Hi all!

I was in desperate search of more information for Plants i could grow, and I found quite a measure of information. I will just post all the plants I found information on, but not all of them can be grown hydroponically (like root plants). I hope I will be able to add even more information in time (please help gather more information which I can add) and it would be great to add a section ‘tested by window farms’ or something to verify the information.

Hope you want to help and have fun researching and using this information.

1.      Electro-conductivity (EC) or Conductivity factor (cF) can be expressed as either millisiemens (mS), cF or parts per million (PPM) 1 mS(/cm?) = 10cF =
700ppm

2.      The pH and electro~conductivity values specified here are given as a broad range. It should be noted that specific plant requirements will vary according to regional climatic conditions, and from season to season within that region.

3.      As a general rule, plants will have a higher nutrient requirement during cooler months, and a lower requirement In the hottest months.  Therefore, a stronger nutrient solution should be maintained during winter, With a weaker solution during summer when plants take up and transpire more water than nutrients.

4.      KNOW YOUR CROP.     Plant EC or cF may vary according to the stage of growth. For example, cucumber prefer cF 20 when establishing, and cF 25 after the first harvest. Between and 7 weeks after first harvest, the optimum cF is 17.

5.      For easy growing reference, plants that share broad groupings of low (L), medium (M) or high (H) can be grown together using the same nutrient electro- conductivity, providing middle ground cF and ph are adopted.

6.      The nutrient solution should be discarded at regular intervals. Should there be a requirement to flush the growing bed, the system should be flushed with fresh nutrients (run-to-waste) rather than water to avoid starving or stressing the plant.

The Column ‘Light’ is for the Day- / Night ratio needed (or helpful) for flowering

‘Water’ should someday contain Tipps how much Water (preferred in drip her minute or something) or just low, medium and a general description of that range here.

‘Sun’ will say how much sun/ Shadow the Plant likes

‘Tested’ If tested by someone in the commentary and maybe how hard it is to do it (in planing)

‘Groups’ (L,M,H) as described above, ‘Nutritions needed’ would be a suggestion of Nutrition Solution and other Tipps

Sources:

www.gthydro.com (careful at the moment there seems to be some kind of virus infection. It could be harmful to your computer)

http://cherylsnotebook.blogspot.com/2010/01/growing-blackberrys-raspberrys-and.html

http://growcontrol.co.uk/cf_ph_nutrient_chart.pdf

http://our.windowfarms.org/2012/01/20/photoperiodism

This was about a week after we set it up. We started the beans & cucumbers from seed in a little greenhouse on top of the fridge. The top two pots are cucumbers and the bottom has 4 green beans.

We hung the pots with some hemp we had in our craft surplus & made the trellis out of the hemp & bamboo stakes. I’ve even made a bow and arrow out of the bamboo!

This is how the middle & bottom pot get watered. There is a piece of bamboo shoved up there to keep the tubing straight.

Here’s the reservoir, made from a cereal tupperware we got at Target & some ducting tape to make it lightproof. We took the little hinged pour spout off of the lid and ran the watering and drainage tubing through the opening. You can also see the timer there, right now we run the water pump for 15 mins every 2 hours from 6am to 6pm. As the plants get bigger we might have to adjust the schedule, but for now it works out.

We use a water pump we had around the house and it works great until the water level in the res gets down to about 25%. It’s a good reminder that it’s time for a refill without having the pump run dry.

Our first sight of beans!

Beans, beans….

….and more BEANS!!

Okay, enough beans. Here’s our first cucumber flower!

We’re getting a lot of male flowers, just waiting for that female! Well, that’s what we have so far. If you have any specific questions on what we used or how we use it leave a comment or send a message & we’d love to share!

Happy Growing!

-The Sanders

We plan on helping out spreading the WindowFarm idea through Colorado. By hopefully sometime be able to set up some time to traveling to elementary, middle, and high schools and presenting our WindowFarm project we made from scratch. Using tools that anyone can buy from a local store and such. In order to do this we have created a mobile WindowFarm system (as you can see in my profile picture) to help maneuver the WindowFarm around. Here are some other pictures as well of our just 1-3 bottle system we have set up for it.

Here as you can see are some microgreens and some zuchinni growing and yes we are switching out the zuchinni to a smaller plant. We also have the main tubing right in front as well.

