I built my window farm in march of 2010. since then, I’ve learned a lot, and I thought I would share my

experience with you guys.

First of all, mine is a 24 plant reservoir system. The air lift system had already been adopted as the superior system by the WF community when I began my WF, but I just wasn’t on board. I didn’t like the gurgling sound, the limited number of plants, the fact that it had to be turned on for so long. I’m not criticizing the air lift system, but it just wasn’t for me. The reservoir system, in my opinion, is beautiful, the number of plants it can support is seemingly endless, the water pump is completely silent, it only runs for two minutes every four hours, and the sound is like a soothing rain.  My system has been tweaked just a bit to fit my preferences, and I’ll describe the details of my system at the end of this post.

Getting Started

So, I started by garden from seed using peat pellets. I’m no gardener by any stretch of the imagination, I don’t know how to prune, harvest, or tinker with nutrients. So I just tried a little bit of everything- lettuce, cucumber, peppers, green beans, cherry tomatoes, okra, spinach, and a few herbs that I didn’t start from seed, but bought planted. I washed the dirt from the roots when the little guys were big enough to transplant into the WF, which seemed like it would be really traumatic, but none died, not one.

Everything was off to a good start, it was looking beautiful. Visions of serving coffee to curious neighbors who stopped by to ask about my awesome garden danced in my head. But the cold hard reality was a lease violation from my apartment complex. They didn’t like my “display” and insisted that I take it down immediately or be evicted. Not to be deterred, I simply lowered my blinds, and opened them facing upwards so they could get light, but people from the ground floor couldn’t see in. This worked fine, and provided trellis for the okra and cherry tomatoes. I moved to a different apartment four months later, one with south facing windows that didn’t mind if I had a WF.

The lighting system was always a concern for me. Something about repeating columns of dripping water and electricity just didn’t sit well with me. I wouldn’t leave the lights on when I wasn’t there, and eventually I just took them down. The garden didn’t seem to mind too much, some of the veggies got a little leggy, but overall, I think it was alright.

Results of the first Crop

Some veggies did better then others,  the cherry tomato plants got HUGE. Like, four feet tall.  If I had known more about gardening, I would have had a better yield. The lettuce did really well, not the spinach. I didn’t get very many veggies, a few cucumbers and okra, maybe one green bean and a couple cherry tomatoes.  I’ll do some more research before planting a bunch of veggies again.  The  Basil and sage, however, were wonderful! they stayed nice and bushy around their respective bottles, perfect.

Second Crop

It was fall and I didn’t have the gardening bug like I do in spring. I wanted something simple and pretty to look at through the winter. So I picked up some rockwool and a package of flower seeds. I think they were marigolds. Just a package that was at the grocery store. I dropped a couple seeds into the rockwool and put those into the WF. Not long after that, I had a wall of pretty flowers to look at during the dreary months of winter. Unfortunately, I didn’t even think to take a picture for you guys.  Sorry.

Third crop

Spring approaches again, and I want an herb garden. It’s been nearly a year, and I need to clean the WF before planting (can we call it planting?) the next crop. The modular nature of the system made it pretty easy. Fresh hydroton, I ran the net cups through the dishwasher, rinsed the bottles, and scrubbed out the reservoirs. The tubes were lined with algae, which I knew better than to buy clear tubing, but it hadn’t clogged the tubes or anything, so it wasn’t a big deal. Pipe cleaners woulda worked, I’m sure, but we used a metal coat hanger and put a bit of cotton on the tip, the tubes were like new.

I really liked the herbs from last spring, so I pick out a bunch of herbs that were already planted in the gardening section of any store at this time of year. Lets see- I got cilantro, dill, sage, thyme, tarragon, basil, mint, and a few peppers for the husband. Each plant was in a disposable pot, and actually had three plants in each pot. I know it seems traumatizing, but it worked for me: I take the plants out of the pot, and gently but firmly shake as much dirt off as possible. Then I ran it under water to get the rest of the dirt off and try to untangle the roots as best as I can. Some of the roots simply will not come untangled, and some roots do get broken. I tried to minimize this, but it’s unavoidable. The plants were just fine, though. Not one died, even though they were probably quite shocked.

