After a few months, I’ve found the following:

• The plants grow best with the pump running constantly. It not a constant stream of water since it mostly bubbles, but a constant drip.
• The reservoir is too small. It should at least be twice the size. If the water is too low, it won’t pump correctly and the plants drink most of it in a couple days in the summer. I’ll need to think of something for this which still fits in the farm.

Here, I am going to highlight the nitty-gritty parts of the operation.

This is where it all starts.

For the resevoir exit, I drilled a hole in a rubbermaid and secured a small piece of tubing into it with some waterproof caulk. This small piece of tubing is then connected to the rest of the line by that funny white connecter doo-dad. Having a removable connection point makes cleaning very easy.

I find that I don’t necessarily need a check valve since the T-joint is significantly lower than the pump. I used to have one check valve for each line, but I found that the check valve restricted the one line quite a bit, so I removed it. After doing that, I found that the check valve line was much quieter. It seems that without the valve, I experience the gurgling noise. Hmmm

 

T-joint

A very simple setup here.  The resevoir is about a foot above the T-joint. This creates more than enough pressure, even when the water level is quite low. After the T, the flexible tubing continues for about a foot and then connects to the rigid tubing. To make this connection, all I had to do was shove the flexible tubing into the rigid tubing. No leaks! Easy.

Here’s the top of the farm.  I used zip ties to secure the rigid tubing to the chain. To get the coiled up, rigid tubing to straighten out, I boiled some water and syphoned it through the tubing. This allowed me to bend it and straighten it with ease.
I used to have some serious gurgling sounds. I found that by lowering the T-joint, I was able to get rid of them. No need for a silencer. The key is to make sure your tubing has lots of water running up it at one time.
One thing I really like about using these chains is that I can adjust the height of my pots at any time without disturbing the others.

Here is the bottom of one of the pots. You can see the net cups full of clay balls through the holes on the bottom. I thought I would have to plug up some of these holes so that water wouldnt be dripping everywhere, but (luckily) I was wrong!  By hanging the pots on a slant (see gallery), the water only drips out of one of the holes! This is another nice feature of the chain. I can change the angle or direction of slope for any pot at any time. So, what did I do about the bottom pot?…

For the last pot in the line, I poked a hole in a plastic bag, taped a piece of rigid tubing to it, and shoved a piece of flexible tubing in it. The tube connects straight back to the top of the resevoir. The net cup sits in the plastic bag. This is a simple solution that works like a charm. You can also see that the pot is hung at an angle.

This is where it all starts.

T-joint

The bottom of a middle pot

Pot-to-resevoir

Air Pump

Nutrient solution

Peter piper…

pot-to-chain connection point

resevoir connection point

Sideof the resevoir

Top of resevoir

Seedling Tray

Swiss Chard seedlings

Timer

A lovely tomato plant!

This is the whole setup

 

Hi,

Some weeks past after my first tests and all is growing very good.

After the first setup I tested a few things and end up with this setup what I think is not bad. I painted all bottles white so it reflects the sun light and not warming my water too much and stopping the algea grow inside the bottles. 2 more strings are on the way soo I have 8 strings 4 will have veggies and 4 will grow some flowers/plants.

The algea grow see the movie 3-4 weeks was terrible but it was a test too see how fast and how much it will grow.

My new airpump I put in the next room  soo the noise is gone yes it was a litle shock when I first saw the pump haha look at the picture and you will understand. old= 1hand  new= more hands needed too pick it up. but it works very good have still 6 unused spots so for future strings it is ready.

I still use the 4/6 mm tubes because the water that goes up is more than enough and it takes not so much space what I like. My timer was set for 1 hour up and 1 hour off it started at 8:30 in the morning and pumped till 23:30 it was very good no problems with the plants. Now that I have this big pump and it is placed in the next room so I don’t hear the pump the sound from the pump is not so loud but no sound is even better it is pumping 1 hour up and 1 hour off.

The salad is growing very good I eat every few days from it so I made me another string next too it for even more salad as you can see in the video I have my cherry tomatoes in soil it is a test too if it can grow good inside and wich varieties are good for indoor growing I’m looking for a varietie that is not growing soo high so I can put it in the windowfarm too.

I’m testing a new fertilizer just started with it so I can’t tell much about it for now.

Eazy Plug very good medium

Some video’s / pictures

Will post more updates when there is some news.

Have a nice day and a good farming.

Hello,

I created my window farm about a month and a half ago using this design www.windowfarms.dk 

It is a 3 column t-lift system with a large reservoir, and it works very well. I water 15 mins on and 15 mins off in the day and 3 times during the night…every 2 hours or so.

I planted tomatoes, lettuce, basil, peas, coriander. So far the basil, tomatoes and peas are doing best.

As far as nutrients go, I use Iguana Juice Grow (it’s organic) at 3ml per liter and General Hydroponics PH down so that I stay between 6 and 6.5.

I change the reservoir water once a week.

For ventilation, I keep the window open all day, and will probably use a fan when the weather cools down.

Here are some pics:

Hello, my classmates and I made the WF system SAM and we planted radishes. Our questions about it, are why one of the radishes stopped growing? It is very small the container that impedes the roots to grow? Can we transplanted the radish to another larger flower pot? Thank you very much and we look forward to your prompt response.

Hi ! I’m using the SAME model and my plants are radish and basils, at what temperature should we put the plant ?

I am using the SAM model and drops of water are falling into the plants every second, sometimes I think it is a lot of water; Am I doing it right? or should I lower the amount of water that falls into the plants?

Thanks!

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!

What can I do if water is not enough for the two pots in the bottom of the SAM model?

Hello windowfarmers! Some friends and I did our own window farm. We planted radish but we are now in the week 7 and our plants are dying. What should we do? can we use fertilizers?

Thank you