Hi, everybody !

After several plant casualties, my windowfarm is recovering from its pH fever. The lettuce survived and started to grow again, as the nasturtium, three basils and most of the peas (these lasts started to flower, as a matter of fact. Beside a thorough clean-up,  the only thing I did for those survivors was to entirely change the composition of their nutrient solution.

So, right now, my upper reservoirs contain water from the tap (pH 7, has been sitting at least 24 hours to let chlorine evaporate before use) and an organic nutrient bought at the Hydroponic store : Iguana Juice Grow (it automatically gets the water pH down to 5,5 but smells like dead fish – really awful since it gets the room smelly at times). Take note that my system is working on gravitation, so I have to refill the reservoirs by hand, something I need to do about every four to eight days, usually, depending on the dripping flow. Therefore, the water doesn’t recirculates in the system unless I decide to reuse the contents of the bottom reservoir.

So, I started anew in one column, cleaning up everything, boiling the clay pellets, discarding the old rock wool and using fresh nutrient solution with Iguana Juice and my worm compost tea. Then I monitered the pH very closely.

Here is what I discovered :

1. My precious worm compost tea has a pH over 8,5 ! I never thought of testing it before my plants started to suffer very seriously. I always tested my pH after mixing in the nutrients and a few milliliters of vinegar to start with. Take note that within one column of my surviving plants, the pH would rise from 5,5 at the source up to 8,5+ in the bottom reservoir.

In the new column, the same phenomenom was observed, but to a much smaller extent (pH at 7 in the end). So, I stopped everything again and dumped the water solution to get rid of the worm tea.

Hypothesis : I use, from time to time, egg shells to protect my worm compost from too much acidity. Obviously, I overdid it. And I think that microscopic eggshell particles lodged themselves within the rock wool, very slowly dissolving into the dripping water flow, thus affecting its pH.

2. Even after my stopping from using worm compost tea, the pH in the reservoirs still has a tendency to slowly (within 4 days) go back up from 5,5 to 7 right inside the upper reservoirs (therefore, it does that without getting in contact with the plants or the wool rock, or eggshell particles).

Hypothesis : there could be in the city water a kind of pH stabilization agent that would slowly raise it back up. But I think that I can manage this imbalance by readjusting the pH every other day.

In the meanwhile, I isolated 50 of my worms in a new container to start a new compost farm. I will monitor its pH very closely to try to produce a worm tea with a pH of 6 or 6,5 at the most without any eggshells in it.

I intend to leave the two old columns as they are (with the old rock wool and the surviving plants), to see if the pH alteration effect wears off. The two other columns will receive new plants in new rock wool, and no worm tea will enter in my nutrient mixture until it has a more suitable pH reading !

All this thrilling mystery is fascinating and I have the feeling that I learn a little more everyday, although it was heartbreaking to see my plants die and quite panicking not to have a clue as why.

I’ll keep you posted.

Here is what I did with my third window farm.  http://our.windowfarms.org/2011/01/17/shower-curtain-rod-w2l-bottles/  The green beans are now at 8 weeks and I ate the first small batch yesterday for lunch.  Alot more are on the way.  The beans are in the middle spot.  I have a jalepeno in the top spot that was planted a week earlier than the beans, but took 4 weeks to germinate, wereas the beans germinated in a matter of about 4 days.  So the jalepeno is much smaller.   I have found that any pepper plant takes long to germinate.   The bottom spot I put in radishes as an experiment.  That did not turn out so go and that I’ll document in another post.

Bean Harvest

Bean & Jalepeno

The beans are 4 plants in one pot.  At first they grew upward and were leaning on the glass, but eventually with the weight of the beans they slid down and are now hanging below the pot.  They are now covering the lower pot completely.  In retrospect, the beans would have work better lower in the WF and I don’t think I would do 4 in a pot again, maybe 2 at the most.

Bean - CloseUp

Bean Malnutrition

With this WF, I used declorinated tap water.  I filled a bucket and let it sit out for a week.  My other WFs have all been using rain water that I had stored over the winter.  This one was out of luck since I did not save enough.  As a matter of fact, just this last week and in the nick of time I set the rain barrel back up and now have rain water for all of them.

This WF has a 2 gallon resevoir and At first I was changing the nutrients out every 2 weeks.  But as they were growing larger, a few of the older leaves would turn yellow and die in a matter of a few days.  I switched to once a week, but this really did not seem to help.  Then I started checking the ph more often and noticed that it really was jumping up too high during the week, as in getting way above 7 in only a day or two.  I want to keep it around 6 and am now checking and adjusting it a few times a week.   Now that I can use the rain water I am hoping the ph creep will not be as bad.  I will also try and stretch the change over back to two weeks.

