My plants have grown a lot lately.
The paprika, tomato and chilli are getting so big that they almost cover each other and now I´m worried that they won´t get enough sunlight. I am considering cutting off the tops of the plants (to make them shorter and more stable) but on some online gardening communities they say that that is a bad idea because it makes the harvest late. But is that a problem? The windowfarm is indoors and I don´t mind waiting.Are there other reasons not to?

Do or don´t? Any suggestions?

Hi all,

I just finished my second windowfarm, but first I will summarize last year’s windowfarm.  It was based on the V2 airlift.  My new system is based on the t-joint, and I’ll make another post for that system.

I have nice tall windows, so I figured I would need a deep reservoir to push the water all the way up.  I picked up this 18″ glass vase at Ikea:

V2 airlift in Ikea's Bladet vase. A bit pricey, but a nice deep reservoir.

With this reservoir and a rigid tube, I was able to get over 8 feet of lift.  I had occasional trouble with air flowing back into the reservoir, rather than the tube.  In the picture, you can see the curvature in the bottom flexible tube that I inserted my needles into.  Keeping this straight was important to keeping the air flowing upwards.

The rigid tube was fixed to a 4 foot wooden dowel and taped to the outside of the reservoir.  At the top, I zip-tied the tube to a cheap curtain rod.  The bottles were initially fixed to the rigid tube, but later the plants became too heavy,  so I separated the bottles from the tube and hung them on their own:

An old eye-drop bottle worked as a great muffler:

Gurgle silencer.

I potted a couple plants per net cup, and would remove any slow growers as needed.  The goal was two plants per cup:

One cup of jalapenos.

3 cups total of tomatoes.

The large reservoir also made it easy to add nutrients, and measure and adjust pH levels with baking soda.

The tomatoes where cherry tomatoes, but not dwarf plants.  I didn’t realize this, but 2 full size cherry tomato plants per cup was too many.  By the time the 6 tomato plants grew to 3 feet tall each, I realized my windowfarm was headed for trouble:

About a month's worth of growing.

I was also having airlift issues at this time.  I never really figured out why.  I made a few attempts at re-configuring the system by removing tomato plants to make it shorter.  The tomatoes had relied upon each other and their particular position in the window for support.  This made removing plants a debacle, and in the end I had to take them out, leaving the jalapenos.  With only one bottle in my farm, I could use a smaller reservoir, which was a 3 liter water bottle:

Reconfigured WF, leaving only the jalapenos.

In this new configuration, the jalapenos grew just fine, but I’m going to try tomatoes again.  Any tips on growing tomatoes in a windowfarm would be appreciated!

Built my window farm in December in Hong Kong.  Though we live in the tropics, the temperature does drop below 15 degrees celsius in the winter so be prepared.  And your south-facing window is often blocked by another building in our concrete jungle so lights may be needed.  Good news is that Chinese made (and not inferior) LED’s and CFC’s are cheap to come by, and the Hong Kong government subsidizes some of the electricity.  Some specifics:

1) The pump I’m using.

2) One way valves from aquarium store.

3) My window farm, testing for leaks.

4) Substrate and fertilizer, from the organic grower store at the Flower Market in Prince Edward.

5) The seeds I used, also from the Flower Market in Prince Edward.  Bottom right ones are Japanese pumpkins I got from the organic store owner on Queen’s Road Central called Rice Plus.

Only two of my 3 bak choy survived after two weeks.  I think that 1) the fertilizer was too concentrated, 2) the bak choy was transplanted too early, 3) the solution burned the tender young leaves, 4) there was not enough light after the onset of winter.

Changes made: Diluted solution, planted my strongest cherry tomato plant, added lights, and added tubes to direct the solution straight to clay pellets.

That’s my first entry.  Hope to meet others in Hong Kong soon, because this is the perfect place for growing.

Hi !

Eight weeks ago, I presented you what I now call my sailboat windowfarm. Seven weeks ago I was presenting you my clay pot windowfarm.