And that’s my garden right now.

System

My system is a six column 24 plant system.  The window it’s in now is bigger than my last, so I may add another row on the bottom for a 30 plant system.  My top reservoir is a  four inch diameter, six foot long pvc pipe, with drippers I found from HomeDepot. I keep the top reservoir hidden behind a valence.   Here’s a picture of my drippers. They come with six on this head, but the drippers just pop right off.

At the end of each column, I have a tube which drains the water into a 1 inch pipe, which is angled so the water drains into the bottom reservoir. My bottom reservoir is a plastic box with lid that I picked up at walmart, but I spray painted it to prevent algae from growing in my reservoir. The bottom reservoir holds the water pump, which is for fountains pumping water 8 feet high, I found this pump for 40 bucks at home depot. Something like this: http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&productId=100083846&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&ci_sku=100083846&ci_src=14110944&cm_mmc=shopping-_-googlebase-_-D28X-_-100083846&locStoreNum=589

Beckett 3/64 HP Submersible Fountain Pump

Model # M400HD

Internet # 100083846

I tried finding the hydroponic materials locally, but most places just look at me funny if I ask for hydroponic supplies. Eventually I found hydroton, nutrients, rockwool, and net cups (for .25 each!) at a local head shop. Which is always kinda fun.

My WF did end up costing a lot more than an air lift system, my water pump alone cost $40. but I like it.

A few problems that I ran across: my system drips into a pipe that drains into the bottom reservoir, the tubes fell out a few times. Tape didn’t work, and I didn’t want to glue it in place, so I sewed it in place. I ran a needle and thread through the tube and around the drain pipe and tied it off. I can cut it off if I need to but it’s strong enough to keep it from falling off.  I haven’t had many leaks, I used gorilla glue around the drippers, so it expanded and stopped any potential leaks.

I originally drilled little holes in the caps and kept them on the bottles, but they clogged really easily. If a hydroton pebble fell out of the basket, if roots grew down into the cap, if dust or dirt accumulated in the cap. So I’ve thrown away all the caps and just leave the bottles open.

Finally

So, ultimately, I love my Window Farm. All of my friends and family think it’s cool, it’s like a conversation piece. Everyone is really interested and curious, plus the fresh herbs are so handy. While Everyone I know seems really intrigued, no one else has made one. Which kinda surprised me, I thought everyone I knew would want to have a window farm.  Maybe it’s because my husband and I are such avid DIYers?

I did a little video today about lowering the airspeed through to windowfarm to vary (and sometimes increase!) the rate of airlift.  Depending on your tubes the rate can be quite slow and still give you good pumping. Check it out because I think it can help people to understand a bit better and to get things right first time.
Anyway here are some pictures that I took out of the video.

2 outlet air flow regulator valve

This is a little aquarium valve and bottom pic shows the adjustment knobs

You can either use it to regulate air to 2 t joints or just leave one open to the windowfarm and have the other one just a bit open to let some of the air escape.

Below is a head for connecting a tube under the reservoir. You might need a bit of gauze or window bug screen in the bottom to stop crud getting into the tubes.

Head for watering plants. Snip off the top and use the "neck" to attach tube

And you also can use this thing for aquariums as a bottom reservoir.

Aquarium attachment for tubing

And finally I am going to show you a pic of the bubble in the tubing.

plug of water

If you reduce the airflow into the t-joint and into the tube, sometimes the water flow increases. This is because the type of flow changes from churn flow to plug flow.

Plug flow can be quite slow sometimes. As the plugs of water rise, it changes from many short ones to a few long ones.

Watch the video to get more information.

Thanks Brian

Hello everyone.

I have posted a bunch of updates on my blog for all that are interested. There have been some problems with my window farm, mostly pH/nutrient lockout issues and algae.

There are still a few weeks to be posted, but I am slowly getting caught up.