Beans At 40 Days

Chicago Blizzard

Beans At 12 days

Another thing I was trying on this WF are root covers.  I made them out of reused cottage cheese container covers.  This has really cut down on the amout of algea growing on the top of the rockwool as compared to the other WFs without them.

Beans Sprouting

Hi again !

The situation didn’t improve in my clay pot windowfarm since my last post.

The oddest thing is happening : when I take water samples from under each pot of a column, the further down I go, the higher the pH reading.

pH readings took within half an hour from :

inside the upper reservoir : 5,5

at the end of the drip tube : 5,5

under the 1st clay pot (the highest) : 6,5

under the 2nd clay pot : 7,5

under the 3rd clay pot : 8

under the 4th clay pot : 8,5

under the drain tube (after the 5th pot) : 8,5+

and just to make sure : a second, double-check reading of my water source in the upper reservoir : 5,5 !!!

Then, I tested one empty spare pot for pH neutrality by plunging it in water for the night : water pH remained the same.

I tested the pellets : no change (and no surprise) there either.

The only thing left was the rock wool : Bingo ! I found the only culprit. In the 4th clay pot, the water extracted from the wool had a very high pH. Since the poor plants are dying anyway, I drenched the whole pot and its contents with 1 litre of acidic water (pH 5). Then I let it sit to dry for the night and this morning, the pH of the water retained by the wool was 7+.

Is it possible that an agent of some kind took residence inside the wool, reacting chemically with the water and-or nutrient liquid to pitch the pH repetitively up ? Or would it be that the water previously absorbed by the wool would be locked there and couldn’t be diluted by the newly coming fluid, this fluid dripping right through with no or almost no effect ? No, this last theory doesn’t work, because if it were the case, the pH in my bottom reservoir would still be around 5,5.

The simple fact is : even after letting more than 10 litres of acidic nutrient solution (pH 6 or below) pass down through my column over the last week or so, all this water had turned to a pH of well over 8. Therefore, a chemical reaction is occuring during the descent.

I have this problem of raising pH from the day I started monitoring my pH. What would start at 6 would end down around 7 or 7,5. During the installation of my plants, I innoculated my rock wool cubes by dipping a whole batch of them in Eco Root Dip Gel which contains 16 different mycorhizal fungy. I didn’t use them all the same day and some sat in the solution for several days before I used them. As after a few weeks my plants didn’t  grow much or didn’t grow à al in some cases,  I added  my filtered urine in the mix in the hopes of raising the nitrogen contains. From that point, the pH went wild and very high. From Britta’s explanation on the use of human urine as a nutrient, it would be normal for it to affect the pH in that way while it would break into ammonia.

But my system is litres away from that mixture. By that time, I would have expected it to recover, at least partially.

Does anybody have an explanation ?

I’m planning to replace my pots one by one, taking out the bottom ones first (4th ones, which are plagued with the highest pH of all), emptying and desinfecting it, and reinstalling a new plant in it as my new seedlings sprout. Then, pot number 3 would move down one level, replacing pot number 4, number 2 and one following this descent. Pot number 4, newly filled up, would move up high in the column, safe from infection, because no old pot would stand over it to drip in it.

I would slowly replace everything  in that fashion and of course, I would never reuse the water from the bottom reservoir until the end of the process.

Any insight highly appreciated. And I’d like Britta’s point of vue on this. So… @britta

By the way, my affected plants are wilting and then shrivel slowly. The peas that are in the upper levels look healthy.  The only plants I got out from their pot are my most affected peas. They are shriveling but their root system is developped and looks very healthy, with no sign of rot or damage whatsoever. No slime and sign of pests either. The wool rock is clean and evenly moist, just as the roots.

During the first 12 hours or so on this diet, I made a stupid mistake in adjusting the flow of dripping on my two central columns and my whole new 3,5 L reservoir emptied itself in a few hours, drenching the poor plants with my horse remedy. Poor things. When I came back from work that evening, some of the leaves on my peas displayed white spots. I concluded that my solution was burning my plants, so I rapidly cut the solution in two by adding fresh dechlorinated water to it in each of my reservoirs.

