I don’t like things hanging, it makes me feel everything is going to fall apart and I want my plant to be safe, so I decided to make shelves for the bottles, but they’re hard to make, so I thought that, If I cut off the bottom of the bottles and fold the plastic outwards, and then cut a piece of the folding so a twisted wire can go around the bottle, then the bottle itself will be its own shelf. And taking things further, If I make the same (maybe adding something instead of folding the plastic) with the net pots then I can take off every bottle with their plants without having to dismount everything YAY!! modularity FTW!!

But I’m not sure things will work out, I’m new with this, the last time I ever planted something was a carrot in primary school and I think it died, so I leave here some schematic I made with my crazy mspaint skills, so you can visualize things as I do and maybe give me some feedback on this.

PS: I don’t mind moving the water up when the tanks are empty, it’s nice to have some activity around the plants other than killing them

PS2: The whole idea is based on reducing costs, materials and work (I just can’t understand how the airlift thingy works)

PS3: I’m sorry if I’ve butchered English :O

PS4: THANK YOU!!

Guys and Gals-

We just launched a Kickstarter campaign to make new non-waterbottle windowfarms.

This is the first evolution of the R&D-I-Y design that has evolved through our mass collaboration into a manufacturable version that we can make available to the rest of the world!

They will use a version of the T-valve approach with components from the pharmaceutical industry. We are replacing the water bottles with new cups that mimic the water bottles but are cheaper to produce with safe, recycled plastics. The reservoir is going to be bigger and easier to fill, clean, and adjust. It will mimic the water bottle reservoir in its ability to funnel organic nutrient sediment to the intake for recirculation. They will hang or stand, making positioning easier for folks who are allergic to drills!

I want to let you know that this is in no way a move away from the recycled material windowfarms. The DIY versions are my personal favorite, but they just are not a good fit for everyone.

This will help fund badly needed work for the community. We need to migrate to a new website because this one is broken, not easily searchable, always getting spammed, and it generally drives me crazy. We also need to make updates to all the instructions that fold in all the awesome improvements you guys have made, which is also a lot of work.

I would really appreciate your help promoting the new windowfarms to the newcomers who have been waiting to join our ranks. Please help me welcome them!

I hope you are all going to have a great Thanksgiving (you too International Windowfarmers!) and you are all a large part of what I have to give thanks for.

-Britta

I made another video and basically I ran out of pipe and ladder and because of that I couldn’t pump any higher but I am curious. How high can you go? I went 13 ft but there was no problem whatsoever pumping that high! So, maybe, if you have a 2 story house or an available high place you could find out how high it is possible to go? So the contest rules are in the picture below and in a video
(You might get some extra hints and ideas if you watch the video)
Basically you use your aquarium air pump, and a T joint set at 2 ft below your liquid reservoir height.

Contest rules for unbelievably high airlift powered by puny aquarium air pump

So the rest of the post is from a couple of days ago and has a little different version of the video. (I am too Lazy to write a new post)

I made a new video about the pulser pump and Eileen suggested that a “pulser pump nano” (a smaller version) might be useful. The pulser pump is my little “invention” from over 20 years ago. Anyway, I no longer live near a river so I cannot do a nano. But because of my involvement in windowfarms, I can at least test how high a tiny pulser pump can pump. Today I used the T-joint method and an extendable ladder to go pretty high. With an aquarium air pump and 22 inches of submergence, I pumped to 13 ft high today! I bet it can go a lot higher but thats it for me.
Here is the video (which may be of some use to windowfarmers)

Almost no plastic is used for this and in the end, hopefully none at all.

I’m planning to put 4 columns in my window and I have 2 already in place, but only one is operating right now. The glass surface of my window measures 30in. wide by 60in. high. I’m quite proud of the result, actually. Here are some photos.

I found pots covered with a glaze inside and out, so they won’t absorb humidity or nutrients and they will be easy to clean. I bought them at Home Depot and it cost me 90$ CA for ten 5,5in. pots and eight 4in. pots. I had to make do with what they had left, so I mixed different colors and 2 different sizes which will be quite nice looking, actually.

I also bought electric wiring (grade 12-1) to suspend the pots because I wanted something very strong and quite rigid in order to stabilize the whole structure, which worked out very well. In order to prevent the pots to tip over on their axe, I used another electric wire (left over from my husband’s workshop in the basement), much smaller (I don’t know the grade but will have to buy some more in order to finish the project, so I should be able to tell you.

