Here, I am going to highlight the nitty-gritty parts of the operation.

I have one of the manufactured systems (I was a Kickstarter supporter) and have to say it’s incredibly awesome!! My older water bottle one made it’s way quickly to the recycling bin!!

My issue is that the output of water at the top of the airlift spews droplets all over my window. It makes one heck of a mess. I ended up taking a pill bottle, cut off the bottom half, then drilled a hole in the lid just large enough for the airlift tube, and this has helped stem much of the mess.

The issue is that when the bubble of water gets to the top/end of the tube it is actually a bubble and it *pops*, making a little mess of droplets (2-3 of them) spray out. I don’t see another way around this from what I’ve done, but it’s apparent you have to let the bubble burst, and containing it inside a larger sealed vessel as I’ve made is the way to go.

What have you done to help this issue?

I am doing a couple of vertical pallet planters and changed the airlift to suit the planters. In this case, the next planter will have 2 wooden legs in plastic buckets. The water will drip down the legs and back into the buckets. I usually use the t joint method outside the bucket but I also appreciate that not everyone has room for a u tube that is one ft lower than your T joint. I tried a few different methods and this one works.
This way uses all the depth of the bucket and you might get a little bubbling when it restarts for a few seconds but usually not. Note that once again, I got a few days where the tubes acted funny before they behaved themselves. Pretty sure it is whatever sheen or grease is on new tubes. I think all new tubes need to just sit low with nutrient running through them for about a day before you put them up in position. There is almost zero drainback in new tubes and that is what is causing the problem. Newbies are going to be very confused by this.
My pallet planter project is at instructables A very interesting aspect of this (for me) is that the air pump is 120 ft away from the planter. (It still works and pumps the air through 1/4 inch tubing all the way to the greenhouse). Brian

I have only done this outside but it probably works good inside too. The advantages are, no pump, can use dirty water, very low tech, can work for a long time unattended.
Best vid for understanding it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3yQOVUR1TpQ

Playlist is at http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkzXlmAwZTZdjGtjJpCYm2gSGVGwA033M&feature=view_all
Brian

Hey Fellow-windowfarmers!

I’d like to share some pictures of the design and progress of our first ever windowfarm where we are growing peas, mini tomatoes and cayenne peppers So far, so good! More updates will follow as our plants grow.

As you will see, the basic set-up of the windowfarm includes; an airlift system using a pump, a nice green hose, a t-joint, two valves, a plastic white cereal container as a reservoir (3.5 litres capacity), 3 plastic white plant pots, two chains by which to suspend the pots from the curtain rail, plastic white tubing to allow the water & nutrients to drain down through each pot and some bbq skewers placed horizontally to keep the white tubing stable and to give the plants something to grab onto! Please feel to add your comments, feedbacks and tips!

Photos

 

 

 

 

 

Very special thanks goes to my boyfriend Dmitry for his engineering, design and building contributions. It is our windowfarm and I couldnt have done it without him .

Update, March 3rd: Added some pictures and descriptions.

When I got this floor standing flower pot reservoir, I started off with a needle airlift. The needle turned out to be really unreliable and the result was also noisier than a T-airlift. Fortunately I found a “tap” that can be attached to any reservoir with a non-curved surface. It’s a tap made by AutoPot. I just drilled a hole in the side of the reservoir and attached the tap to the side of it. Careful when drilling. You’ll need a special tool or a huge drill bit to make a hole this big (25mm). The tap can take a 16mm hose if you stretch the hose a little, so I needed an adapter to 6mm. Fortunately, a local chili equipment store had an adapter for 16mm to 6mm hose with an additional filter in it.

My initial column had just a tiny reservoir. It was way too small and a bit ugly as well. Another setback was that I originally used aluminum pipes in the plumbing, and found out that aluminum (not healthy) might end up in the plants. Thanks for pointing that out, readers. What I’ve learned from this is that if you’re planning to make your own window farm and don’t want to use recycled bottles, prepare to spend the price of a factory made windowfarm. Of course, you might end up with something better that way

Here’s the final part list for those who aren’t familiar with my previous posts.