So now, we’re talking about 1 : 10 solution of urea. Three days later, my peas seem to be OK and I could swear that my plants are starting to get bigger again. It’s a little soon to be so enthousiastic, though. But I’ll tell you if I was dellusional !

Meanwhile, I still have to adjust my pH daily to try to keep it down around 6. And I don’t know, but it seems to me that needing a daily pH adjustment isn’t the norm for windowfarmers. Next post, I’ll try to add photos.

This is what I have so far. I started from seed. They are sprouting well, except the cilantro which hasn’t yet. I just added the correct amount of nutrients to the reservoir for a gallon tank(this is after first week of constant water circulation). What do I do now? Do I keep the pump on? Should I look at a PH guide for these specific veggies? Even get a meter? I’m a newb. HELP! My windowfarm update 1.1.11

DIYers: plumb in a household reverse osmosis (RO) water filter system in hours.

How to choose, size, connect and maintain a filter adequate for your needs.

Reverse osmosis home filtration systems provide large volumes of pure, clean, color- and odor-free water for people, pets and plants. A “hard wired” RO hyperfiltration unit is a convenience easily within reach of the average DIYer.

A domestic DIY-ready RO system typically consists of several components, often sold as a kit along with an installation instruction manual:

1. Filter Array—four to six filters mounted on a hangable metal housing. Units with more filters deliver slightly cleaner water. All the filters in the array are pre-connected by the manufacturer, so hookup is a snap. An automatic shutoff valve is usually part of the array.
2. Holding tank—a 3 to 6 gallon capacity pressurized vessel that stores filtered water ready to flow to a sink- or counter-mounted faucet. Until direct flow systems hit the market recently, the RO process has been too slow to instantly provide a gallon or two of filtered water, hence the need for a tank. Tankless direct flow units are pricier.
3. Faucet mounted in a convenient location, usually on the kitchen sink.
4. 1/4″ plastic hoses to connect the filter array to feed water and to the faucet, and for waste water discharge
5. Feed water valve: either self-piercing saddle type, identical to an ice maker supply setup that taps into a water pipe; or a ball valve installed in-line in the riser tube of a sink’s cold water supply.

How RO System Filters Purify Water

Water flows through the filters in the array and is successively cleaned in “stages” as follows:

* Stage 1 Prefilter, 1 – 5 micron—removes sediment, suspended rust and sand.
* Stage 2 Prefilter, granular activated carbon (GAC) 1 to 5 micron—removes most chlorine, organic chemicals, taste, color and odor.
* Stage 3 Prefilter, either a second GAC or an activated carbon block, 1 to 5 micron—further removes chemical entities Stage 2 filter missed.
* Stage 4 Filter, osmotic membrane—the workhorse filter that gives the system its name. Removes 92% to 98% of all remaining chemicals and dissolved solids in tap water.
* Stage 5 Postfilter, deionization (DI)—removes remaining dissolved solids. Premium systems have 2 of these when ultra pure water is needed for aquariums, hydroponics and laboratories.

Selecting a Reverse Osmosis System: How Large?

The EPA estimates that the average adult consumes 2.0 L (about 1/2 gallon) of drinking water per day. Choose an RO system with a filtration capacity sufficient to meet typical family needs and “surges” like parties that require extra water for coffee, drink mixes and the like. A unit that generates 3 GPH (gallons per hour) has about the same capacity as one rated at 75 GPD (gallons per day), and is large enough for most households.
RO System Pre-Installation Considerations

1. Many RO systems require a minimum water pressure of 40 psi. Booster pumps are available if pressure is a problem.
2. Consider a whole-house filter, ahead of the RO unit, if incoming municipal or well water is unusually turbid or rusty.
3. Choose a spot for the filter array (approximately 18” H x 18” W x 8” D) that’s easy to access, since the unit needs to be serviced twice a year. If the undersink area is too small to stand or hang the array, consider a basement, utility room, etc.
4. Select a location for the holding tank (approximately 18” H x 12” W x 12” D). It can be spotted anywhere up to 30 feet away from the filter unit.
5. If there’s no available kitchen sink-top hole to install the added separate purified water faucet, replace the kitchen faucet with a pullout spray head model to free up the sprayer hole. Alternatively, drill a new dedicated hole in the countertop or sink. Careful: porcelain, marble, granite and some composites may shatter or crack unless a specialty drill bit and proper technique are used.
6. Supplies needed: common hand tools and perhaps an electric drill; Teflon thread paste or tape; extra 1/4″ plastic tubing for longer runs and cable ties to dress up the job; a basin wrench to reach up to faucet nuts under the sink; flashlight; wall or cabinet anchor screw hardware.