Here you see the set up we have with the main air tube, we have the straws for covering the chains we used so they dont rust.

We have a ten gallon tub filled with liquid nutrients. And you can see the setup we have in the water of our siphening system.

Here is I say a rough draft of our mobile WindowFarm. We are looking to simplify it down a little bit but this is just a start for now. The mobile system main use is to use for travleing to school to school without having to carry everything. It can also be used to move from window to window if necessary and I’m sure many other reasons. But I’m hoping for everybody who see’s this to spread the word so we try and kick this mobile system off the ground.

If any questions please email me at fcchavez10@yahoo.com, or message me on my profile.

It’s the end of day two and I’m seeing some germination signs in my basil and lettuce. I think the squash is also getting started. I’m trying to leave the tomatoes alone, since I am trying to not be obsessive, but I think hope they’re starting to germinate.

It’s a four-bottle window farm, with a pump set up similar to that of V2.0. I think the needles are starting to rust already, and I need to buy replacements, as well as better tape for waterproofing.

I kind of like to just sit next to it and listen and watch. I’m already thinking about adding a second row, with snow peas and maybe strawberries.

As an addition to Brittas Light Blog-Post, I want to share with you what I researched.

This Blog is about Photoperiodism, an phenomenon which we can use to influence our Plants if we want to. But there exist many other means to influence Plants like Temperature, Color of the Light,  intesity of Light, Nutritions, Ph,…

Photoperiodism is about the length of the light and dark period in 24h.  With the length of uninterrupted darkness as a critical Part.

Short-day Plants (SD) need fewer than a certain number of hours of light in 24 hours to maintain or induce a special effect.

Long-day Plants (LD) need more than a certain number of hours of Light.

Intermediate-day Plants (ID) need more than … hours of light but less then … .

Day-neutral Plants (DN) are indifferent to the length of light for the effect you want.

Temperature can influence a Plants category. And some Plants need short days for a time before they become Long-day Plants (and the other way Round). Some need their special Light periode or they wont flower (or somthing)(absolute Effect) and some just benefit from their Light period and flower more (quantitative/qualitativ Effect).

We want to influence Flowering

For that effect I have found some Tables of Plants and their categories:

If nothing noteted behind they are probably absolute (or not) but it definitly has an effect. The Latin names are from the Book and the explanation is from wikipedia and can be falsly interpreted by me.

Short-day Plants

Allium cepa (lT<8° for sev. weeks otherwise DN, q?) – Onion – ger: Zwiebel

Amarantus caudatus/graecizans (q?) – Grain alternative, vegetable

Ambrosia elatior – weed – ger: Unkraut

Andropogon virginicus(q?)/ gerardii – a grass – ger: Grassorte

Bryophyllum pinnatum – medical Plant: Leaf of Life – ger: Heilpflanze: Brutblatt

Cannabis sativa ‘Kentucky’ (q?)

Cattleya trianae – Orchids Flower

Chenopodium rubrum (q?)/albrum (hT SD, lT DN, ID?) – goosefoots – ger: Gänsefüße

Chrysanthemum morifolium (lT<8° for sev. weeks)/ indicum - Flower

Coffea arabica – one Sort of Coffee Plant

Cosmos bipinnatus (q)/sulphureus ‘Orange Flare’ (DN hT, SD lT), ‘Klondike’ – Flower

Datura stramonium (q, older Plants DN) – Thorn apple (poisonous)

Euphorbia pulcherrima (SD hT, LD lT) -Flower: Christmas Star

Fragaria x ananassa (SD hT, q lT) – Strawberry

Glycine max ‘Biloxi’ (q?), ‘Mandell’ (q) – Soybean

Gossypium hirsutum (q) – Upland Cotton

Helianthus annuus (q)/ tuberosus (q) – Sunflower

Holcus sudanensis (q SD hT, DN lT) – grass

Impatiens balsamina (DN?)- medical Plant: Garden-/ Rose Balsam

Ipomoea batatas (q?)- Sweet potatoes (Some sorts are poisonus – check before)

