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.

Time for some good ideas, People.

We really like screwing the bottles into one another. It cuts down on a lot of evaporation and when bottles get jostled, they remain chained together, preventing dripping on the floor. The chains of bottles help stabilize the system.

However, we are at a loss for how to tell people to cut through the ends of the 1.5 Liter Poland Springs/DeerPark/Ozarka water bottles. Screwing the bottles together requires getting that hole to be just the right size– 1″ diameter.

The plastic is very thick at that point. Here’s what we have tried:

1) Drilling using various bits: spade/paddle bit ($5),

2) Heating a 1″ Outside diameter cylinder. Sitting the bottle bottom on top of it until it burn through.

Criteria for a good solution:

1) Cheap

2) Safe

3) The tool is small and light so it could fit in kit packaging.

Ideas?