Here are some pics of the maintenance mode of a windowfarm in Vienna at a night in the middle of May 2012.

My area is hit by a number of typhoons each year and living on the 11th floor, my first concern was for my structures stability and resilience to strong winds. I have hopefully solved this issue by constructing a wooden frame around my air conditioner and gas heater unit. Though the structures strength is still yet to be tested  m(x~x)m fingers crossed

After completing the wooden frame I added a small waterproof housing for my timer and 2 watt pump. I think that as my design is for outdoors it is especially important to keep these parts dry. I then set up my first column to test the power of the pump and understand how much water and at what rate it could be pumped. My pots are hooked at the top onto the wooden posts and then have a zip tie around the neck of the bottle at the bottom. This seems to be a very cheap and secure way to attach the pots to the posts.

I bought some pre-grown cucumber, egg plant, green pepper and parsley plant for 59yen each. After one week of watching the loop work successfully, I decided to be more ambitious, germinating some green beans and lettuce and mixed herb seeds in my closet while I contructed a second column with six pots using a separate reservoir but using the same pump. This was where I encountered my first problem. Many of you seem to have had issues with pumping water up two pipes because the air/water chooses one pipe over the other thereby  not feeding the columns equally. Eventually I decided it would be more effective to pump the water to the top in one pipe and split it at the top. This appears to have solved the problem though I am yet to determine whether the volumes of water being split are equal or not. This can be done easily by collecting the output from the two outlets in 2 measuring cups over a set period of time. Lately I just haven’t had the time to do this.

I also decided that there is no need to have 2 reservoirs at the bottom so I have taken one reservoir out and replaced it with an extra pot in which I have planted a strawberry plant. When doing this, I made sure that the reservoir was lower than the lowest pots of both columns. This is just common sense I guess.

I had trouble finding the clay balls that most people seem to be using. I think this is because most things can grow rapidly outside here so there is no culture of hydroponic growing. I was at my garden store looking for possible alternatives for  root support that would retain nutrients and allow water to flow down, when I came across sphagnum moss. The explanation of what it does seemed to suit hydroponic growing perfectly. Though I am a little concerned because no one else seems to use it. I can foresee a possible issue with root rot but at the moment all of my plants seem to be growing healthily.

I would welcome any comments or advice, especially about any experiences using sphagnum moss.

My first attempt at a windowfarm followed Ver2 from the website pretty closely. I built it at a friends place though and it got neglected for several weeksand everything died.My current incarnation is the result of my desire to combine woodworking with vertical gardening. It is still very primitive and I would change a lot of things if I were to rebuildit but that would be in the fall if ever. The biggest difference between this farm and the traditional hanging farms is that, well, this one does not hang. It is supported from the bottom by a wooden structure and instead of the planters being suspended by chain or string they are firmly nested into vertical slats of wood. This allows me to easily move the pots around and arrange plants according to type and size. The basic concepts are all the same though, vertical hydroponic growth using bottles as pots.

This system does not use any checkvalves or air-pump needles. Checkvalves don't seem to be necessary as long as the pump is above the water level and the air-needle does not seem to be necessary at all.

The water pressure in the resevoir is greater then the pressure required to lift the water several feet up the risers. No needle or complicated tubing required.

Overgrown spinach, dieing lettuce, healthy chard, different lettuce doing well

Basil, basil, basil, peas

Riser manifold

The aquatic pump I am using only has two line-outs so it was necessary to split them in order to feed the outer two columns. The local hydro store did not have T-splitters, only had X-splitters, so I plugged up the extra tip. This manifold will get renovated in the next couple of days because right now the top row of planters is not usable.

Pea plants seem to grow extremely fast

More pics and info at my windowfarm blog at http://kristiferszabo.tumblr.com/

http://konstruktioner.info/instruktioner/

Enjoy!

i’ve finished my window farm (see video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TvAkpSl1pE&feature=plcp ) and it’s working a treat, i’ve planted some micro tomatoes in each of the pots and a small black truffle tomato plant at the top, which i don’t hold out hope for to be honest.

the question is am i doing something wrong? i left a couple of tomato seeds growing in soil and they seem to be doing infinitely better than my hydroponic ones. i’ve got the system timed so it turns on every half an hour and i’ve put nutrients in the water. should i have put the shoots in some kind of growing medium rather than just surrounding them with clay pebbles?

also the airpump goes mental sometimes and bubbles in the reservoir rather than up the tube, i’ve managed to wrap florists tape around the tube and a small rock to weigh it down but it’s as if there is too much water in the tube and it spits it out at the top rather than slowly dripping it out.

any advice is more than welcome, thank you for your time in advance

regards

Kris

windowfarmer

I’m so happy to be part of this group!
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has started their own WF, I hope to be starting one soon. I’m still researching and you posts have been super helpfull! I just showed my little sister your page and she is super excited to be helping me. I will upload pics of the proyect as soon as I get it started. Just to tell a little about me, I’m from Dominican Republic and the climate here is pretty hot all the time. I’ll be making my WF outside because I have a large roof with lots of room. I do so hope that my friends, family and neighbors all ask me questions about it and learn from what I am learning also.

Best of luck to everyone and happy growing!

Ali D

Spoke directly to Petco and they no longer make the Petco air pumps you all have recommended. The one I had was apparently defective.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks

Can you volunteer a few hours to deleting spam user accounts?

Internet scanning robots that produce spam comments have found a way to penetrate our site. They have broken through all of the typical protections for these online communities. We have been combatting them through a variety of methods, but the spammers have top hackers working on this. Andy, an excellent programmer, is working on several means to shut down their new point of attack. However, we have a backlog of fake users who generate spam and their accounts need to be deleted in order to stop generating spam.

If you are willing to help, will you please send an email to destiny@windowfarms.org with the subject line “volunteering for the war on spam”?

Thank you!

-Britta

http://www.krextv.com/news/around-the-region/Energy-Expo-150317685.html

I’m brand new to this forum, window farms, and hydroponics, so forgive me if I ask a lot of stupid questions up front.

First stupid question:

In the v3 DIY instructions it says to use whole bottles for the plants, with a “plant hole” cut out of the side, creating something of a half dome around the plant. It then says to direct water from above, using a “cap flap”, away from the plant hole. Is all that to limit evaporation, create a greenhouse, or just simply to make daisy chaining the bottles together easier?

I’m thinking of deviating from the instructions and having open containers for the plants, so something more like your average hanging potted plant. Is this a horrible idea? And if so, why?

Thanks