Ipomoea purpurea ‘Heavenly Blue’ (SD hT, LD lT) – Flower: Morning Glory

Kalanchoe blossfeldiana – Flower

Lemna perpusilla – freshwater aquarium Plant

Lespedeza stipulacea – Flower: Corean Clover

Malva verticillata (q SD hT, DN lT) – Chinese Mallow

Nicotiana tabacum ‘Maryland’, ‘Mammoth’ (SD hT, DN lT) – sounds unhealthy

Oryza sativa (q?, DN?) – Asian Rice

Perilla crispa (lT flowers slowly with LD) – Chinese basil, purple mint, rattlesnake weed

Pharbitis nil (SD hT, DN lT) – Flower: Morning Glory

Phaseolus lunatus (DN?) – lima bean, butter bean

Phaseolus vulgaris (SD for fruit development, DN flowering?) – bean

Saccharum spontaneum (q) – grass

Salvia splendens (SD hT, DN or q SD lT) – Scarlet Sage – ger: Feuersalbei (Herb or Flower?)

Senecio cruentus (q) – Flower

Solanum tuberosum – Potato

Xanthium strumarium – medical, toxic

Zea mays (DN?) – Maize / Corn – ger: Mais

Zinnia x hybrida (q) – Flower

Zygocactus truncatus (q SD hT, DN lT) – cactus

Long-day Plants

Agropyron smithii - Western wheatgrass

Agrostemma githago (q lT<8° for sev. weeks) – Flower: Corncockle (poisonus)

Agrostis nebulosa/ palustris - bentgrass

Alopecurus pratensis – Grass: Meadow Foxtail

Anagallis arvensis/ tenella (lT<8° for sev. weeks) – Flower: Scarlet / Bog pimpernel

Anethum graveolens – Herb: Dill

Anthemis cotula (q LD hT, DN lT) – Flower: stinking chamomile

Antirrhinum majus (q LD hT, DN lT) – Flower: Snapdragon

Arabidopsis thaliana & biennial strains (lT<8° for sev. weeks) - thale cress (research model)

Arenaria serpyllifolia (q lT<8° for sev. weeks) - Thyme-leaved Sandwort

Avena sativa winter strains (lT<8° for sev. weeks, Short-long-day Plants without lT), spring strains – Oat – ger: Hafer

Begonia semperflorens (q LD hT, DN lT) – Flower

Beta saccharifera & vulgaris (lT<8° for sev. weeks, q LD at hT) – ?

Brassica pekinensis (lT LD, q LD at hT)/ rapa (q) - Celery cabbage

Bromus inermis (lT<8° for sev. weeks) – Grass

Calamintha acinus = Acinos arvensis (lT<8° for sev. weeks) - Basil thyme

Camelia japonica (q) – Flower: Japanese Camellia part of the tea Familly

Campanula primulifolia (q lT<8° for sev. weeks) – ?

Centaurea cyanus (q LD hT, DN lT) - Cornflower

Cheiranthus cheiri (q lT<8° for sev. weeks) – Flower: Aegean wallflower

Chrysanthemum maximum – (I don’t know about maximum but C. morifolium has medicinal and herbal uses)

Cichorium inybus (LD hT, DN lT)/ endivia (q at lT<8° for sev. weeks) – Salad:  Chicory/ Endivie (we don’t want to induce flowering there? or only for new seeds)

Delphinium cultorum (LD lT, DN hT) – Flower – Larkspur? Poisonus, medicinal

Dianthus arenarius & caesius & gallicus & graniticus (lT<8° for sev. weeks)/ barbatus & caryophyllus (q lT<8° for sev. weeks)/ prolifera (q)/ superbus – Flower

Digitalis purpurea (q lT<8° for sev. weeks) – Flower poisonus

Euphorbia pulcherrima (SD hT, LD lT) -Flower: Christmas Star

Festuca elatior – grass

Fuchsia hybrida ‘Lord Byron’ – Flower

Hibiscus syriacus – Flower: Rose of Sharon

Hordeum vulgare winter strains (lT<8° for sev. weeks, Short-long-day Plants without lT), spring strains (q) – Grain: Barley – Gerste

Hyoscyamus niger anual strain, biennial strain (lT<8° for sev. weeks) – Poisonus, medicinal -Henbane

Iberis intermedia ‘Durandii’ (q lT<8° for sev. weeks) – ?