Step-by-Step: How to Install the RO System

1. First install the faucet (often the most difficult part of the project) on or near the sink. A basin wrench often comes in handy here.
2. Run 1/4″ tubing from the faucet to where the filter array will be spotted.
3. Mount the filter array where desired. Place a drip pan under it to catch inevitable small leaks.
4. Place the storage tank in desired location.
5. Connect the feed water valve to a cold (not hot!) water line and run tubing to the filter array.
6. Run a water discharge line from the filter array to a floor drain or utility sink; or into a sink drainpipe above the trap via a saddle usually supplied in RO “kits.”
7. Connect the storage tank to the filter array.
8. Check all hoses and fittings per the instruction manual. With the faucet open and the valve on the storage tank closed, open the feed water valve. Recheck fittings and eliminate leaks.
9. When water flows from the faucet, close it, open the storage tank valve, and let the system “charge” for several hours. When clean water has filled the tank the system usually shuts off automatically. Charging is complete when water stops flowing from the discharge tube.
10. Purge the system: open the faucet and let the water run down the drain until only a dribble emerges. This step rids the system of any residual debris.
11. Close the faucet and let the system recharge. Enjoy clean water!

How To Maintain the Reverse Osmosis System

Except for the osmotic membrane, which lasts two to three years, change out filters approximately every 6 months or 6,000 gallons. The stage 1 paper prefilter usually fouls faster than the others. To save money, obtain an extra filter and clean the dirty one instead of replacing it with a new one.

Written by: the Mad Farmers at SAN DIEGO HYDROPONICS AND ORGANICS

http://www.facebook.com/emilykristajohnson?ref=hpbday&pub=2386512837#!/notes/san-diego-hydroponics-organics/how-to-install-a-reverse-osmosis-system/121065994576138

Just got the system up and tested it overnight for any leaks etc. before adding the plants. I attached the lights to the bars instead of suspending them as it seemed easier. Success! No leaks or pooling. I think there might have been a slight clog in one of the drip valves, but I blew into the tube slightly to release it, which worked.

Getting ready to put the seedlings into net pots and install, but I’m trying to figure out the timing of the lights and nutrients first. I have a feeling it’s going to be a bit of trial & error.  Since my 47″ reservoirs hold 2.6 gallons of water, I’m going to pour 2 gallons into the reservoir to make sure that my pump is always submerged in water. To balance the PH level in the water, I am using a tester kit and PH-Up and PH-Down to adjust the level according to this PH chart for hydroponic gardeners.  My mix of herbs (Oregano, Thyme, Parsley, Sage, Verbena, Lavender, Sweet Basil), vegetables (Endive, Hot Peppers, Lettuce) & flowers (Morning Glory, Moonflower, Echinacea) warrants a 5.5-6 to keep everyone happy, I think.

For nutrients, I am using the following products measured to proportion with 2 gallons of water:

(L to R: PH-Up, PH tester, PH-Down, Drip Clean, Multi Zen, Roots Excelerator, Magic Green, Aqua Flakes A, Aqua Flakes B)

My contact at the local hydro store recommended that I turn the drip on 3x a day for 15 minutes to begin with (sun-up, midday, lights off) and to keep the lights on for 18 HRS a day starting from sun-up even though my windows face South.

Strawberries - 22 Days

Here we are at only 22 days since I transplanted my strawberries.  They look healthly and are producing lots of flowers.   A couple of them look they may turn into fruit, but I have never observed them closely enough in the garden before to know the stages of developement.  I am hopeful.

This video was taken more recently on March 30th, 2010:

silox – 1st Week Progress and 2nd Vertical Plant Tower w/ New Plants – March 30th, 2010

This is an update after the 1st week of growing in the 1st vertical plant tower and after building/planting in the 2nd vertical tower of our hydroponic window farm.

We have learned a few things just in the 1st week of setting up, planting and running our hydroponic window farm that I would like to share with you.

