This is from Jackson’s blog at Superforest.

I found my way into the vertical garden/hydroponics section of youtube, and there I feasted like a wild wildebeast.
I gorged on gallons per minute tables, pvc piping comparisons, and silicone sealant. I learned about pump volume ratios and outflow units and bleeder valves and plastic tubing.

And in the end I thought: I could design a system for growing food and flowers just like these but much, much simpler.

And so I went to the drawing board and tried out some ideas…

And here we are now.

My idea, which I happily share with you all, is to use a six-gallon bucket, a few lengths of pvc, an air pump, a short section of tubing, some zip ties, and one-gallon milk containers to create a personal, scalable, hydroponic (soil-free) drip-irrigation food machine.

I call it: The Jackpot.

An air lift is a wonderful and simple device. It’s just a length of pipe, open at both ends. You feed an air line into the bottom of the pipe and submerge it under water. The air bubbles within the pipe form an upward current and water is carried up to the top of the pipe. Simple, cheap, effective. Here’s a viddy to help explain.

The problem with a single air lift is they can only lift water a short height. Conceivably, combining multiple air lifts within a larger pipe would allow one to lift any amount of water to any height required, provided you had sufficient air flow. This idea probably originated in ancient Persia, I’m not making any claims to it.

So, a hanging garden set up, where water is pumped to the top and there trickles down through multiple growing containers before eventually feeding back into the main reservoir, all built around a central multiple air lift is the problem that’s been bugging me for the past few weeks.

P.S. I awoke from a fever dream and drew this schematic! Cool, no?

The pump – purchased from MoPar – an autoparts store, for about $20.00. This is a standard windshield pump. Others can be found online for next to nothing. The supply voltage is supposed to be 12V – This is the same as a car’s standard voltage.

What HAS to be known is that at 12V, this pump’s duty cycle, that is ratio of running time to off time is about 5 seconds every minute…… or so. In other words, if you run it too long, it will overheat and fry. Anyway, it moves SO much water at 12V that it’s aubsurd to operate at this voltage anyway. We tried 12V, and 7.5 V from a wall-wart style adapter

Connecting the pump to a small 12V lead acid battery. The black wire on the pump is the negative (-) pole, and the white wire corrensponds to the positive pole. On the battery, this is red. Note, that this isn’t always the case, so try to check documentation if you’re not sure. Thankfuly, the consequence for connecting the pump backwards is a reversal of the rotation direction, and poor performance (and NOT a reversal of flow so don’t even think about it!)

We used polyethylene tubing. The pump has 1/4” barb fittings. PE tubing is food safe, meets real FDA specs, and is very easy to work with. Example, McMaster part No. 50375K43 is available for 0.11 per foot, or 7 cents over 100 feet. To soften the tubing to allow easy installation, we briefly heated the tubing with a common cigarette lighter until the tubing took on a very slightly more clear appearance. Don’t apply too much heat! Once the tube cools, no clamping is needed and the installation can be considered permanent.

In order to use these pumps, you need to place them BELOW the water line of your main reservoir. Use as short a piece of hose as possible on the intake. Even better than running the tube over the edge of the container would be to install a fitting in the bottom of the reservoir to allow a direct connection.

If you use the siphon method like we did (tube over the top of the bucket) you need to prime the pump by (yep) SUCKING on the hose to draw some water in to the pump. No you don’t have to get the liquid in your mouth, just in to the pump….. anyway it’s just bat guano.

WALL WART power transformer. Can be found at All Electronics for less than $10 – sometimes less than $5. You want DC, and at least 1 amp – 2A, (2000 mA) is even better.

Decreased flow AND noise from running on 7.5 volts. There was still plenty of pressure. We had no problem getting it to pump water to the top of our Food Chain.

Everybody be warned that the Ecoplus pumps are a bit of a hit or miss. It seems like sometimes you just get shipped a lemon.

We have been having a lot of trouble with the EcoPlus pumps and have had to return them 3 times. Agh! Seems like there are some manufacturer issues. Maria Ailova, the program director has almost given up on them.

The window we are using for our windowfarm is 6′ 10″ tall and the plan is to mount the pump right flush with the bottom of the window and have the tubing go up into the top reservoir about 6″ above the top for a total head (pumping height) of 7’4.”

The first pump we bought was the Ecoplus 1056, which is rated for 9.2.’ But it did not pump high enough and the attachment for 1/2″ tubing was broken. We replaced the attachment and it still did not work.  Even the next pump down, the Ecoplus 633 is rated for a max head of 7.4.’

We returned the 1056 and ordered the 1267, which just barely reached the top. However, it leaked! The back of the pump housing put out a rapid drip as soon as we turned the pump on.

We returned that one and told them the problem. The next one they send did the same thing!

We finally got one that worked and did not leak. Just plan that there is a possibility you will have to return your pump so definitely wait to get seedlings until after you are sure your system is working.