Ipomoea purpurea ‘Heavenly Blue’ (SD hT, LD lT) – Flower: Morning Glory

Lactuca sativa (q lT<8° for sev. weeks, q LD hT, DN lT) – Salad: Lettuce – Kopfsalat

Lemna gibba G3 – Duckweed - bucklige Wasserlinse

Leucanthemum cobennense (q lT<8° for sev. weeks) – Flower

Lithospermum arvense (lT<8° for sev. weeks) – Flower

Lolium italicum/ perenne (lT<8° for sev. weeks)/ temulentum ‘Ceres’, ’6139′& ’6137′  (lT<8° for sev. weeks), ‘Ba’ (q) – Grass

Lychnis coronaria (q lT<8° for sev. weeks) – Flower

Lysimachia nemorum – Flower

Matthiola incana (q LD hT, DN lT) – Flower: hoary stock

Medicago minima/ sativa (q LD hT, DN lT) – burclover

Melilotus alba – medicinal: honey clover

Mentha piperita ‘Vulgaris’ – herbal, medicinal: Peppermint – Pfefferminze

Myosotis hispida (q lT<8° for sev. weeks) – Flower: Forget-me-not?

Nicotiana sylvestris/ tabacum ‘Havana’ (q) – sounds unhealthy

Nigella arvensis & damascena (q) – spice herb: love-in-a-mist – Schwarzkümmel

Oenothera acaulis, biennis& lamarckiana& logniflora& parviflora biennis& stricta& suaveolens (lT<8° for sev. weeks)/ rosea (q) – Flower: Evening primrose

Petunia hybrida (q LD hT, DN lT) – Flower

Phalaris arundinacea – aquatic: reed canarygrass

Phleum nodosum/ pratense – Grass

Phlox paniculata – Flower: Garden Phlox

Pisum sativum ‘Tall Telephone’ (late flowering, q lT<8° for sev. weeks) – Pea – Erbse

Poa pratensis (q LD hT, DN lT) – Grass

Raphanus sativus – Radish – Radieschen

Rudbeckia bicolor (LD lT, DN hT)/ hirta/ speciosa – Flower

Samolus parviflorus – aquatic: water rose

Saxifraga hypnoides – ornamental, ‘yukinoshita’ can be eaten

Scabiosa canescens (q lT<8° for sev. weeks)/ ukranica – Flower

Scrophularia arguta (q) – medicinal: figworts – Braunwurz

Secale cereale winter strains (q lT<8° for sev. weeks) – Rye – Roggen

Sedum spectabile/ telephium – Flower

Silene armeria (LD, lT<8° for sev. weeks will substitute partly LD requirements as well as hT (32°) SD) – carnivorous Plant?

Sinapis alba (q LD at high irradiances, q lT<8° for sev. weeks) – herbal spice: White Mustard

Solanum nigrum (q LD hT, DN lT)/ tuberosum (q) – Careful! There are Poisonus strains that can be fatal! The other strains can be used to eat, as spice or medicinal: Black Nightshade

Sonchus oleraceus (q) – Herbal medicine/ spice, eatable: Milkweed – Gänsedistel

Spinacia oleracea (LD, lT<8° for sev. weeks will substitute partly LD requirements) – Spinach – Spinat

Teucrium scorodonia (q lT<8° for sev. weeks) – herbal: wood sage – Salbei- Gamander

Trifolium aestivum winter strain (lT<8° for sev. weeks, Short-long-day Plants without lT)/ pratense ‘English Montgomery’, ‘American Medium’ (q)/ subterraneum (LD, lT<8° for sev. weeks will substitute partly LD requirements) – medicinal, food, large quantity consumption mildly toxic: Clover – Klee

Triticum aestivum spring strains (q), winter strains (q lT<8° for sev. weeks) – Wheat – Weich Weizen

Tropaeolum majus (LD hT, DN lT) – herb spice, medicinal, ornamental: monks cress – Kapuzinerkresse

Vicia sativa (q LD hT, DN lT) – vetch (can be eaten)

Long-short-day

Plants that need a Period of Long-days followed by Short-days to flower

Aloe bulbilifera

Bryophyllum crenatum & tubiflorum & verticillata

Cestrum aurantiacum & diurnum/ nocturnum (LSD at 23°C, DN >24°C)/ reflexum (<19°C)

Short-long-day

Plants that need a Period of Short-days followed by Long-days to flower

Echeveria harmsii

Scabiosa succisa

Trifolium repens

Symphyandra hoffmannii

Intermediate-day

Plants need more than … hours of light but less then …

more to come soon   I will try to find the ‘change’ button and add more Plants gradually

A little bit of encouragement in the comments would be greatly appreciated!