Here are the links to the individual posts:

Week 3.1 - Planting the new column: http://melissawindowfarm.blogspot.com/2011/03/week-31-planting-new-column.html
Week 4 – Holy cow a BEAN!: http://melissawindowfarm.blogspot.com/2011/03/week-4-holy-cow-bean.html
Week 5 – Problems starting to manifest: http://melissawindowfarm.blogspot.com/2011/03/week-5-problems-starting-to-manifest.html
Week 6 – Bountiful Beans: http://melissawindowfarm.blogspot.com/2011/03/week-6-bountiful-beans.html
Week 7 – Attack of the algae!: http://melissawindowfarm.blogspot.com/2011/03/week-7-attack-of-algae.html

This gets me caught up to March 4. I have been taking pictures every weekend of my progress.

</shameless self promotion>

Ha ha, anyway, let me know what you think.

Thanks!!!

-Melissa

This is an easily available attachment for pop bottles here in Canada. They are available in garden centers for watering plants.  This means the the entire windowfarm can be made from pop bottles and still get excellent airlift.

Your water tube would go down in a J shape to the t- joint to prevent back flow into the reservoir.

If you cut the “showerhead” top off, you can use an upturned pop bottle as your reservoir for a windowfarm and  attach the water pipe to a t-joint  outside  the bottle  and at whatever submergence you choose.  I think this can make life easier for everyone.

Plant watering attachment for pop bottles

Hello!

I just wanted to link my new blog post that describes the building of my second column. I used different materials this time.

There is also a few pictures of my airlift set up, hopefully this will help anyone who is having trouble setting up their airlift.

http://melissawindowfarm.blogspot.com/2011/03/setting-up-my-second-column-week-3.html

Thanks,

Melissa

This is a description of my little window farm in progress. It will be located in germany . My description will focus on special german circumstances (materials, window construction etc.)

My design goal was to keep it on an ultra low budget, as cheap as possible as I am unemployed at the moment, so time is not an issue but money is. So I’m taking a little different approach than the official MAMA 3.0 how-to at http://our.windowfarms.org/instructions whose sections I refer to in order to keep things tidy and to avoid redundancy.

The whole description will be kept in german (see below) and I’ll try to translate it to english later (omitting special german issues), when the project ist finished.

Pictures will be added later, too.

Beschreibung in deutscher Sprache

Dies wird die Beschreibung meines kleinen Fenstergartens (suche noch die beste Übersetzung zu Windowfarm) in Mülheim an der Ruhr.

Ich habe versucht, das ganze im Vergleich zum offiziellen MAMA 3.0 How-To ( http://our.windowfarms.org/instructions ) möglichst einfach und kostengünstig (billig, nicht preiswert ) aufzubauen. Als Hartzer hab ich ne Menge Zeit, aber wenig Geld.

Beim Beschreiben orientiere ich mich an obigem How-To und beschreibe meine Änderungen. Das hilft hoffentlich später bei der Übersetzung und beim Nachbau man muss ja nicht jedes Rad neu erfinden. Also los:

Material:

Flaschen sind die allgegenwärtigen Einweg-Wasserflaschen vom Discounter, die es im 6×1,5L-Pack gibt. Die sind anders geschnitten (z.B. an der Verengung zum Greifen) als die amerikanischen, was den Aufbau etwas verändert.

Meine sind von Edeka, aber ich glaube die Formen sind bei Lidl/Aldi und Co genau so.

Es mussten natürlich neue, volle Flaschen  sein, da sie ja im Leergutautomaten zerquetscht werden und dank Einwegpfand (zum Glück) keine mehr herumliegen.

Aufhängung: Ich habe mich gegen die Metallkettchen aus dem How-To entschieden. Zwar fand ich bei ebay Quellen auch für die nötige Länge, aber nur für 2,50 EUR/Meter, also nix. Deswegen wird es hier eine einfache Holzlatte, an der die Flaschen angeschraubt werden. Das geht natürlich nur am Rand des Fensters, sonst wirft das Holz zu viel Schatten.

