As @hardwarejunkie said, use hole saw. Just fill the bottle with water, put it to the freezer, and you can drill perfect holes even to the thinnest bottles (hint: side holes). Good luck with windowfarming!

Been there, done that. It can work, but it doesn’t look too good. Once you put a plant to the net bag, you won’t remove from it alive. Otherwise, it’s good enough.

Mostly because water pumps are bigger, noisier, and it gets clogged very easily. In contrast, air pump is cheap, generally available, and very reliable. Bigger reservoir is not always a good idea. I use a 1.5L one (less than 0.4 gallon), which is maintenance-free for at least half a week. Anyway, you have to replace [...]

I can’t believe this video is from 2010… it looks like the guy gave up with bottle farms, his ideas are cool though. My problem here is these bottles hold up their own weight plus the ones all the way down. This requires very sturdy bottles and joints. The only way to make it working [...]

I don’t think it’s for pallet planter only. I’m definitely looking for replacing my t-valve system, combining it with the vertical farm implementation of Urban Green Survival from 2010, posted recently by @hardwarejunkie. I want to design those colums as throwaway-friendly as possible, because those 1/2 L bottles are not that sturdy, and it’s a [...]

I think daisy chaining bottles requires a lot of effort. After I bought my set of hole saw and doing drilling, I decided this shouldn’t be suggested in the first place. What I’m suggesting instead is to drill a hole into the bottle cap, and glue an appropriately sized airline tubing into there. Or, get [...]

Sometimes the plant doesn’t like its new place. Maybe water couldn’t reach your plant’s roots. Maybe too much water. The point is: don’t give up. Try again with different plants.

Hmm, @gaiatechnician had another problem with tubing: http://our.windowfarms.org/2012/01/15/new-plastic-tubing-and-blockages/ Has the lubricant caused problems for him as well?

There is a good blog post about a nicely done worm farm from @nnesbitt: http://our.windowfarms.org/2012/01/25/completed-worm-farm/

Wash off as much as you can. Don’t use cold water, because roots are sensitive. I usually separate plants, which requires a lot of work, but this also helps dirt to be washed off. Make sure the plant will be able to stay erected. You might have to bury it a bit deeper. You might [...]

@northernwoman at 11pm this is what I could come up with: https://skitch.com/julsevern/8fw2r/tvalve . I hope it helps.

Your loop is too short. Long loop doesn’t allow air to flow into the bottom of your loop, which bubbles into your reservoir. Check valve is not necessary, just make sure airline has a drip loop above reservoir water level.

What is your tubing’s inner diameter?

Don’t feed the troll. Anyways, well said, @gaiatechnician.

That’s right. There was a link to a bit dry explanation of how t-valve systems work. The most important part is there’s a submergence length, which can be calculated like how much the t-valve is below water level. You can pump water ten times as high as your submergence length is (or something similar). The [...]

The fun part of Windowfarms is you don’t have to be a professional. Add water if gone, and replace it in every 1-2 weeks. You don’t have to know exactly about concentration level (can be measured with an EC meter) and acid-base balance (aka pH). Just replace water and add nutrients if in doubt.