*  Mentioned it in my last post, but I cannot stress enough, water quality is VERY IMPORTANT.  The first couple of days I used our city tap water to power the 1st vertical plant tower(before my first video/blog until 3/22/2010).  This was also before I purchased a simple PH testing kit.  The electronic ones are nice, but I stuck with the manual method using a small container and drops to gauge the PH for costs reasons, plus I don’t think I’ll have to use it that often due to the reservoir sizes and the water I use now.  I tested the PH of the city tap water I was using and it was over 7 which is not good. Aside from an unbalance PH, the city tap water also contains chlorine, flouride, other chemicals and various minerals.  Even though water can be naturally dechlorinated by letting it sit 24-48hrs in an uncovered bucket, you still have to worry about all of the other nasty stuff and the PH of the water.  Now, I could go through the trouble of filtering my water which I may do in some form or fashion in the future, but I find it easier and cheaper to purchase RO(Reverse Osmosis) water locally from 1 of the 2 sources less than a mile away which I did and I can happily say I’m now using it.  Right out of the gate, the PH was perfect and no impurities whatsoever.  An unbalanced PH can cause the plants to stop uptaking some or all nutrients in order to protect itself(from what I’ve read), same with all of the other chemicals inside the water.  We do have some indoor AC units that collect several gallons of condensation daily in collection containers when they are working hard all day to cool down the apartment, so we will probably look into using that water instead when the time comes to keep them on.  We are also considering purchasing an atmospheric water generator such as an Ecoloblue which also collects water from the atmosphere/humidity in the air, but also filters it afterwards which allows it to be used for drinking/cooking etc(7-8 gallons a day!) and the hydro reservoirs.

* Adequate lighting is also very important to keep the plants photosynthesizing which equals produce!  I think it’s probably safe to say that most window farms will probably not have 100% of the needed light to produce as quickly or as much as most people desire, but I could be wrong here.  That is certainly the situation in our setup and while we try to use the natural sunlight when it’s available for a few hours a day, we’ve supplemented to make up for the lack of desired light.  We added a 4ft 54W florescent bulb complete with reflector to our window farm and attached to the sliding glass door facing the vertical plant towers.  We reshaped the reflector to open up and allow for light to be casted almost 180 degrees towards the side of the plants which I believe really helps the light be as efficient as possible and keeping unwanted light from shining out of our window towards the neighbors.  You can tell the plants really are reaching to grow towards the light, so much that I’m going to need to move the vertical plant tower back just a hair to keep them from touching it, hehe.  I have the light on a timer for 12hr on/12hr off(6:30am to 6:30pm).

* Attaching the wooden dowels that support all of the plant containers on the vertical plant tower to the reservior for extra support sounded like a good idea at first, but presented some logistical maintenance problems later on.  We corrected this by mounting a aluminum L bracket (the kind designed to hold up a simple shelf) to the top of the window area so they wooden dowels can held straight up via a hook driven into the top of the dowel and inserted into a hole on the end of the L bracket.  All of the weight of the plants/dowel is resting on the floor via the bottom of the wooden dowel and the hook/L bracket assembly is to keep it from tipping over.  This allows for us to easily move or rotate the vertical plant tower and remove the reservior for water maintenance(water replacment and cleaning).  This will also allow me to move the vertical plant towers back some from the light as I mentioned above with a simple modification or two.

* We are using the caps that came with the bottles and recreated the holes in them to be smaller directly in the middle of the cap.  The plan does not call for these caps AFAIK.  Why did I use them?  To keep water from splashing out of the containers onto the floor.  Without the caps or using caps with large holes in them allows for water to flow unevenly which results in droplets that are thrown out the container and that adds up quickly over a few days.  I recut the caps to use a smaller hole(5mm) and this seems to work very well.

Recap of plants we have growing, locations and dates planted

Plants on 1st vertical tower(far left) from top to bottom – planted on 20100321:
1. Butterleaf Lettuce
2. Green Beans
3. Strawberries
4. Jalapenos

Plants on 2nd vertical tower(middle or right) from top to bottom – planted on 20100330:
1. Brussel Sprouts
2. Cauliflower
3. Broccoli
4. Eggplant

I thought it would be interesting to do a little math on the cost to run the light and pump.  With my current setup(1x 54W florescent light and 1x Petco 9904 pump), assuming a 30day month and $0.15/KWh power rate, it costs a mere approximate of $3.50 a month to run the light 12hrs a day and the pump non-stop.  Not bad!!

Our future plan is to put a 3 vertical plant tower in the same window on the far right.  In order to do so, we will need to purchase another 4ft 54W florescent light w/ reflector(lights can be daisy-chained together out of the box), another air pump and 4 more 1.5L Ozarka water bottles.  We pre-purchased all of the other materials with the expectations of creating at least 3 vertical plant towers total.

Will try to post an update in about a week’s time.  Happy window farming!