And People who want to test these findings (at least for interesting Plants *gg*) are very welcome!

Zis

—

editet January 20, 2012 – Found the ‘edit’ button addet more Short-day Plants and explanations

editet January 21, 2012 – all Short-day Plants from the Book ‘Photoperiodism in Plants’ not yet all the explanations

editet January 22, 2012 – more explanations, probably possible to grow in Windowfarm -> underlined , interesting if possible to grow -> grey

editet January 23, 2012 – Short-day Plants explanations finished , long-day Plants started

editet January 29, 2012 – finished adding Long-day Plants

editet February 2, 2012 – added Long-day Plants explanations

editet February 10, 2012 – absulute – quantitativ/qualitativ explanations as far as I know -> should look up absolute Plants but it’s not clearly said most of the time , added all explanations on Long-day, added all LSD, added some SLD

Sources:

Photoperiodism in Plants – Vince-Prue, Daphne – 1975

http://lifeofplant.blogspot.com/2011/03/photoperiodism.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-night_plant

It’s been a couple of weeks since I built my first double-column hanging windowfarm design, and so far it’s been very solid. Good water flow and stable system. My plants are doing great! (except for my strawberry plant. Any advice on that?)

I wanted to improve on my original design, as having things look good as well as function really well is important to me, so here’s my newer and improved design. (the one on the left is the new one, no holes cut in the buckets yet.)

The fifth blue bucket on the right side column is now the water reservoir, which I think looks better than a bottle at the bottom.

It looks very similar to my v.1 model, but the functions are quite different, although it still uses the basic airlift system. I ended up replacing the clear tubing with acrylic clear pipe, as it just looks much better and is easier to clean.

In the above picture of the old/new designs, you can see that there is a T at the top of the tube. This is because I reduced it down to one airlift which splits at the top.

Turns out that the distribution of left and right for the water coming up is directly proportionate to the amount of tubing there is left after the T, so cutting them to the same length gives an even flow between the two sides.

You can also see that there is much less tubing hanging below the water reservoir, which looks less cluttered.

Here are the improvements that v.2 has over v.1

• Looks better (IMHO)
• Reduced the piping/tubing needed by 50%.
• Still get the same amount of water flow to the plants.
• Cleaning the tubes just got twice as easy!

It was at first difficult to find the net pots and compatible bottles to use. I ordered a crate of bottled water online, which was probably a bad idea. I also had to order the net pots online.

Below is my first prototype. I had trouble getting the airlift to work, probably because I stubbornly refused to buy the rigid clear pipe that was on the manual, and instead opted for a much cheaper clear tubing method.

After much trial and error I created this simple solution which so far as been completely reliable and my one air pump can probably power eight airlifts like this, since I have to turn the power way down to slow down the water going up.

(when I made this, I didn’t read the other entries which described this very method. Would have saved me a heap of trouble if I had just looked here.)

A few friends who saw this for the first time became very interested and want to build their own now.

After success with my first model, I decided (at my wife’s request) that I wanted to make a new one that was more pleasing to the eye, (this is in my living room) and so I want to Daiso, which is Japan’s equivalent to a dollar store, and bought some plastic buckets and hooks and came up with this new design, which my wife likes much better.

It’s all based on the same concept and inside of each bucket is actually the upside-down top of a bottle screwed to the bottom.

The cone-shaped things hanging down were bought at Daiso and are actually made to screw on to bottles and stick into soil to nourish plants, so it worked out quite nicely.

There are two airlifts which both feed out of the same reservoir at the bottom, and both end up draining back into it.

A few practical advantages to this system:

• Because the pots are just hanging on hooks, you can very easily move the pots around for cleaning, light placement etc., without having to reconnect chains or other type of hanging systems.
• Two systems hanging on one column saves space.
• The staggered arrangement of the pots allow multiple columns to be placed close to each other.
• An open top may help the plants to not become too lopsided. (I’ve seen videos of this problem sometimes happening with previous models.) You can just flip the thing around to get it to grow the other way.

