Hello you beautiful people,

This is an update to my first post found here:

http://our.windowfarms.org/2013/01/03/heres-to-a-blooming-project/

I have had lots of success with my first set of crops off of my window farm, and lots of “oppurtunities for growth” (ha!).

The vast majority of luck I have had has actually been with my pepper plants! I have taken a first harvest off my cayenne pepper, which was so bountiful that all of the peppers I could not manage to use for cooking I am now drying so I can grind them into my own homemade cayenne pepper spice.

Also, I was pleasantly surprised when my first pepper plant (whose seeds came from a mixed bell pepper grab bag) turned out to be purple! Huzzah!

The thing I am really enjoying about my pepper plants is that  even though they are usually very difficult to grow in Canada because of the limited growing season, an indoor garden growing season is limitless, so you can give them as much time as they need. Also, they are productive yet compact, which is means they don’t over take other plants in my system. I am having the opposite of the experience with my tomatoes. They have managed to take over the entirety of the window and the productivity to space ratio just really is not cutting it! I planted mainly small tomato varieties, since I was nervous about how much weight my system could hold. For my next round of small tomatos I will have to do some more pruning. I did sucker all of my current tomato plants, but I really plan to discourage them from getting so tall next time.

Another issue I am wondering if anyone else is experiencing, is that a lot of my tomatoes have succumb to blossom rot (black spots on the bottom of the tomatoes). I ripped out a gigantic yellow pear tomato plant because all of the 20 tomatoes it was growing developed black spots on the bottom! Does anyone else have any experience with this issue?

I have finally gotten around to upgrading my air lift system to a t-valve setup, which I have been really enjoying. I now only have to fill up my reservoirs every 4 or 5 days, as opposed to every day and a half. Which is great that I don’t have to worry about my plants when I head up to the mountains for a long weekend!

My other crops which have been moderately successful have been beans and peas. However, both of these plants only produced a small serving of fruit each, which was great for a snack, but not terribly effective as a serving of vegetables with a meal. Even so I have planted more of both peas and green beans, since they are so quick to grow. Also, the snap peas in particular are incredibly tasty.

I am learning that for the most part, my window farm is an awesome project that I really enjoy, but only very specific crops actually yield a really useable harvest. Which is totally fine, as long as you look at your project as an awesome hobby, not a substitute for grocery shopping.

My new crops that I am currently sprouting include dwarf kale, brandywine tomatoes, black beauty eggplants and edamame beans! I am extremely excited about the eggplant, since they are genetically similar to peppers, I am hoping that they will behave in a similar manner to the peppers in the system. Also, I am hoping the brandywine tomatoes will give me a little more bang for my buck with growing space, because they are supposed to be huge! The packet says 12 to 20 oz., so fingers crossed!

Also, if any one is wondering if power bills have been effected at all by my aquarium pump and three grow lights, it has not! My power bill still ranges between $65 and $70 dollars a month, and I think it is alot more dependent on how much I use my clothes dryer, than keeping my grow lights on.

I would love to hear any input about the blossom rot issues, tomato pruning tips, and what varieties of plants others are having lots of success with!

Happy Urban Gardening

It’s been almost a year since I lasted posted on here. Now I’m back with a little video update below. I bought a new air pump because my last one back siphoned due to the fact I didn’t have it elevated higher than my reservoir…oops! The new one has four air outlets, so I’m thinking of setting up a horizontal system on the other side of my window sill.

I’m open to any advice or comments! Here’s the video update link…

http://j-memory.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/mov015.mov

Hey guys,

The windowfarm is coming along, but now I’m stuck on which fertilizer to choose, I found these two

for the blooming period:

http://www.dampkring.nl/18535/advanced-nutrients-ph-perfect-bloom.html

for the growing period:

http://www.dampkring.nl/18517/advanced-nutrients-ph-perfect-grow.html

It says in the description that they are general hydroponic fertilizers, sounded good to me but i just wanted to run it past you guys.

Do you think these are any good? and what about amounts? I’m building 4 columns of 4 plants.

Many thanks in advance!

Tom

 The pictures in the gallery are my pride and joy.  After one year of working with lighting specific for the window gardens -  here is the result. 

You can see more on my kickstarter campaign -    http://kck.st/VvSZD2

Hi everybody.