Part list

(total cost ~100 euros)

• 4 Plastic orchid pots. These are made of Polypropylene, which is (afaik) safe to use with food. The pots also have an inward dent in the bottom, so they will never drain completely. I don’t know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. Be careful when drilling plastic. I managed to break one pot by using too much pressure. (2 euros/pot at Bauhaus)
• 1 Large floor flower pot. This is the same brand as the orchid pots so the color matches perfectly. The water volume is 10 liters, and the reservoir is in the bottom of this outer pot. (25 e at Bauhaus)
• 1 Inner pot. The inner pot is 22 cm tall, so below it lies my actual reservoir. (15e at Bauhaus)
• 1 meters of plastic pipe for the dripping, 8 mm diameter.
• Two meters of aluminum strip. Mine is about 12mm wide and 2mm thick. I wouldn’t go any thinner than 2mm, since the rigidity of the column would likely suffer. (4 euros/meter at Bauhaus)
• M3 Nuts, washers and screws (or bolts) for attaching the pots to the aluminum strip. (Less than 1e total)
• Sera Air 275R Plus air pump with adjustable air flow and two outlets. Came with two non-return valves. (28 euros at a local aquarium store)
• 6mm “colorless” hose for the air. (2 euros / meter at a local aquarium store)
• 6mm black hose for the water. Colorless hose gathers algae. (2 euros / meter at a local chili store)
• A Y-joint for the 6mm hose. Came with the pump.
• A check valve. Came with the pump.
• A tap from AutoPot.
• A 6mm adapter for the tap

Plants

So far I’ve planted some cherry tomato, 2 kinds of chilies, coriander, parsley, basil and strawberry. The tomato is growing like crazy. Tomato was germinated three weeks ago and the plants are already 15cm tall. Then I threw in another basil plant I got from a grocery store.

Nutrients & pH

I was recommended nutrients called Flora Mato and Flora Micro by GHE. I don’t know much about nutrients, so I just got both and I’m adding both every time I add water. I’m aiming at an EC number of 1.60mS/cm.

The tap water around here is pretty alkaline with a pH of around 8. I got some pH down powder and a pH tester. Before I add water I first add nutrients and then make sure the pH gets down to about 6. Only after that I pour it in the reservoir.

Photos

My Skylight T-valve windowfarm.
Those version 3.0 designs are way too complicated. I wanted to make something as simple as I possibly could using minimal materials. This is what I have come up with:

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February 26th, 2013 Update
Moved, Settled in, Got windowfarm back up, new plants started, images and new stuff will come soon, as I finalize my new design…

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APRIL 5th, 2012 Update
Ghost chiles are fruiting!, and Jalapenos ready for stuffing and wrapping in bacon

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MARCH 8th, 2012 Update !

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COSTS TOOLS & WHATNOT one|two|three|four

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• The Jana water bottles seem to be perfect, it is a Croatian brand of spring water. I like the water, they are 1.99 a bottle, but you can find used arrowhead 1.5L bottles fairly easily.
  ($0-10[$40, for 4 columns]) Bottles can cost anywhere from free to $10/tower.
• ($0) Suspended with a hook and shoestrings, you can use anything, this doesn’t need to cost anything, spend here only if you feel like trying something fancy.
• ($10) Airline tubing is 10cents a foot. I bought a $10 Roll of it, plenty to spare.
• ($3.50) T valves are a 50 cents each x7
• ($2.00) flow valves are a 50 cents each x4
• ($10-20) the pump was pretty darn cheap, repurposed from fish tank… 3watt, super cheap, and costs about 20-80 cents a year to run on the timing i have.
• ($8.00) 3″ net pots were 50cents each x16
• ($30.00) 2x Timers were $15 each, 24 hours of 15min intervals for water.

TOTAL FOR SETUP: $113.50 for 4 towers
Additional costs(& ongoing expenses); nutrition, lights, paint if you don’t have it, electricity is about 25-75cents a year for the air pump, lights are costlier.

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Seeds I’ve Started (for windowfarms or my garden outside):
http://store.myorganicseeds.com/ <— Hot Peppers !
http://seedrack.com <–Cool and interesting plants

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Oregon Sugar Pod Peas – Pisum sativum
Green Onions

PEPPERS – Capsicum
SUPER HOTS 300,000 to 2million Schoville Heat Units
Trinidad Moruga Scorpion – Capsicum chinense
Sunrise Scorpion – Capsicum chinense
7 Pot, Barrackapore variety – Capsicum chinense
Habanero – Capsicum chinense
Bhut Jolokia – interspecific hybrid (mostly C. chinense with some C. frutescens genes)

Low – Medium Heats (6,000 – 100,000 SHU)
Marbles – Capsicum annuum
Black Pearl – Capsicum annuum
Jalapeno – Capsicum annuum

TOMATOES – Solanum lycopersicum
Roma
Brandywine
Yellow Pears
Green Zebra
Black Krim
Speckled Roman

Purple Tomatillos

Butternut Squash

GREENS
Rouge d’Hiver Lettuce –
Arugula –
Dwarf Blue Curled Kale – Brassica oleracea

HERBS
Purple Basil – Ocimum basilicum
Cilantro – Coriandrum sativum
Sage – Salvia officinalis
Oregano – Origanum vulgare
Thyme – Thymus vulgaris
Chamomile -Matricaria recutita
Chives
Catnip
Lemon Balm

I posted earlier (more on the construction here) about designing a prettier window farm. I’m building a clean and simple single column farm. The construction itself is pretty much complete, but the plants are still missing.

