Hi all,

I’m building my windowfarms based on version 3.

I have some problem with the airlift. Air don’t go in my pipe and , of course,  water neither. It’s like blocked by the air inside the pipe.

I read some message in the forum. If I well understand for solve my problem I need a bottleneck more longer ?(The size of my pipe is 4/6mm and 2mm for the needle.)

I tried to change the speed of air but I just have more or less bubbles outside of the tube.

Thanks in advance for your answers and sorry for my bad english

Hello everybody,

I am a student of industrial design that loves plants and the investigation of hydroponic watering.

So i have started to design a new kind of Windowsfarm by myself, following the steps of the ready-made process.

I am documenting everything in this webpage.

http://veggafarm.wordpress.com

Any advice!???? =) Hope you like it!

Hey Everyone,

I’m an international user in Maastricht, the Netherlands (originally from the US). My windowfarm is now up and running, with basil, chamomile, cilantro, and watercress. I combined the older, simpler instructions from this site with the new more extensive ones.

Tips that I’ve found, in case they’re not already mentioned elsewhere:

1) Make sure to elevate your air pump! Instead of putting it on the floor, put the air pump on a shelf or stack of books. Even if you use a one-way valve, the air pump should still be above the top of your water reservoir. Otherwise eventually the water will flow back up the tube, wetting and ruining the pump. This happened to me, and I had to buy a new pump. Likewise, like it says in the instructions, be sure to always make a loop in your tubes and cords, and never put the garden above a socket.

2) I was able to quiet my air pump by tieing it firmly to a cereal box filled with old clothes or some other sound/vibration absorbant material.

3) The simple older method for cutting holes in the bottom of bottles (exacto knife), to connect the bottles, was much easier than the new method, and I didn’t need a special rotary saw.

4) Instead of net cups, I used emptied individual pudding cups. It took some trial and error to find pudding cups that were the right size so that they didn’t get lost in the bottle, but still fit inside. The upside to that was getting to eat a lot of pudding.

5) If you’re growing plants from seed, using grow cubes, then you don’t need clay pellets specifically to fill your cups. You can just use reglar gravel or rocks you find outside.

6) My water reservoir is large and never completely full, because it has the hole in it to let the tubes come in and out. This would seem to affect the dilutions for the hydroponic nutrients, because the instructions are per liter, but my reservoir has an unspecified amount of water (~1.75 liters) in it at any one time. To fix this, I dilute my nutrients in a separate 1.5 liter bottle of water, allow the water level in the reservoir to get as low as possible, while still working, then refill it with the water from the 1.5 liter bottle. It’s still not exact, but it cuts down on the margin of error.

7) At the very top, the water was spurting and spraying everywhere as it came out of the tube. Instead of making a silencer with a medicine bottle (old instructions), I just used a 4-inch piece of masking tape to partially cover the tube. The tape should be parallel to the tube. Stick one end of the tape onto the front of the tube, about 1 inch. above the end where the water comes out. Then, just let the bottom end of the tape just lie loosely on top of the grow cube or plant. The water will come out of the tube, hit the tape, and then quietly drip off the tape onto the top plant.

I’m excited to try the T-valve assembly (elsewhere on this site) for my next project. I used the new instructions for one of the airlift mechanisms this time, and it has two disadvantages: 1) Since the airlift (needle and tube) is underwater, in the water reservoir, it’s hard to clean and difficult to diagnose the problem when it isn’t working, and 2) It’s somewhat unreliable, so it regularly stops working for various reasons and requires tinkering; and 3) It allegedly can’t lift the water very far compared to the T-valve method.

Good luck with your window farms! If there are any other users in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, or northwestern Germany (Aachen area), I’d appreciate it if you let me know by commenting here so we could get in touch.

For those in the Netherlands, there are many hydroponic grow shops here which were very helpful throughout the process even though I’m only growing herbal tea and vegetables. I’m using Floragrow hydroponic nutrients, which are avilable in Europe, with good results.

Jess

Hey everybody, I finally finished my first window farm (WF). It consists of an air lift and 2 rows of plant containers, with 5 containers in each row.

I put together a DIY guide, see it here (pdf).
I also made a Danish version of the guide (pdf), which includes prices and where to get the parts in Denmark.