I would love to get feedback from other members and especially anybody in Japan who is also interested in windowfarming.

I will post more photos as I make more models and improvements to my systems.

At the attic I’ve a window with a height of 117cm between the window sill and the ceiling. The ceiling and sides are plasterboard, so I dare not screw the supporting hooks in. Instead I’ve used a dynamic length shower-curtain rail with a build in spring. This particular version has a range of 110-180 cm. Pulling the edge 3 cm’s more then the required height and then pushing the spring to wedge the rail in between the ceiling and the window sill. The rubber tips prevent sideway movement and the pressure is set just enough so that the plasterboard doesn’t damage.

Here with a picture of my set-up:

The bottle ropes are attached to the tube using plastic pipe attachment clips (normally to attach a pipe to a wall). I use them on top of the bottom tube edge and attach the top chain around it. Since I am using flexible tubing I found a small clip which nicely supports the flexible tube and prevents closing off. I also leave some additional room to run the water slowly back down, this helps to limit the gurgeling sound of water going (too fast) up.

As you can see it’s a 4 bottle set-up, with 3 plant bottles in front of the window and the reservoir bottle just below the windowsill. I figured this would give some more shade and prevent evaporation and hopefully algea. In this version, I would liked to have the bottle lower, so that it is completely in the shade, but my table prevents this and does not allow it to go down more and stil leave enough room for the tubes underneath.

I am using the T-piece air-lift system outside the reservoir bottle. As an airpump I am using Tetratec APS 150 (80-150 liter, single outlet, 4 watt, 150 l/h, EURO 25,-). Behind the airpump I have a T-piece with one end-going through a regulation valve (controlling the amount of air) then a check-valve (preventing water to the airpump) to the T-piece with the water (to lift); the other-end is also going to a regulation valve to be able to diminish the total power of the airpump. I’ve noticed that this pump is too powerful and it pushes and breaks the droplets of water going up, creating a lot of gurgling noise. Letting air escape reduces the amount of air going to the water-tube and allows for more fluid going up and remain (more) as a droplet.

Since I couldn’t find the rigid clear tubes, I am using flexible tubing for all. I assume that this is the cause for smaller droplets going up then I see in some videos, but it works good enough.

I had trouble with getting the air-lift to work. It turned out, that my piece of tube between the reservoir and the T-piece was too short (16 cm). This caused the air to go to the reservoir instead of lifting the water up. Currently I have +- 60 cm of tube rolled up and total air-pressure reduced (by letting more air escape). If I increase the air-pressure too much then this air-pump still creates bubbles in the reservoir. The main-problem is the limited distance (+- 10cm) between the reservoir output and the table top. If I remove the wash-basin (my protection for flooding) and let the tube hang down then it works oke. But if I roll it up, then I need to reduce total air pressure. Having the additional air escape makes this level of control possible.

After building this window farm and getting the air-lift to work, I tested the setup during 24 hours letting it run continuously. Even though the shop said this was the most silent air pump, I found the setup still making a lot of noise. There is the airpump making a low vibrating noise itself, the hissing of the air-escape valve, some gurgling of the water going up and the dripping in the (then empty) bottles. Especially the dripping was getting on my nerves.

I’ve found a very neat solution for this: attaching a piece of rope between the tip of the previous bottle going into the growing medium. The water follows the rope and doesn’t drip anymore. I am using “vlastouw” (this is Dutch, according to google: flax-rope) which is made from natural fibers and compostable. It really makes a big difference in the noise being made. I still find that the air-pump makes to much noise, so maybe one-day I’ll make a noise canceling cover for it. [If anyone has any designs, please feel free to sent me a link].

Since I am using a 1.5 liter bottle as reservoir, I’ve read that it is very easy to get problems with PH and nutrition levels. For the moment I’ve glued a paper measure on the reservoir next to the water-level window so that I can exactly track the amount of water and calculate the amount of nutritions to replenish.