I made a nice discovery related to the bottom reservoir. In case you’re using a bottle and are having trouble getting the cap water tight, worry no more! March in to a pet store and get one of those drinking bottles meant for rodents. The one I got fit perfectly to the reservoir I’m using. And in case you’re having trouble getting the threads water tight, use teflon tape. Also known as the thread seal tape.

With this first column I made the mistake of cutting the aluminum stripts too short. They are long enough for four pots, but too short to be able to attach the reservoir to the strips. I don’t think I’m gonna have the energy to change the strips, so I’m just going to leave it like this for now.

Here’s the whole thing.

And here’s a close-up of the reservoir.

I’m not sure what happened exactly, but the “pretty” somehow got lost during the process.

I guess I got impatient and just wanted to see it work. Next step is to get the seedlings going in rock wool, and to plant them in the pots when the sun rises again in the spring.

 

 

 

 

I’m about to build my first WF. While I generally love the idea of growing food at home, the free design of WF 3.0 is a bit of an eyesore as such. I wanted to come up with something that’ll still be a full grown window farm, but is still approved by the wife.

Update: Second Draft

Thanks for the input everyone. I came up with a simpler less work intensive solution: flower pots. I went to a hardware store to look at PVC pipes, and stumbled upon some plastic orchid flower pots. They seemed right size and only cost 1,99 a piece, so I got two for testing. The pots have a dent in the bottom, kinda like wine bottles. See the drawing. This type of construction prevents the container from draining out completely. Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

I also decided to try string instead of metal wire, since I couldn’t find proper parts for attaching the wire to the pots. Here’s a picture with initial string based suspension:

   

 

Drawing:

 

First Draft

Here’s my first draft on an improved design. I didn’t bother drawing the irrigation system in detail since it’s not really important in this context. The main idea is that we’ll encase the water bottle, suspension system and the irrigation system in painted PVC pipe. Any other pipe should do as well. My first draft doesn’t depict how exactly the pipe and bottle are attached to the suspension system. I haven’t really made up my mind on how I should implement it. Anyway, the PVC pipe should be sort of fixed into the suspension wire system, while the bottle and the plant are easy to remove. It’s not really feasible to remove the pipe, since the wires and the irrigation hose run through the pipe.

 

 

Comments and improvement ideas welcome

See the next post for construction details and pics.

Sorry to be bombarding you with these pictures, if you’re uninterested.

So, I’m just a few days away from the science fair, and I’m already disappointed in how rigourous I was not.  If I do this for next year, I’ve got some ideas of how to really science this up.

That having been said, I’ve got the

first blossoms from my pea plants!

The first pic, you can’t really see the blossom, but it’s in there.  It’s the whitish ‘leaf’ right just up and left from centre.

The CO2 column has only been getting CO2 for the last 4 or 5 days, so there shouldn’t be loads of difference yet, even if I’m getting a meaningful amount in there.

How am I putting CO2 into this column of plants, you ask?

Read on…

If you have an aquarium that’s heavily planted with real plants, you have a nice, natural support to your filtration.  Unfortunately, the heavier the plant load, the more you run up against a limit on the plants’ growth – the amount of available CO2 in the water.  Since the concentration of CO2 will be roughly equivalent to that in the atmosphere, since the fish are not as great producer of CO2 as land animals, CO2 supplementation helps encourage plant growth.  Now you can spend LOADS of cash on a CO2 canister with all the bells and whistles ($00s of dollars) or you can have some soda pop, and DIY a CO2 generator.

One nice thing about doing this instead for hydroponics instead of for an aquarium is that for the latter you need a fancy diffuser (there are, of course, DIY options).

So I just have the other end of the CO2 airline going into the top of the bag that’s around one of my plant columns.  Simple.

So, my experiment was ‘is fish water as  good as commercial hydroponics fertilizer’.  There are a few caveats to my investigation.  #1 is that I’m not stocking at true Aquaponics densities.  They fill their tanks to the gills (heh.  Get it?  To the gills.  It’s about fish) and so have a much higher nitrogen level than I have.   They would also spread this over many more plants than I am.  There’s a lot of variables, is what I’m saying.  At any rate, here’s a few examples of the growth.

Not a bad amount of growth for… what, 12 days?

That’s it for tonight. Thanks for your interest, and have a good night. Good luck with your veggies.