Hey guys,

I’m about to start building my first system having looked at the plans for all three versions. I have a few questions about modifications that immediately spring to mind as I’m setting up.

1) Why does the bottom reservoir cap assembly in version 3 need to be the way it is? It seems like version 2 system seems a lot more simple, is there any reason why this can’t be used in a version 3 set up?

2) Why could the hydroponic cages not be placed deeper down the bottles? That way more plants (and bottles) could be accommodated in a single column. You’d need to cut down the bottles to do, which would require a bit more modification to the system, but I don’t see why this would be too difficult.

I realize how green I am to all this, so feel free to tell me if my ideas wouldn’t work and why!

Thanks.

I have finally completed my windowfarm, and transferred my baby plants! So far it was neat watching the plants grow from seeds. I hope they bear fruit. I have 2 spinach plants, 2 different tomatoe plants, 3brocolli plants, and 3 mint plants, and 1 lettuce plant! I used the air T-lift system to get the water pumped to the top.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

This isn’t our first hydro build, by far, but it is our first one to be hung in a window! It’s in an east facing window in our living room & we love how it brings the same esthetic as a houseplant, but the benefits of FOOD!

This was about a week after we set it up. We started the beans & cucumbers from seed in a little greenhouse on top of the fridge. The top two pots are cucumbers and the bottom has 4 green beans.

We hung the pots with some hemp we had in our craft surplus & made the trellis out of the hemp & bamboo stakes. I’ve even made a bow and arrow out of the bamboo!

This is how the middle & bottom pot get watered. There is a piece of bamboo shoved up there to keep the tubing straight.

Here’s the reservoir, made from a cereal tupperware we got at Target & some ducting tape to make it lightproof. We took the little hinged pour spout off of the lid and ran the watering and drainage tubing through the opening. You can also see the timer there, right now we run the water pump for 15 mins every 2 hours from 6am to 6pm. As the plants get bigger we might have to adjust the schedule, but for now it works out.

We use a water pump we had around the house and it works great until the water level in the res gets down to about 25%. It’s a good reminder that it’s time for a refill without having the pump run dry.

Our first sight of beans!

Beans, beans….

….and more BEANS!!

Okay, enough beans. Here’s our first cucumber flower!

We’re getting a lot of male flowers, just waiting for that female! Well, that’s what we have so far. If you have any specific questions on what we used or how we use it leave a comment or send a message & we’d love to share!

Happy Growing!

-The Sanders

Update: Do NOT use aluminum for the piping as I have. Apparently aluminum will release toxins in the water which will build up in your body. There are also reports of plants dying due to aluminum exposure. I’ll be replacing the aluminum pipes with plastic as soon as possible.

The construction part is finally complete! It turned out as good as I hoped, and much better than I expected!

Here are the earlier posts related to the same project: 1st , 2nd (the title said it was complete already, but it wasn’t pretty enough

Here are the first shots. I only have some tiny little shoots in there, but you’ll need to use your imagination on what it’ll look like in the spring. The rockwool needs to be cleaned up a bit and properly covered with pebbles.

    

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. (25 e at Bauhaus)
• 1 Inner pot. The inner pot is 22 cm tall, so below it lies my actual reservoir. The volume is somewhere around 5-10 liters. (15e at Bauhaus)
• 2 meters of aluminum plastic pipe, 6 mm diameter. One meter for drip pipes and another for the air lift.
• 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)
• 4 gaskets for sealing the drip pipes. The ones I got seem to do the job pretty well: 17mm outer diameter, 5mm inner diameter, 4mm thick. (around 2 euros for a 4-pack)
• 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” air hose. It’s possible to stretch this over the aluminum pipe using small pliers. (2 euros / meter at a local aquarium store)
• Needle for the airlift (3e at Bauhaus)

Update:

Here’s an additional picture to better explain how this reservoir works. A company called Elho makes these pots. The outer pot is perfect for the reservoir, and the inner pot is good for a bunch of plants.

d.3 stands for D’Artagnon’s third system . . . in case people went looking for an “official” set of d.3 plans on the site.