I’m sure this has been discussed before, but for the life of me I can’t find the information I’m looking for.  So, I’m starting a two-column version 3.0 windowfarm with the t-joint style lift system, and I’m trying to figure out what kinds of plants to plant.  Ideally I’d like to have one column of fruiting plants, such as strawberries, tomatoes, bell peppers, and maybe peas or more strawberries.  In the other column I’d like to grow greens and herbs, probably mostly lettuce.

I’m worried about the fruiting column for a couple of reasons.  First, there’s the weight of those big plants and their fruit.  Will the bead chain hold?  Has anyone out there hung a few heavy plants like these using the #6 stainless steel bead chain recommended in the parts list?  Should I reinforce it, or what?  Mainly, though, I am worried about keeping all the plants in sync with each other.  The fruiting plants will be in the same column so that I can switch their nutrient solution to something for fruiting when they’re ready, but what if they aren’t ready at the same time?  What about lighting to simulate seasons?  Can I give all these plants the same amount of light  all the time?  And, do they have different life spans/cycles?  I’ve seen posts featuring some quite elderly strawberry plants, but can I expect my fruiting plants to keep producing for similar lengths of time?

If you have some experience or knowledge about these issues or other issues that I haven’t thought of yet, please let me know!

Thanks,

Bill

All of my seedlings have been moved to my window farm! The herbs are still super tiny, but growing quickly. The peas and beans are by far the biggest plants and are growing beautifully.

So far I have had only a few minor hiccups with this setup. Occasionally the air needle will get clogged and doesn’t really do anything but blow bubbles until I clean it out. But other then that, everything works great!

I can’t wait for these little plants to grow big and strong so I can start cooking with them Now you guys probably want to see some pictures…

My futuristic and clever method of labeling

Room for 2 more columns!

The clear tube gets a little nasty after a while and needs to be cleaned.

Thanks for checking out my Window Farm! Happy urban-farming!!

 It’s been 3 weeks since my first post, so an update seemed appropriate. We changed the nutrients twice and left the pump on the same timer, 30 mins every two hours except at night time when we water 30 min every 4 hours.

I am happy to come home to this beauty and even tasted a few leaves. The basil is growing tall and a bit heavy. At times it will lean against my window, which is probably burning the leaves since the temperature of the glass can be very cold.

How do I know when it’s ready for harvest? Is there a way to regenerate the plant and keep growing basil and lettuce from existing leaves/roots?

Also, we were interested in growing mint and cilantro. I imagine we have to choose plants that like the same nutrients and same pH. Is there a reference sheet for this somewhere?

I wish there was more guidance at this stage.

When I was pruning and cleaning I discovered standard mini tomato plants can share a pot but dwarf mini tomatoes cannot share a pot. One plant dominates and the other plants are stunted. I had to throw out two plants because they were so small.

Hi. I’m at week 7 of my kit and baby plants. I had to get a grow light b/c my window only gets light from like 8-2 in the winter months and it seemed they were growing slow. Also,  I realized today I had been over nutrient-ing them, and the pH kept being up around 7.5. Perhaps that’s why I am getting the fuzzy mold on the pellets. I just adjusted the nutrients to the proper amount today and started with a lower pH solution by adding some lemon. I think they are going to take off now (I hope).

Question: when does seedling/baby plant stage and and “vegetative” state begin, and when does the fruit or bloom stage begin if you don’t have fruiting plants? I was trying to determine how much nutrients to be giving them by following the amounts on the CNS17 bottle, but I’m not really sure when “vegetative” stage begins and when fruit or bloom stage is for these kinds of plants. It says to stop giving nutrients during bloom/fruit stage so I want to be sure to know when that happens…is it just (obviously) when you can harvest stuff, or is there more to it?

new grow light

watercress

chives

lettuce

Basil

Here is my Windowfarm 4 weeks later after transfering plants grown from seeds. They were grown in soil as seedlings and I washed all dirt off from roots 1 month later. They recovered from shock rather quickly. The nutrients I used or the first 3 weeks was Botanicare Pur Blend Pro grow. Now the are using Botanicare Pure Blend Pro bloom. I hope to get flowers soon on my tomato plants!

Arelys Windowfarm 4 weeks later!

Here are pictures of what I am growing:

Tomato plants

spinach

lettuce

mint

I have also uploaded a short video on Youtube. Arelys 2nd Windowfarm 4 weeks later