Seems like we aren’t the only ones who can come up with interesting thing to make out of plastic bottles:

Few ! It seems it took me as much time to post this one as to build the real thing. But here it is.  I wanted to make a plastic-free windowfarm that would be appealing to the eye and would blend nicely with our Victorian house, from the inside as well as from the outside. (In French, I like to call it “potager vertical” – vertical vegetable garden).

I wanted a sustainable system, sturdy, easy to handle and that I could easily push away from the window, just like shutters.  At first, I envisioned to pump up the water with an airlift system and maybe l’ll come back to the idea, after all. But having free access to those slow drip tubes made me dream of an electric-free system as well. And how about autonomy : a system that would run by itself or with very few maintenance for up to five or six days ?

Finally, I wanted to nourish my plants with the manure from my earthworm composter.

In the beginnings of my experimentation, my slow-drip system  allowed me 3 to 4 days of autonomy, providing that I readjusted the dripping flow once or twice a day. But then, I discovered that  my plants didn’t need as much water (I have rock wool in my pots as well as clay pellets). So, I’m slowing the flow and closing it off completely during the night. That way, I expect to make my upper reservoirs last for more than seven days before having to refill them (with fresh water and nutrients – the old water will be fed to my ornemental plants, which are planted in soil).

No splashing problems so far : My pots are only 5” to 6” apart, one under the other. Each drop don’t gather enough speed to explode into many droplets and splash everywhere. Also, to direct each drop towards the middle of the pot right under it, I took a Hydroton pellet of just the right size and blocked up the draining hole of the pots with it, making sure that it would protrude outside of (under) the pot. The droplets then gather at the lower part of the clay pellet and are therefore nicely centered before making their dive into the next level of the installation. Eventually, I suspect I will have to introduce a mesh between the clay pellet and the pot’s hole (a short shoe lace should do the thing) to prevent the plants’ foliage from diverting the flow of water outside the pots. We’ll see…

When you click on photos, you have further explanations. After the photos, you’ll find a list of materials and a few more explanations.

The tools I used : hammer, screwdriver, long-nose plier, nail.

I thought the shower rod design http://our.windowfarms.org/2011/01/07/my-manhattan-windowfarm/ by Dave, @dhult was brilliant so I “borrowed” the idea for my next one.  I had an old shower rod laying around and it fits perfectly in my bay window.  My other two WFs use 2L pop bottles and so does this one.  The 4″ net pot fits in well into the 2L bottle.   My Home Depot had the ground clamp ($1.46), however it did not have that style pipe hanger and neither did the Menards store.  I had to improvise.  I used a 4″-5″ adjustable hose clamp ($1.49) in its place and drilled a hole in it to connect it to the ground clamp.

The other change that is different than my others is that I drilled a 1.5″ hole in the top of the bottles in stead of the 1″.  The 1″ allowed the bottles to be screwed together for some additional support, but the extra support is not needed here.  The 1.5″ hole allows the neck of the upper bottle to fit deeper into the lower bottle making the column a little more compact and easier to disassemble.

I still have to cover the bottles and resevoir to keep out the light, but I have to figure out what to plant next.  Overall, I like this design more than my last two since it has the advantage of easily taking the resevoir out.

Shower Curtain Rod WF Overall View

Shower Rod mouting w/Pipe Clamp

2L Bottlw w/4" Net Pot

1/18/2011 Update – Here is a video of the pump in action.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKjkFIcBLj4   This is the same “Tee” style pump I have been using on all my WFs.   There’s a good picture of it in this post.  http://our.windowfarms.org/2010/12/04/strawberries-9-months-new-wf-first-snow-of-the-year/  The water does go up and around the rod pretty well and its fun to watch.  The total lift is only 42 inches.  Later on when it is full of algae it will be less interesting and I’ll probably straighten it out then.

I have checked with the local ice mountain and they don’t distribute these and the local recycling center will not let me look through the plastic they have. If I had the $ I would by from the project.

We were having trouble finding the right pump, so we decided to water manually.If the pump makes it cost prohibitive, this could work for you, it costs less than $50.

We give each column about a litre of water every 4 days. It’s only been a few weeks, but the peppers are flowering and everything is growing.

Check out the full blog: http://ebw.evergreen.ca/blog/entry/window-farms/

I’ll post the plans soon.

-Stuart

Hey all,

I’m an Irish man living in Brighton and trying to source components locally for a window farm.  What did you all use for bottles?  The instructions seem quite specific and I was wondering what a UK substitute might be.

Thanks,
Kevin.

It occurred to me the other day that terracotta pots would be a good container for a window farm for the following reasons:

1. They already have a wide top opening and a center hole in the bottom.
2. Terracotta is a tough material that won’t degrade when exposed to sunlight or water.
3. They are opaque which will discourage algae growth.

The disadvantages are:

1. They are heavy, unless you use plastic flower pots.
2. They reduce the amount of recycled material used in construction.
3. Terracotta can chip, crack, or break, which would cause leaks.

