Hey guys, been looking into this for a good while now and have finally put together the 1st 2 bottles for my 1st window farm! I, like plenty of other people, I’m sure, have made a small but I think significant modification to the system.

Now, none of you could have typed the words “hydroponics” or even “grow” in to Google without coming up with sites dedicated to people growing a certain widely known and smoked herb that shall remain nameless. Any-hoo, I came across one of these sites and decided that as these people are making a lot of money out of their particular choice of crop, they are likely to have spent a good amount of effort on research to enhance their yield and therefore come up with the best techniques. It seems that hydroponics is considered a little old hat in some of these circles, as many of you will well know, nutrified water is only half of what a plants roots need, the other half is a healthy supply of air. Our less legitimate friends are therefore using sprayers to moisten roots suspended in the air in so-called “aeroponics” systems and the newest thing being experimented with seems to be using ultrasonic devices to produce a nutrient rich fog to allow the smallest possible nutrified water particles and the greatest possible blend of moisture and air.

Now, brilliant as these things may be, they do obviously require dedicated spaces and resources that are out of reach and away from the ethos of the average window farmer, but there is a system I have found in my research that I believe will add to the already brilliant one employed by you entrepreneurial window farmers and with a minimal extra expenditure of resources, all of which you will already know where to buy, beg, borrow or steal.

Flood and Drain:

The flood and drain system consists of two cycles; the flood  cycle and… yes, the drain cycle. we start with a solid container, rather than a net cup, full of clay balls and a plant growing in it, the container is dry and so are the roots. On the flood cycle, the entire container, up to a few mm (sorry Americans) from the surface of the balls is completely flooded with our nutrient solution and then comes the drain cycle. at this point the water is pulled out of the system, sucking nice oxygen rich air back round the roots and then we start another flood cycle, pushing out the stale air and bring back the tasty nutrients. the advantage of this system over the traditional dripper style of window garden is that: a. all the growing medium gets an equal and high amount of both air and nutrients where as with drippers you inevitably end up with a very wet part in the middle and towards the bottom and a dry area towards the outsides and at the top and b. there is no need to have the wide space surrounding the grow medium containers to allow for air to the roots as it is sucked in by the expulsion of the water meaning we can use smaller bottles therefore getting more plants into our windows and saving on some materials.

My modification involves getting rid of ya net cup, putting the balls straight into the bottom of the bottle and then having a tube running from the bottom of the bottle, up to just below the top of the pebbles and then looping back through the bottom of the bottle into the next one which has a separate tube doing the same thing into the next bottle which has a separate tube doing the same thing etc… The idea is that when the water level reaches the top of the loop in the tube a siphon will start draining the liquid contents of that bottle into the one below and as that one fills the liquid reaches that bottle’s loop’s peak starting the siphon into the next one and etc to the bottom where the water is pumped back to the top. I have already tested the modification between 2 bottles and it works like a charm,when the siphon has finished the top bottle is completely drained down to about 2mm left in the bottom of the cap. I have yet to receive my pump and valves to start on the water up end of the cycle and see if the flow rate is enough to initiate siphoning but when I do I will yet ya’ll know. If all is well this mod should make for a more effective air and nutrient delivery with even amounts to all areas of the root system and allow plants to be hung around 75% closer together vertically due to not needing big airy bottles for the plants to hang in. It will also mean that you won’t have to mess around with suspending the net cups in the bottles or even buy any and increase the volume of the rooting medium available to the plants.

There are a couple of other considerations which I have come up with solutions to already but I think I’ve gone on enough for now.  If people are interested, let me know and I’ll get pictures of my progress, If you all think that this idea is stupid and I’ve missed some huge detail, let me know so I can stop wasting my time and get with the program. Either way, I look forward to your comments.

Ed.