Anyhoo . . .

Looking through the site and through the plans I felt I wanted another option for my containers other than plastic and another growth medium other than those provided. So, taking the basic theory I struck out with my shoelaces untied and the wind in my face.

First the bottles; I used 12 oz soda bottles for a mini herb garden. I found a cool method of slicing the bottoms of the bottles off that was clean and painless. I will post the extended directions in another post. So, bottoms off, edges smoothed then I added my medium.

 

Rockwool doesn’t breakdown and they are a onetime use product. Once the roots have taken over, then what? Where does that go? The pebbles and expanded clay can be reused often, but that seems a lot of maintenance and they come with plastic baskets. A while ago I saw a news segment about a man who went in to the doctor because he thought he might have lung cancer and through some tests found he had inhaled a pea, which started to sprout in his lung.

Creepy, but it gave me a great idea; luffah as a growth medium.

 

The early version of my system proved that the luffah stayed moist and allowed oxygen to flow through the root system. Best of all, it breaks down slowly. Not too fast so it supports the root system but it can be thrown into my compost and returned in an earth friendly way. Also, luffah easier to manage if soaked briefly in water.

 

The reservoir bottle is a salvaged wine bottle sealed with aquarium grade silicon in the neck. I inserted the pump needle directly into the silicon air tube and that tube sits next to a purge valve for easy drainage. I found a simpler check valve at PetSmart and inserted it further down the line for easier access.

The bottles are strung together using a bracelet knot. Well, really it’s a bunch of square knots tied over the bottles. Tension keeps things stable.

In the earlier version of the system having the airlift tube on the outside proved messy, so I had the tube running up inside the bottles. After having to do some maintenance and fret over root invasion I returned it to the outside. The white tube is 1/4 inch  (outside dimension) pex tube and the smaller is a 1/4 inch (outside dimension) ac tube.

 

A side note on the airlift system: If the water level is too low in your reservoir then the air won’t lift enough water. I kept the level about 1.5 inches from the top edge and I chose a long bottle for this specific purpose. Right now it’s a single column system so I only need a single pump.

Next is to transplant my sprouts and actually get food for the system. That’s going to be an exciting learning curve. Eventually I want to see if I can get a piece of bamboo for my airlift tube and be free from the plastic. Here’s hoping.

Let me know what you think and feel free to ask questions. Happy tinkering!

 

d’

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

Windowfarms recommend a 4 outlet pump but many people already have a 1 outlet pump and probably would like to use the one they have.  So here I have a video about a method to split the air stream to work 2 or more columns. If you just split the air with a Y or T splitter (even if both airlift tubes are exactly the same), the air will “choose” one tube (or the other one) and then all or most of the air will go up that one with zero or almost zero airlift happening in the other one.  This is because the “starting pressure”  is higher than the “running pressure” for any airlift pump.  So whichever one starts first will probably stay running really well at the expense of the second one (which will be either really slow or not running at all!)

The method I show to prevent this is to throttle both of them.  In the video, I use little “taps” to tighten and restrict the airflow to both sides until both sides run. AND stay running!   For this to work, both airlifts should have similar submergence (but they do not need to go to the same height).  You might also be able to see from the video that you can have one going a bit faster than the other.  So possibly, you can supply more water to some plants when they are big while in the other airlift supplying just a little to them because they are tinier.

There are other methods too but this one should be easy to do and to adjust.

2  airlift columns from a single outlet air pump!

I only did 2 columns because I didn’t have enough tubing to show 3 working.

3 columns  might work in my case (my pump is an old aquarium pump that I found dumped on the side of the road so it is probably not such a good model)

Update 2nd Jan 2012.  3 columns works too but in the case of my pump it is the limit.  Video Jan 3 2012. 3 airlift tubes working from a one outlet aquarium bubble pump

Youtube now allows you to edit videos so if I am not too busy, I will “upgrade” the video (and this post)  over the next week or 2 and show methods to measure the flow or at least compare flows under different conditions too. Brian

 

 

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.