We are pleased to announce the V3.0 release of the windowfarms community’s latest windowfarm design, the V3.0, the Modular Airlift Multicolumn Array, or MAMA!

• quieter
• easier to set up
• more elegant, but still do-able with all recycled water bottles
• more plants for less electrical input (up to 32 plants on one air pump if you do Rama’s double plant mod)
• modular, meaning you can supply proper nutrients to vegetative, fruiting, and flowering plants all in one system.

No more airlift issues with the new tubes. And we have finally achieved some serious height!! Achieving height means you can grow more plants with the same pump so it is way more efficient in terms of the amount of nutritional calories per fossil fuel calorie used in powering the pump. This design described in the free how to is basically the same as the new Classic kit.

If you are a total beginner and not the handiest person in town, we suggest you start with the Version 2.0 airlift system, or consider buying a kit (kit cost comes out about the same as buying all the materials yourself anyway, but we source just the right parts responsibly and the little margin between supports the cost to run the project!!).

We decided to release this as a participatory web guide that captures ideas, questions, sketches, discussion, & issues for R&D-I-Y while you build. This new functionality is still in it’s “beta” testing phase & we are working on integrating it with this site still.

Thank you to all contributors to the our.windowfarms.org site & BIG PROPS to @ramajames, @Hardwarejunkie,  @samenrahmen, and other users who have contributed so much to the art of windowfarming.

Follow this link to the new instructions (you will need to register first so that we can make sure you have accepted the community’s open source terms of service.

These are UPDATED instructions that show you how to make a ‘mini’

1 hour build- The easiest, cheapest, smallest windowfarm. Gets you started on hydroponics ASAP! This version is designed to be easy to assemble for folks who want to try out a windowfarm but are not quite ready to build the structure needed for larger windowfarms. This system grows three plants and costs less than $30. The basic configuration includes three bottles that act as plant holders, a bottom reservoir to capture/hold water, and tubing to move water through the system. It also utilizes a small air pump that uses water displacement to elevate the water up to the top of the system, where it can then trickle down through each plant.

Download theNew PDF and give it a try! Check the comments below for updates and to read about other folks’ experiences before you build (remember this is an ongoing R&D process so don’t think of it as a product!!)

Please note that we ask anyone who downloads the how-to to register on the site and to come back and post as you build, not just when you’re finished. You give back to the project by participating on the site. Bring questions, ideas, results of your testing various processes. This is a mass collaboration on the R&D of these systems.

IMPORTANT REMINDER ABOUT ELECTRICAL SAFETY: Remember to include a drip loop (position the cord so it hangs down below the electrical plug).

Here’s the Old PDF if you need it for some reason.

This system can churn-out a salad per week, but it is definitely not the place to start if you are a beginner. This was our community’s first design and is a little more of a challenge. The window farm described in this How-To is a reservoir system. A water pump on a timer periodically pumps water and liquid nutrients from the bottom reservoir to the top reservoir. There are small holes drilled into the underside of the top reservoir. Small drip emitters with valves let out a constant drip of water and nutrients into a column of plants. Each plant sits in a grow medium in a net cup (a perforated plastic cup commonly used in hydroponics), within an inverted plastic water bottle. The cap of each water bottle has a hole in it so that the water and nutrients can drip from one bottle to the next, from the top to the bottom of the column of plants. The bottom-most bottles are connected to tubing that takes the water and nutrients into the bottom reservoir, where it sits until the pump turns on again.

Water pump systems are a little more finicky and are susceptible to clogging. Most of the community has moved toward the airlift design so unless you are very comfortable with tools and handy, we suggest trying the airlift how-to.

IMPORTANT ELECTRICAL SAFETY UPDATE!!! Please remember to include a drip loop on electrical components of this system. Make sure the cord hangs down below the outlet and then goes back up to plug in. Make sure you do not have an outlet directly under your reservoirs.

Download the PDF of the How To instruction guide here. Please note that we ask anyone who downloads the how-to to register on the site and to come back and post as you build, not just when you’re finished. You give back to the project by participating on the site. Bring questions, ideas, results of your testing various processes. This is a mass collaboration on the R&D of these systems.