Then, I explained in detail my pH imbalance adventure, telling you that I lost several plants in the process. Now, I’d like to show you the survivors. Here they are. First photo : My sailboat windowfarm suffered a much smaller scale pH imbalance. Its growth was interrupted and one of the pole beans lost two leaves to it, that’s all. On the first storey : 2 pole beans, second storey : 2 nasturtiums, third storey : 2 cherry tomatoes.

Second photo : a close-up of the biggest leaves on the pole beans.

Third photo : my clay pot windowfarm is still half empty and the spinach and thyme will get out soon. The two center columns are connected to their own reservoir. They are designated home for all flowering plants and may receive a special blooming nutrients formula. The two outer columns are designated for leaf crops only.

Following photos : watercress started from cuttings, surviving lettuce, blooming peas and baby cucumber.

This is the windowfarm I made, very fast with materials on hand, too excited with the project to take my time and work diligently. So it looks awkward and I’m growingly fund of it, because it looks like a big sail on a child’s boat.

I discovered two structural defects after the construction (apart from it’s lack of symetry – which is only an aesthetic issue), and one missing component.

1. If you look closely at the two upper bottles, you will notice that I cut two windows in each bottles and I positionned them one behind the other to face the window pane. A 90 degree turn would have been necessary in order to position them sideways. The result ? One plant is placed behind the other and I’ll have to force it to make a detour to get out through its back window.

As I’m not willing to remove my treillis, it’ll have to stay like this, though.

2. Speaking of the treillis, which is made of three wooden dowels about two and a half foot long, and some bits of yarn, I first pierced holes in two of the bottles so my dowel would get through the bottle right along the diameter’s line. This is a mistake, as I realized as soon as I put the dripping system back on.

Each drop just landed directly over the dowel, soaking it and exploding in small droplets. So I had to modify the holes in the bottles in order to push the dowels aside and allow the droplets to fall where they were intended to.

3. Finally, the missing components are simply the bottle caps. Perforated right in their middle, they would direct the droplets to make them fall in the middle of the next bottle. Right now, a small amount of water is splashing  a little bit on the outer sides of the second and third bottle. As I didn ‘t have the bottle caps to begin with, no regrets there, but they would have been handy.

The plants growing in there are (from bottle to top) one Blue Lake climbing bean (germination date : January 27th) and one Trionfo Violet climbing bean (February 5th), two Jewel Mixed nasturtiums in the middle bottle (February 7th) and two tomato plants up there, one Christmas Grape cultivar and one Yellow Pearshaped (February 5th).

The beans are real giants (I expect them to reach 6 foot high or more – I will have to train them down at one point), and the tomatoes are more compact training varieties of an undeterminated habit (e.g. they produce a succession of fruits over a long period of time instead of one main harvest).

The nasturtiums are supposed to grow “only” 16in. high. By the way, nasturtiums are interesting edible plants because you can eat their young leaves and stems as well as their flowers and their seeds (when  harvested from the plant while still fresh). All these parts have a peppery taste and the seeds may be used as a good (and economical) substitute to capers, fresh or pickled.

Everyone knows mint grows like a weed. Well, wait until you put it in a hydroponic system. This plant fills the whole surrounding area with a minty fresh smell.

Golden cherry tomatoes in the Eyebeam windowfarm. These were eaten within the 1st hour of Eyebeam's annual benefit!!

Three varieties of cherry tomatoes have born fruit.

Peppers and strawberries were very flavorful but a little smaller than you see at the grocery store.

At this time of year, the kale, lettuce, and chards are not growing rapidly. They do better in the spring, winter and fall, liking the chill air right inside the window.

The bok choi was luscious !!! That is . . .until it got hit with some aphids and we had to ditch it. Chives are growing too big and starting to go to seed so we need to harvest them and have some eggs!

Edible violas in the Eyebeam windowfarm. I like them in an arugula salad with spicy marinated grilled eggplant and goat cheese.

All of the plants in the Eyebeam windowfarm are edible, even the flowers. We have grown edible violas, marigolds, and nasturtium.