Since the 1.5 liter Fanta bottles I am using have a big squeeze in the bottom (which support the 8cm normal plant cups with holes quite nicely) I’ve measured the amount of water entered for each cm. Here is my list:

I’ve made the measurements by eye, so I noticed that they are not very accurate, but I imagine they are accurate enough to not always have to change all the water and nutrition to often (I am aiming for once a week topping of and once a month a total refresh). I’ve added the percentage columns if I need to calculate nutrition strengths by hand. The last column is for the nutrition I am using to start with: “Biologische Groentevoeding; voor groenten, fruit en kruiden” from Intratuin (NPL 3+1+5, Vinasse, 3% organisch gebonden stikstof (organic nitrogen), 1% Fosforzuurhydride (P2O5) oplosbaar in water, 5% Kaliumoxide (K2O) oplosbaar in water).

I am starting out with 3 bottles of Basilicum (Basil) from seeds and hope that this nutrion will work well.

Since I can’t find rockwool I use hydrokorrels instead (the little red rocks for hydroculture). I am expecting the seeds to wash-out. Therefore I’ve thought of a little experiment to prevent this. I insert three seeds in between a small piece of (serviette) paper which retains water very well. I close the paper on it self and put it at 70% of the pot and fill it up with more of the little rocks. For each of the bottles I use a little different watering scheme:
1. the top bottle gets water from direct dripping on the rocks above the paper.
2. the middle bottle has the vlax rope in between the sheets of paper
3. the bottom bottle has the vlax rope underneath the sheets of paper

At the moment I am using pure water, until the seeds have germinated and get roots to support themselves, after which I will start to slowly increase the amount of nutrion.

The water cycle is set to 15 minutes ON / 45 minutes OFF / 24×7. I don’t know if I am able to germinate the seeds, or that they will be able to get-out of the paper. But I’ll see in 2 weeks time. As a preventive measure, I’ve also germinated some seeds in between paper towels on the side which I will water once a day and keep in a shady place (underneath the desk).

Bottom – Middle – Top – Germinating the seeds 3 different ways.

And here are pictures from the final results:

Bottom – Middle – Top – Final filling up with rocks.

As future improvements I have in mind:
1. [short term] an expansion with an additional set of 4 bottles on the other side of the pole [just need another bottle to be painted and another french-ventiel];
2. [mid term] getting rid of the reservoir bottles and replacing them with a big (> 10 liter) container to reduce maintenance load, PH and nutrition stress;
3. [long term] buying an electronic PH, EC, Temperature meter to keep track of the important parameters;
4. [maybe] finding some LED growlights, since living in the Netherlands with a window to the East, starting in January is maybe not such a good idea (but then again I am hesitant due to the light-pollution and the electricity needed, maybe with a solar-accu-pack ???);
5. [someday] attach the PH/EC/Temperature/(light-level?) meter to a computer using USB to have an automatic periodic registration of values, to keep systematic track of the inputs for the plants (anyone knows a good/cheap sensor/low-power data collector?). Ultimately I would love to have a total hands-off fully automated system. Anyone have one?
6. [After a successful Basil experiment] Grow Lettuce, Strawberries, Cherry Tomato’s ??? Can that be done (without additional lights?) over here?

I keep you updated with the results from my germination experiment and look forward reading your comments on my little setup.

Bye for now and leave a comment I’ve you know improvements or have other tips of just like this post.

 

Skylight Windowfarm

Just getting Started with my loft windowfarms.
The Jana water bottles seem to be perfect, it is a Croatian brand of spring water.

Suspended with a hook and shoestrings.
Airline tubing is 10cents a foot.
Tvalves are a few cents each.
the pump was pretty darn cheap, repurposed from fish tank.
3″ net pots were 50cents each
I had some paint, was cracky, gonna start doing acrylic painted/modgepodged bottles for fun flair.

Seeds I’ve Started:

Oregon Sugar Pod Peas – Pisum sativum
Green Onions

PEPPERS – Capsicum
Habanero – Capsicum chinense
Jalapeno – Capsicum annuum
Bhut Jolokia – interspecific hybrid (mostly C. chinense with some C. frutescens genes)

TOMATOES – Solanum lycopersicum
Roma
Brandywine
Yellow Pears

GREENS
Rouge d’Hiver Lettuce –
Arugula –
Dwarf Blue Curled Kale – Brassica oleracea

HERBS
Purple Basil – Ocimum basilicum
Cilantro – Coriandrum sativum
Sage – Salvia officinalis
Oregano – Origanum vulgare
Thyme – Thymus vulgaris
Chamomile -Matricaria recutita

More to come!