I started figuring out how to build a WF, from scratch, about 3 months ago. I live in Denmark so buying a kit was out of the question. It took me a while to understand how the system was supposed to work, and then another while to figure out how I was going to build one myself. I had no experience working with the stuff needed to do this. Stuff like air pumps, tubes, and valves so it was all very confusing to begin with. I didn’t know anything about growing hydroponically either but ever since I saw the TED talk with Britta Riley, about a year ago, I have been interested in the project.

Now my WF is finally up and running and the plants grow bigger every day. So I want to thank this lovely community and the people behind the WF project for teaching me. It has been a lot of fun, and a little infuriating from time to time, when something just wouldn’t work the way I wanted it to.

I went through a couple of test systems, all of the air lift type, before landing on the one I am using now. At first I tried anchoring a tube on the bottom of a big water reservoir, but even though I knew this worked for others, I never managed to make it stable. The air from the pump kept flowing back into the reservoir, instead of lifting the water upwards. I then tried putting a small reservoir at the end of the row of plant containers. This worked very well; the reservoir had a tube in the bottom that went into a U-bend, which prevented air back flow to the reservoir. Unfortunately this setup forced me to reduce the number of plant containers I could have in a row, and I had to add water to the reservoir often, which was annoying. My current setup looks like this:

I put the reservoir, the air pump, and the U-bend below a shelf at my windowsill. There is a small gap between the shelf and the windowsill, where the tubes can get from below to above the shelf.

For reservoir I am using a 10 l (2.6 gallons) water container with a tap that is big enough for 2 tubes to fit into it. I made a plug of silicone sealant around the ends of the 2 tubes, to make a water tight fit (see info. box 1 on the sketch). To make sure the plug stays in place I wrapped some duct tape around the joint.

After leaving the tap of the water container each of the 2 tubes goes into a U-bend. *The U-bend needs to be at least 30 cm (12 inches) from top to bottom to prevent air back flow. (Thank you, Brian White, for sharing this information, the diagram you made really helped me a lot: http://our.windowfarms.org/files/2012/04/contest-with-u-April-7th.jpg)

After the U-bend there is a t-joint, where the water meets the air from the pump. I put a check valve on each of the 2 tubes leading the air to the t-joint, to prevent water reaching the pump (see info. Box 2 on the sketch).

In an effort to decrease the amount of plastic in my WF, and because I thought it would look good, I tried using coconut shells as plant containers. I hollowed out 10 coconut shells, cleaned them, and coated them on the inside with mineral oil to prevent them from absorbing water. I made a braided rope and nets for them to hang in. It looked really good but unfortunately the shells cracked. I think it happened because the shells I got were very old and dried out. I bought them all the same place but later on I tried with a shell bought at another place and it did not react the same way as the others. So I still think it could work with coconut shells, but I grew too impatient and my seedlings grew too big for me to do it all again with other coconuts. I turned to the well known plastic bottle instead, and I am very satisfied with the result.

I reused the rope I used to hang the coconut shells from but had to find another way to attach the new plant containers to the rope. I ended up with a kind of button on system which allows each plant container to be removed without dismantling the entire row. This highly modular system has the advantage that I don’t need net pots in the containers. I couldn’t find any net pots that would fit so I had to do without. If I do get my hands on some good net pots I will use them, though.

So I wanted to use coconut shells as plant containers, partly, because I wanted to reduce materials that could leak toxins into the water and plants. About this I have now come to think that the plant containers are actually the least important part. Most of the time, the water is in the reservoir or the tubes, so it’s more important that these parts don’t contain anything that will leak into the water. As the water drips into a plant container it goes straight through the clay pebbles and into another tube. Most of the clay pebbles that come into contact with the container are dry, as the water runs through the center part. I therefore don’t think the plastic bottles will be able to leak anything into the water, and if it does it will be minimal, compared to the reservoir and tubes.