Pumpe: Hier wurde es eine gebrauchte No-Name-Pumpe vom Trödel. Hat mich 3 EUR gekostet, ähnlich günstig gehts (mit Geduld) auch in der Bucht. Jetzt habe ich zwar keine Ahnung, ob die technischen Daten stimmen, aber  wenn nicht, probiere ich es einfach nochmal, dann bin ich auch maximal bei 10,–EUR und nicht bei 30 für eine Neue.

Abschnitt 1: Flaschen abdecken

Die Flaschen wurden nicht eingesprüht, sondern mit weißem wasserverdünnbarem Acryllack bepinselt. Die Farbe kostet weniger und das ganze macht weniger Sauerei. So mussten die Flaschen auch nicht mit Klebeband abgedeckt werden.

Abschnitt 2: Pflanz-Flaschen (Plant Bottles)

Die Flaschen werden nicht wie im Original  ineinander geschraubt, sondern ich habe sie vor dem Anmalen unter der Verengung quer durchgeschnitten, so dass sie nun wie Trichter aussehen.

So bekomme ich an meinem Fenster fünf Pflanzen pro Spalte. Mit kompletten Flaschen wären es nur drei geworden.

die weiteren detaillierten Beschreibungen dieses Abschnitts des How-To’s (Schablonen drucken, schneiden) kann ich komplett überspringen.

Abschnitt 3: Tank-Flasche (Reservoir Bottle)

(in Arbeit)

Abschnitt 4:  Aufhängung (Suspension System)

Als Aufhängung habe ich mich für eine einfache Holzlatte (Dachlatte) entschieden, die knapp der Höhe meines Fensters entspricht und an der die Flaschen-Trichter untereinander angeschraubt werden.

Es kommt jeweils nur eine Schraube am oberen Rand rein, so kann jeder Trichter zur Wartung (Pflanzenwechsel etc.) seitlich gekippt werden.

Da wir keine amerikanischen Schiebefenster haben, kommt mein 1-spaltiger Fenstergarten an die Scharnierseite des Fensterflügels. Dort hänge ich die Holzlatte abnehmbar an einen Haken im Fensterpfosten. So geht das Fenster auf, ohne den Garten abzunehmen

(in Arbeit)

Abschnitt 5: Montage und Installation (Mounting and Installation)

Hmm ein Teil von Abschnitt 4 gehört glaube ich hierher, das sortiere ich später…

(in Arbeit)

Abschnitt 6: Wasser-Installation (Plumbing System)

Beri der Mammut-Pumpe (Airlift-Pump) habe ich mich für die Variante mit T-Stück und ohne Nadeln entschieden. Das schien einfacher und ich brauchte keine Rückschlagventile. Die Bauweise ist hier auf den Seiten bereits dokumentiert, einfach nach T-Joint suchen.

Der Luftschlauch war ein normaler 4/6mm (innen/außen) Schlauch, wie er in der Aquaristik eingesetzt wird. Als “Steigleitung” habe ich im Baumarkt 6mm geholt, sicherheitshalber 5 Meter und ein 6-4-6 mm T-Stück um das ganze zu verbinden.

Steigleitung (nach oben) , T-Stück, Saugschlauch (nach unten)  und Luftschlauch von der Seite) habe ich fertig zusammengesteckt und dann mit Kabelindern an einer Stange befestigt. So kann man das ganze ziemlich senkrecht (wichtig für die Funktion) durch die Öffnung des Kanisters “einfädeln”.

Anfangs baute die Pumpe nicht genug Druck auf und nach ein paar Sekunden blubberte es im Tank. Nach einigem Experimentieren war die Lösung gefunden: Mein Schlauchstück an der “Ansaugseite” war zu kurz und baute nicht genügend Gegendruck auf. Um nicht ewig zu probieren, habe ich den Rest der 5 Meter Schlauch (ca 2 Meter) komplett versenkt. Danach war Ruhe und jetzt fördert die Pumpe bei minimal eingestellter Luftmenge genug Wasser nach oben.