I recycled 2 swivel curtain rods reinforced in the middle with a 9in. long swivel bracket for hanging plants. The bracket alone can hold 50 pounds and cost me 4,99$ CA.

Lettuce is already in place in the bottom pot, which is irrigated with a slow drip system working quite nicely up to now. In a subsequent post, I’ll document the construction in detail.

I finished an article on why window farms rock! Please check it out at http://melissawindowfarm.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-window-farming.html

Thanks!!!

Melissa

The dripper tracker is a simple waterclock that I made to turn a solar cooker reflector.

It has 2 parts. A little float valve to control water height in a container and a pinhole or valve on a tube to control water speed out of the float container.

Basically if water height in the container is the same all day the drip maintains the same speed all day.  In my version I used a hydroponics emitter  on a float to block off the water flow.  Someone else might use something completely different to achieve the same effect.  My original top container was a 5 gallon paint bucket and the waterlevel valve was in a becel margerine container.

The drip valve was an air control valve for an aquarium air stone.

The range of speeds available is large.  I used to calculate speed by adjusting the drip valve and measuring the flow  into a cup.  You get it close to what you want. Then you raise or lower the drip valve  to “fine tune” the speed.

If people are interested, I can draw more complicated versions too.

(For instance, you could have a waterclock independent of your hydroponics and that way the drip will be more reliable.

Windowfarm dripper for constant drip speed

The moment I started really hating on those water pumps.

In the windowfarms community, no design is final. Rather, we are constantly evolving the designs to better performance standards. They evolve because WE LOVE FAILURE.

You can think you have a brilliant design but, like the Titanic, most designs are subject to failure at some point and it’s only when you see how your design performs throughout several seasons and under unfavorable conditions that you learn its true merits and shortcomings. We are fascinated with merits and shortcomings. Distinguishing between them is the core of what we do.

In our community, value comes- not from having the idea that works- but from BEING A GOOD TESTER.

@ajinil is one of my favorite pioneering testers, who is trying growing strawberries year-round in a snow-laden environment with no supplemental lighting by simply supplying flowering nutrients. So far, he has kept the plants flowering for 9 months!

Innovation can be painful. Death brings moments of revelation for windowfarmers doing R&D-I-Y. Ok. So I was only fake crying in the image above, but I was super bummed about losing my okra plants. After letting off a little steam, we were really able to take inventory of issues from this die-off. Ultimately, this was the last version 1 system we built after determining that nutrients just plain like to clog both water pumps and drip emitters as particulate matter builds up over time and clogs pathways. Failure also motivates progress. This is when the airlift technique started to seem a lot more attractive and worth pursuing. Ian, Ania, and I got to work on tweeking the airlift to work for windowfarms just a few days after this came down.

The MOST interesting moments are the ones right before your plants die (=FAIL= YAY!). What was that edge condition you managed to rock for a while? What can we learn from it?

Dry roots the result of clogged reservoir drippers in a V1 system

A mature plant’s root conditions are the best way to assess the workability of your windowfarm design.

I have a dissection table set up next to my windowfarms and as soon as I kill a plant (and trust me, I kill a LOT of plants with all of the frankenstein systems we have in the core team’s shop, where we test out the community’s ideas), I take it out, look at the root situation in the net cup and see what killed it. Were the roots massive and healthy right before they died? Did they dry out? Did I have spider mites? Are there any signs of rot? Were the factors that killed it particular to this plant or to the system? Would other people have this problem as well?

So maybe you want your windowfarm to thrive– totally valid. That’s why we give you two columns in the kits. One you can have be a control column, where you give your plants ideal conditions and allow them to thrive. Consider dedicating your other column to research. Take on an experimental conditions, fail, and report back!

-Britta

http://cgrantmccool.com

Using the following website with a quick, easy DIY solderless LED fixture as a guide, I set-up and made my own lights!  http://www.dabblings.net/subpage2.html

I’m no expert with electricity, but I understand enough and had enough research skills to pull off a modified version of the DIY set-up given in the site.  My LEDs were TopBright LEDs

I have since reworked this set-up to add a Red bulb to each fixture.  This was a bit tricky because the Red LEDs I was using required a separate circuit from the White/Blues which had the same electrical draws.  While each fixture’s Blue and White circuits are all self-contained in their own project enclosure, the red bulbs are also in series with each other from enclosure to enclosure.