Hi all,

A friend and I in Ann Arbor are planning to start a window farm. We collected many of the materials yesterday. However the bottles are eluding us! Ann Arbor now has covered, wheeled mini-dumpsters for curbside recycling — not conducive to looking for bottles. We went to the drop-off station and came away empty handed. I even went to a supermarket today and it carried none of the brands mentioned in 1.5-liter size. Am I missing something obvious? Any suggestions? Thanks. Phillis

My first farm was 3 x 1.5L soda bottles mounted together according to V2 design, and with the modified airlift system.

It worked… but my plants(2 strawberry and a chili plant) didn’t survive my vacation.

So, if I hadto start the plants over, why notthe farm, too?

This new design is based on the same airlift as I know it works well. The bottles and mounting of them has been completely redesigned, though. I’m still using 1.5L soda bottles, but I cut them in two about midway down, wrap tape around the threaded end and a half-inch width along the cut to mask it for spraypainting.
As I don’t feel that 3 layers of white blocks enough light, I’m using gray primer first, then white paint on top of it.
To mark where to cut the bottles I made a simple rig of a couple of dowels mounted on a workbench with a whiteboard marker fastened to them with a rubber band. It works… sort of… (Not very accurate) For the next set of bottles I’ll have to find a tube that the bottles will fit snugly into, and use that as a template.

For suspension I’m using three lengths of thin chain and ’S’ hooks. On the edge of the bottles I’ve used a set of eyelet pliers to make holes and crimp into place eyelets for the hooks to hook onto.

In the neck of the bottles I’ve placed an ice-cream cup that I have perforated. Then it’s just a question of filling up with clay pellets and adding a plant. (for Norwegians; I’m using Henning Olsen Sjoko Kirsj, as sold in quad-packs. The ‘diet’ ice sold in the same sizes can also be used, but tastes awful in my opinion… )
The way the cups have been prepared is that I’ve cut off the rim, then holed the bottom with a small philips-head screwdriver that I heated with a ‘jet lighter’. You want the holes at least 2.5mm(0.1″) or more and probably  bit jagged around the edges or the surface tension in the water will keep it from draining through until a significant amount has gathered.

On the bottom bottle I’ve used a modified drinking cap from a water bottle(Imsdal if anyone in  Norway wonders)  where I removed the sliding plastic piece and ‘cored’ it with the biggest drill-bit I had(10mm). Then I glued in a piece of tubing using hot-glue.

Pros of this design:
It’s flexible as the bottles can be unhooked and moved up and down the chains.
This means I can have any number up to 5 on a single column, or dedicate one column to sprouts, and have a separate tank and nutrients more suited for young plants, and just move plants around as they mature.

Cons:
I may need to add tubes to more than just the bottom bottles, depending on the distance between the bottles and type of plant in them.

To do:
A better and more permanent fastening at the top. A single hook works… somewhat, but a hook for each chain will avoid the top bottle being disformed by the chains. Also, adding a second column.
This I plan to do by fastening a board at the top and screwing in hooks. 3 for the first chain, and 2 for the next, so that they form a somewhat elongated 5(as on a dice) so that the two columns share one chain.
A possibility is also to mount 6 hooks in a triangular pattern, with one in each corner, and one in the middle of each side, and hang 3 columns from those 6 chains. (all columns will be sharing two chains with the other columns) Then the airlift tubes can be ‘hidden’ in the middle of the design, too. A quad column with 8 chains is a possibility, but at least one column will get significantly less light than the others.

Also, while I have pictures, I find no way to post them here.

We are almost there on kits, Folks. We would love your input on a couple of things.

For more about why we are making kits, read this.

Here’s how kits are looking.

You will choose between a 2-column or 4-column windowfarm. You WILL have to be able to screw at least 4 screws into your upper window sill. The bottom bottle of each strand will be the reservoir.
We will probably produce the first batch by hand ourselves here in the Brooklyn shop but the next batches may be handled by an awesome little organization that hires the disabled just North of the city.

Get a sneak peek of the one we have in Brooklyn headquarters here.

Major points up for debate:
1) To give you the bottles or ask you to supply your own. If you supply your own, you need to drill through the tough end very precisely and this can be a dangerous task with a drill or a red hot cylinder. However, sourcing the bottles and getting them to you is very expensive on our end. What do you say? Would you be willing to pay a premium to not have to find, drill, cut, and paint your own bottles?

2) To include the pump or not. The petco pump is the best one we have found and it comes with air valves. However, some people have found that their pumps are duds. Having to deal with Petco’s duds will be a big burden on us that will take away from our mission work. We’d prefer to simply have a button while you are buying you kit that you press to order your pump from Petco separately. Is this a deal killer?

3) Lights. Almost everyone really needs them but no one ever wants to get lights. That is, until after they start raising their little baby plants and the plants come out looking leggy/scrawny. You can pump them full of nutrients but if they don’t have enough light to process the nutrients through photosynthesis, it is very sad =<. Anyway, I'm thinking we will sell lights as a separate kit. You would buy individual strands. Sound good?

Also, if you have a great business mind, experience with this kind of production setup, and some time to volunteer, we would love to hear from you. Send me a message by finding Britta under members.