Abschnitt 7: Beleuchtung (Lighting)

(in Arbeit)

Abschnitt 8: Bepflanzung (Plants)

Als Pflanztöpfe habe ich keine Hydrokulturtöpfe verwendet, sondern einfache 0,2L-Trinkbecher, denen ich mit einem heißen Draht Schlitze eingeschmolzen habe. Die passen recht gut in die Verengung der Flaschen.

Das mag etwas sehr geizig erscheinen, aer ich hab hier in der Umgebung weit und breit keinen Hydrokulturtöpfe bekommen können. Hydrokultur ist wohl ziemlich aus der Mode gekommen. Wenn man bei ebay in einer Stückzahl unter 100 solche Töpfe kauft ist es wegend er Versandkosten ziemlich teuer. Andere Onlinehändler hab ich nicht mehr aufgesucht bis mir die Idee mit den Trinkbechern kam.

(in Arbeit)

Abschnitt 9: Vollständiger Einbau (Full Assembly)

(in Arbeit)

Abschnitt 10: Inbetriebnahme und Wartung (Launch and Maintenance)

Bei der Aussaat habe ich Stückchen eines alten Spülschwamms (die mit der Kratzseite) genommen, und dort die Sahmenkörner aufgelegt oder (zum testen9 in ein Loch gesteckt.

Der Salat kam fertig im Saatband, davon habe ich Abschnitte einfach aufs Substrat gelegt und nur darauf geachtet, dass die Tropfen nicht direkt auf die Saat platschen.

Bisher habe ich 1x Gurken und 1x Lollo Rosso in den Trichtern, 2 sind noch frei.

Thanks for your suggestions and comments, everybody. I hastily made my reservoirs darker, but will have to address the issue more thoroughly in a near future. I used thick cardboard to make a niche for my upper reservoir and poster cardboard to cap the bottom one. Look at the photos.  Wouldn’t it be wise to cover the tubing as well, inside a sleeve of black fabric, for instance ?

I’m still looking into a sustainable pumpless system. I figure that I can live with the chore of climbing up once every three days to refill my upper reservoir. But I’d like to refine the design. And I thought about capillarity, this capacity of a spongy material to sip water up to a higher level. Still juggling with the idea. I have the habit to leave my plants at school with a very simple but very effective capillarity system to water them during Christmas vacations. By the way, I enrolled my younger daughter in this thinking process.

Meanwhile, I continued my experiments with the slow drip, utilizing the 600mL container, since I like the idea of suspending it directly above the plants. I doubled a simple string of unknown (synthetic) material, made a knot to tie its two ends together and squeezed the fold up into the silicone tubing. To my surprise, this slowed the flow  very significantly. (In my first attempt, using the enteral tubing with the slow drip system built in, the bottle was empty after 3 hours.) This last system lasted 84 hours (3 days and a half) during which it needed no intervention from my part.

But I think I might have been too successful in slowing the whole thing. I’m afraid the plants wouldn’t receive enough water.  So, I thought of coupling two 600mL bottles side by side, and join the two strings together to double the volume of water, which I’ll try out no later than tonight.

Which brings me to my question : does any of you out there can tell me approximately how much water you need to put through your system over a period of 24 hours to sustain your plants’ needs ? What would be your estimate ? And did I understand correctly when I read that people put their air pump on a timer to make it work only 15 minutes at a time ?

Last thing : Somebody gave me 2 swivel curtain rods, a few years ago, which I kept intending to use them for another project. I stumbled on them by chance while looking for something else. And I think they are just perfect for what I have in mind. I want to be able to get the whole window farm to get out of the way when I want to access my window. These rods move just like window shutters and their tubing is square, so we think that they would be strong enough to sustain the weight. I’m posting a photo and will certainly try them. Only need to figure out a way to stabilize the different columns of bottles at the bottom, possibly by tying them to a wooden rod suspended underneath the last row of bottles.

If this is in the wrong space, let me know, and I’ll publish further steps of construction somewhere else.