Britta and I finished the first window farm prototype in her kitchen window in April. The system includes a pump in a bottom reservoir which is on a timer, to pump about 3 gallons of water/nutrient solution up to the top reservoir. The liquid then drips through the columns of water bottles that hold the plants.

We’ve listed each component below, and some of the lessons we learned.

The main components are:

• Reservoir 1 (a 5 gallon bucket on the floor)
• Water pump (orange)
• Reservoir 2 (a tupperware container on a shelf above the window)
• Large diameter tubing going up to fill Reservoir 2 (orange)
• Small tubing to and from each vertical component
• Clamps
• Water bottles
• Net cups with clay pellets
• Covering for roots
• Fishing Wire to suspend
• CFL bulbs and covers
• Light Timer
• Air Pump
• Second timer for pump

Scroll down for more details about each component. We have listed each component and ordering information on this site.

Reservoir 1 is a 5 gallon bucket on the floor with water and nutrient solution

- 500+ gallon per hour pump of high quality which makes it quieter. You can go with a cheaper one if like this it will only turn on 3 times a day.

- There is a timer on the pump which turns on for 2 minutes every 8 hours. It fills Reservoir 2.

- Along with the pump, the reservoir also has an aquarium air bubbler in it to keep the water aerated or moving so it does not stagnate. This thing is a problem because it is loud. We should find quieter ones because it stays on all the time.

Parts in this area:

• 5 gallon bucket
• Water pump (500 gph)
• Timer for pump with at least 3 on/off settings per day
• Aquarium air bubbler and airline tubing
• Tubing that fits water pump fitting (to go to reservoir 2)
• Extension cord
• Nutrient solution mixed with water

Reservoir 2 above the window

- The reservoir is filled via the tube coming up from the pump in reservoir 1. The size of the tubing was determined by the fitting on the pump.

- The reservoir itself is a tupperware container we got at the hardware store. In the future we would look for something made out of thicker plastic so it is easier to put the plumbing connections into. This plastic was thin and difficult to drill clean holes into. Also, technically this should be an opaque container since nutrient solution should not be exposed to prolonged light, but we choose clear so we could see the nutrient level and color.

- We used brass pipe fittings to connect the tube to the reservoir. They included the barbed brass and yellow rubber you see on the right of this photo. You cannot see the other side of the fittings, where we used the female pipe fittings to tighten the connection on the inside of the reservoir.

- There are 5 tubes which come out of the reservoir.

- They are clamped down really hard so that the 3 gallons of water in the reservoir takes the whole 8 hours to drip through the system – so the plants are getting a constant drip.

- We’ve realized now that instead of clamping, the better solution would be to use much smaller tubing – probably 1/8th inch – to slow the water flow – instead of needing the clamp the tubes.

Parts in this area

• 5 gallon tupperware container with lid
• Shelf and brackets to mount container on above window
• Barbed connectors to connect reservoir to tubing to plants, rubber O-rings and aquarium sealer
• Clamps (although these might not be necessary if your tubing is much smaller than ours)

Water Bottles

- The five tubes from Reservoir 2 extend into the top water bottles.

- The water bottles are suspended by 15 lb fishing wire tied to simple hooks drilled into the top of the window.

- The plants are in net cups, in clay pellets, resting in the water bottles, which, because of the ‘eco-shape’, are the perfect size for the net cups.

- Some of bottles have their caps on, with some holes drilled in the caps for the water to drip through. Another design we experimented with here has plastic martini glasses duct-taped to the bottles which have had their tops cut off.

- The water drips down through each plant and then to this tubing at the bottom, which brings the water solution back to the bucket reservoir.

- 6 100 Watt CFLs from Home depot in normal sockets. This may be overkill. However, in general the closer you can get the lights to the plants the more growth you can generate.

- Light Timer with 5 sockets goes on once a day and turns off once a day

These are some of the things we would change in the next version:

• Find better plumbing components
• Ian suggested using a chin up bar to suspend everything from at the top of the window to not have to drill the hooks
• Gabriel points out that a cheaper alternative to a chin-up bar might be some threaded pipe from the hardware store. They sell metal pipe cut to length and threaded on the ends, which screws into plates that are screwed onto the window frame. So some holes in window frame, but only in two places vs. a series as with hooks. Very strong.
• Remove the reservoir at the top and experiment with the pump so the water can go directly to the plants
• Play with the lighting design so less light bleeds into the apartment and out the window
• Find more flexible tubing for the bottom so that there’s not that large tube going to the reservoir
• Use containers other than water bottles
• Find a way to use coconut coir so it doesn’t clog the system
• Look into using copper
• Pump- cheaper? Non-electro?
• Air pump- quieter? Non-electro?
• Tubing adapters- easier?
• Reservoir 2 attachments
• Root covers- elegant?
• Containers- alternatives, less labor
• Wiring- Less messy
• Clamps- cheaper
• Suspension- Less invasive, more stable
• Aeroponics?
• Microgreens setup?
• Lights- positioning? use less light by sensor switches? filtering less harsh on eyes inside? less light pollution outside?