These are the things I used to make my WF:

1    Air pump: Sera air 275 R plus. It has 2 outlets, a power regulator, and it comes with 2 check  valves

2    Water container with tap: 10 l (2.6 gallons). (It has the glass and fork symbol, which     means it’s intended for food contact; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_safe_symbol)

3    Tube: 4/6 mm (0.15 inches/0.23 inches). I used about 6 m in total (19.6 feet)

4    Tube close up: It has the glass and fork symbol too.

5    T-joint and check valve: I used 2 of each.

6    Water bottle: 2 l (0.5 gallons). I used 10 of these.

7    Twine: 2 mm. (0.08 inches). I used about 10 m in total (32.8 feet).

8    Hooks: I used 7 in total (2 for each row, 2 for the water container, and 1 for the pump)

9    Spray paint: 1 can

10  Buttons: About 1 cm in diameter (0.4 inches). I used 40 of these.

11   Wire: 0.3 mm (0.01 inches). I used about 2 m in total (6.5 feet).

12  Power drill

13  Drill bit (4 mm – 0.15 inches) and screw bit (6 mm – 0.23 inches).

14  Hobby knife

15  Scissors

16  Belt punch

17  Duct tape

18  Silicone sealant

19  Clay pebbles (Leca): I used about 5 l in total (1.3 gallons).

20  Nutrients: Biosevia grow and Biosevia bloom

21  PH test kit (I didn’t use this to make the WF but it’s good to have afterwards)

22  Seeds, soil, egg shells, and egg tray.

23  Planted seeds in egg shells. This is how I grew my seedlings.

The essentials for making an air lift type WF: air pump, water container, tubes, valves and t-joints, grow medium, and nutrients.
The rest (tools, plant containers, plants) can be improvised.

After making the plant containers and assembling the system I transplanted the seedlings into the WF by carefully uprooting them, cleaning the soil from the roots, and putting them into the clay pebbles. The seedlings I have transplanted have all survived, it’s been about 2 weeks now. I also tried transplanting some cuttings from grown plants into the WF. One cutting was from a tomato plant and the others were from a basil plant. The tomato plant cutting had been growing in soil for a while and had become rather large. I thought it had grown too big to survive the transplantation and for a couple of hours it looked like it would die. Then it suddenly started getting better and the next day it was definitely on the mend. After 2 days it was back to normal. (The bend on the stem is caused by the way it has been growing before being put in the WF).

1 hour after transplantation

The next day it looks better

2 days later it's back to normal

The basil cuttings (3 in total) had different reactions: the first had grown pretty big in soil but it had no problem adjusting to the new environment. The second had not developed roots yet and for a long time, after putting it in the WF, it looked like it was dead. All the leaves fell of but I just let it be and now it has developed new leaves and looks like it will survive. The third already looked rather droopy when I put it in the WF and like the second one it dropped its leaves and looked like it was dying, but now it has developed new leaves too.

Besides tomato and basil I am growing chives, thyme, chili, and lettuce.
Row 1, from the top: chili, basil, thyme, chives, and tomato.
Row 2, from the top: chili, basil, thyme, lettuce, and chili again.Later I want to grow more lettuce and some strawberries, cilantro, mint, and pepper.

I don’t have a timer on my system at the moment but I will probably invest in one later on.

Pdf guide (English)
Pdf guide (Danish)

Thanks for reading and happy window farming.
Maj

After waiting several months to after completing my set up, it’s finally off the ground! It was, quite literally, piled in the corner for months while I worked up a way to hang it in my house.  The house is 120 years old and there was NO way to hang it, so I had to find the best way to hang this new contraption.  As you can see in the picture I have a free standing rack with my 2 x 3 planters.  I feel the free standing rig is the best for me simply because it allows me flexibility to relocate it in the future.

Below is a brief description of the components of the system and what I’ve found in setting things up:

Full shot of the WF on its rack

Airlift system:

•  ecoair2 air pump from a local hydroponics store (I couldn’t find a fishtank bubbler)
• ~10′ of clear 1/4″ (i.d) vinyl tube
• ~15′ of 1/8″ (i.d.) black air tube (more than I really needed but it came in handy for my planters)
• 3 plastic T valves
•  twist ties
• 1 medium sized rock (look at the pics, it keeps my air input below the water tank)
• 1 timer w/ settings for 30 mins at a time

I used scrap wood that I found in my basement to build a structure to hang and support the windowfarm as you can see in my pics.  The key here is that I can keep my water tank off the ground via the base, and  the simple hooks in the top.  Hopefully it will stand the tests of time.