I had a productive weekend, and things worked the way they should have.  I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked, but there you go.  That’s doing things for the first time for you.  You learn all sorts of stuff about unrealistic expectations. Read the rest of this entry →

One year and 3 months ago I started fishkeeping as a Phase 1 of trying to do home Aquaponics, inspired by the work of the people that did the Ark project out of (I think) Rhode Island (can’t find it now).

Of course, I thought I was real smart, and the only one to do this.

Then I saw the Windowfarms thing, and found this community and was a little dejected I wasn’t as smrt as I thought.

Regardless, I got into fishkeeping in a fairly big way, and have a number of beautiful tanks I just love watching.  I had totally forgotten about the aquaponics side of my plan until I heard about a science fair for adults (complete with category for best Volcano) coming in April.  So I quickly geared up to prepare an experiment for Aquaponics.  I’m just using the fish water for the hydroponic side, not looking to eat the fish, so I’m calling this AquaponicsLite.  I’ve got almost all of my equipment and materials, tonight I’ll be getting the last of the wood to set up the plant stand, and then I’ll be good to go.

The experiment is monitoring electrical usage to see how cost/energy efficient the process is.  I won’t be using sunlight because I’ll also be monitoring quality of growth given 3 variables.

• Control group of hydroponics, bagged to maintain humidity
• Hydroponics with CO2 supplementation
• Soil
• One unbagged to see effects of no humidity control.

So, I’ve gotten a few pictures, but I’ll get more once I’ve finished the set up and it’s all there in it’s magical glory.  I’m posting this here to get things started.

BTW: running a fish tank with heater, 2 t5HO lights and 2 HOB filters for a week  costs ~$1.50 at $0.0064/kwH.

The moment I started really hating on those water pumps.

In the windowfarms community, no design is final. Rather, we are constantly evolving the designs to better performance standards. They evolve because WE LOVE FAILURE.

You can think you have a brilliant design but, like the Titanic, most designs are subject to failure at some point and it’s only when you see how your design performs throughout several seasons and under unfavorable conditions that you learn its true merits and shortcomings. We are fascinated with merits and shortcomings. Distinguishing between them is the core of what we do.

In our community, value comes- not from having the idea that works- but from BEING A GOOD TESTER.

@ajinil is one of my favorite pioneering testers, who is trying growing strawberries year-round in a snow-laden environment with no supplemental lighting by simply supplying flowering nutrients. So far, he has kept the plants flowering for 9 months!

Innovation can be painful. Death brings moments of revelation for windowfarmers doing R&D-I-Y. Ok. So I was only fake crying in the image above, but I was super bummed about losing my okra plants. After letting off a little steam, we were really able to take inventory of issues from this die-off. Ultimately, this was the last version 1 system we built after determining that nutrients just plain like to clog both water pumps and drip emitters as particulate matter builds up over time and clogs pathways. Failure also motivates progress. This is when the airlift technique started to seem a lot more attractive and worth pursuing. Ian, Ania, and I got to work on tweeking the airlift to work for windowfarms just a few days after this came down.

The MOST interesting moments are the ones right before your plants die (=FAIL= YAY!). What was that edge condition you managed to rock for a while? What can we learn from it?

Dry roots the result of clogged reservoir drippers in a V1 system

A mature plant’s root conditions are the best way to assess the workability of your windowfarm design.

I have a dissection table set up next to my windowfarms and as soon as I kill a plant (and trust me, I kill a LOT of plants with all of the frankenstein systems we have in the core team’s shop, where we test out the community’s ideas), I take it out, look at the root situation in the net cup and see what killed it. Were the roots massive and healthy right before they died? Did they dry out? Did I have spider mites? Are there any signs of rot? Were the factors that killed it particular to this plant or to the system? Would other people have this problem as well?

So maybe you want your windowfarm to thrive– totally valid. That’s why we give you two columns in the kits. One you can have be a control column, where you give your plants ideal conditions and allow them to thrive. Consider dedicating your other column to research. Take on an experimental conditions, fail, and report back!

-Britta