Hello friends!!

I’m from Mar del Plata city, Argentina, and want to share with you my R&D to build up our window farm project.

I’m part of the Zeitgeist Movement Mar del Plata, and we were invited to a  Free Science Expo, in which, besides windowfarming, we exposed other sustainability projects, as solar heaters, earthships and parabolic ovens.

The model was mounted in a metal framework, because we had no windows or walls to attach the wires.

I’ve used twelve 1.5 Lt Diet Coke bottles, with small cups inside. The reservoir is a 20 Lts bottle.

No alligators to hold the bottles to the wires. We holed and linked the bottles with the steel wire, and that was ok to support the weight.

A 5 Watts airpump is used: airlift works like a charm, up to 2 meters.

From a week to today, the plants are growing ok!!

The species we are showing (and growing!) are:

No direct sunlight unfortunately, but the species I’ve picked, are very strong and with the artificial lighting of the showroom looks to be ok.

You can grow anything but root vegetables.

Here is a list of plants we have grown in windowfarms using supplemental lighting from CFL bulbs:

Fruiting Plants
Okra, cherry tomatoes, scallop squash, small cucumbers, beans, strawberries, peppers, peas, japanese eggplant.

Leafy Greens
Arugula, bok choy, brocolli rabe, kale, chard, radicchio, watercress, chives, various microgreens, and many varieties of lettuce.

Herbs
Rosemary, cilantro, basil, thyme, oregano, parsley, mint, and sage.

Edible Flowers
Nasturtium, violets, and marigolds.

We have had varying degrees of success with each depending on the particular microclimate of the window, the amount of natural sunlight available, the drip rate, the type of nutrients, our ability to fight pests, the source of the seeds, and the particular variety of each species.

You can actually grow some pretty big, productive plants even though the containers are small because plants growing in hydroponic systems grow differently from dirt plants. Instead of growing large long roots that have to grow far from the plant to find new water and nutrients in the soil, plants grow more compact rootballs that grow a lot of root hairs for more surface area to absorb more of the water and nutrients you are sending directly to the roots.

Check out how big and healthy some of the plants in this early system were.

Many more varieties of plants are certainly possible but we need your help testing what works because we can only grow so much ourselves. We need you to try out different plants and techniques and share your knowledge about what works. The goal is to get the most nutrients and the most variety for the carbon footprint of the systems.

As we refine the website, we will create ways that you can track and share your results. In the meantime, please focus on getting your system ready and working well and in the meantime, just please be sure to make posts and tag them well. We strongly encourage new users to start with the simple 3-plant airlift system (there are some chronic problems with the reservoir system so we are moving away from it).

This is my “work” farm.  I started it last week and already have two sprouts in it — rosemary and violas.  There is a desk lamp shining a CFL on it (on a 12 hour timer).

We have a second one (which was the first) here at home but I can’t find the photos of it right now (and am a bit too lazy to take a new one.

I saw a post about the window farms on Gothamist and just HAD to try it.  Got to say, it’s fun!  Folks walk into my office and are incredibly curious about what this curious structure is.

My husband and I are designing a larger farm for our living room window and will probably build it over the winter break (we are teachers).  Our major problem is getting the soda bottles since we use the SodaStream carbonator fr our soda needs and don’t drink bottled water.