OK, I think I’ve figured it out.

• Got login to windowfarms.com – check
• Got login to my.windowfarms.com – check
• Got login to our.windowfarms.org – check

For awhile, I kept trying to login to my.windowfarms.com using my .com login before I realized it’s a separate login! When you login to .com and my.com you use your email, but for our.org it is a username. I double checked to see if there was any more sites. I think I got all of them. Any plans on combining these three sites?

I’ve setup the farm. I think I’ve run into the two most common beginner issues:

1) Top of tube keeps spitting. I really didn’t notice until the poor guy at the top got too wet and died. We cut a bubble tea straw which fit perfectly over it to tame it.

2) The water wasn’t making it up to the top. Instead of melting and molding the bottom tube, I just broke a chopstick into it and it seemed to do the trick.

Both issues seemed pretty minor. I like it. This is the best automated watering/hydroponic system I’ve tried.

• The Aerogrow: I didn’t like that you had to buy the seeds.
• Capillary mat: ended up having everything too wet and had such a small reservoir it wasn’t worth the watering time savings.
• Auto-pot: never seemed to work properly
• Wet-pot:  too wet
• I’ve also tried the generic bottom waterers which really didn’t do much

Hello Everyone,

My name is Pieter and i’m an Architect living in Antwerp Belgium.

Last year i’ve build a 2 string 8 bottle windowfarm and have been experimenting with it since than.

the system works great so i started trying to grow some plants, i’ve tried with seedlings grown on cottenwool and with full grown soil plants, but all they did was die.. I used different types of nutrients, (not specific for hydroculture, so maybe thats the problem) the timer i use is set on a quarter per 1.5 hour.

After killing a lot of plants finaly ONE tomato plant didnt die, and grow quiet big.. but thats before the winter, now its dead as well..

now the wetter is getting better i want to make a fresh start and could use some help with my farm!

what are the tips on good nutrition, which plants go well with one and other, what frequency do i need to put the timer on, etc etc

can someone here help me with that?

thanks!

Hi Friends,Finally after weeks of preparation ,my window farming setup was ready …..lot of problems on the way like water not moving up,problem in drilling holes,the hydroponic soil was not available. But in the end everything came together & the farm was ready…Now the next goal is get some plants in it…

My first try

Hello, I’ve attempted my first window farm this week as a prototype for class. It’s been a bit difficult to find proper supplies in Hong Kong due to language barriers. Challenges and questions I’ve come across while exercising my poor engineering skills. I will be using black socks to cover the bottom of the bottles.

1. My seedlings have already been attacked twice with aphids and fungus gnats in it’s growing plugs. I had to start a fresh batch. If the seedlings are already so sensitive to the  moisture and humidity, how soon will my window farm be attacked by these pest? Anyone have experience with handling this in a humid country?

2. My tubing is too stiff to direct it away from the seedling. I’ve seen some systems using a toothpick or wooden chopstick, but my result was a moldy chopstick. I ended up using a fishing wire just to hold it down and a tape to keep the tube in place. I obviously need to find a better alternative. 

3. Reservoir problem. Due to the limited space in HK, I don’t have the luxury to have a big bottle for reservoir so I attempted to use a ketchup bottle on the bottom. I found the tip was a good way to plug the tubing in (I still need to reinforce it with plumbers tape, but haven’t found it yet).

4. Cutting through plastic was the biggest challenge.  I am not a very handy person, but I attempted to use the drill to make some holes on the bottom of the bottles but the bottom is thicker than the rest of the bottle, so I am not able to cut through it. In the end, I made a big circle but the bottles don’t fit perfectly. Any suggestions? I thought about using sticks to reinforce it.

5.I wanted to try out using water beads instead of clay pellets. Anyone have any success in it?

Yesterday evening I couldn’t wait any longer so I planted my little plants in the pots and hoped they would survive! This morning I was taking a few pictures of my farm and I really love it, can’t wait for my plants to grow bigger!

So far I have cucumber, tomatoes (two kinds), spinach and peas. I’m trying to grow some basil, parsley and lettuce as well but they all need more time in the soil before moving them to the pots.