Here, I am going to highlight the nitty-gritty parts of the operation.

Hello, I’ve attempted my first window farm this week as a prototype for class. It’s been a bit difficult to find proper supplies in Hong Kong due to language barriers. Challenges and questions I’ve come across while exercising my poor engineering skills. I will be using black socks to cover the bottom of the bottles.

1. My seedlings have already been attacked twice with aphids and fungus gnats in it’s growing plugs. I had to start a fresh batch. If the seedlings are already so sensitive to the  moisture and humidity, how soon will my window farm be attacked by these pest? Anyone have experience with handling this in a humid country?

2. My tubing is too stiff to direct it away from the seedling. I’ve seen some systems using a toothpick or wooden chopstick, but my result was a moldy chopstick. I ended up using a fishing wire just to hold it down and a tape to keep the tube in place. I obviously need to find a better alternative. 

3. Reservoir problem. Due to the limited space in HK, I don’t have the luxury to have a big bottle for reservoir so I attempted to use a ketchup bottle on the bottom. I found the tip was a good way to plug the tubing in (I still need to reinforce it with plumbers tape, but haven’t found it yet).

4. Cutting through plastic was the biggest challenge.  I am not a very handy person, but I attempted to use the drill to make some holes on the bottom of the bottles but the bottom is thicker than the rest of the bottle, so I am not able to cut through it. In the end, I made a big circle but the bottles don’t fit perfectly. Any suggestions? I thought about using sticks to reinforce it.

5.I wanted to try out using water beads instead of clay pellets. Anyone have any success in it?

 

I am doing a couple of vertical pallet planters and changed the airlift to suit the planters. In this case, the next planter will have 2 wooden legs in plastic buckets. The water will drip down the legs and back into the buckets. I usually use the t joint method outside the bucket but I also appreciate that not everyone has room for a u tube that is one ft lower than your T joint. I tried a few different methods and this one works.
This way uses all the depth of the bucket and you might get a little bubbling when it restarts for a few seconds but usually not. Note that once again, I got a few days where the tubes acted funny before they behaved themselves. Pretty sure it is whatever sheen or grease is on new tubes. I think all new tubes need to just sit low with nutrient running through them for about a day before you put them up in position. There is almost zero drainback in new tubes and that is what is causing the problem. Newbies are going to be very confused by this.
My pallet planter project is at instructables A very interesting aspect of this (for me) is that the air pump is 120 ft away from the planter. (It still works and pumps the air through 1/4 inch tubing all the way to the greenhouse). Brian

Hi everybody,

I’ve just about finished construction on a 2-column windowfarm, and I am just waiting for my seedlings to get big enough to put them in.  I’ll post some pictures when it’s up and running.  Anyway, I have some comments and reflections on the “official” instructions and parts list.

So, I followed the instructions pretty closely except for on two points: first, my windowfarm is suspended from a free-standing frame on casters (which doesn’t really affect anything), and I used a t-joint for the airlift system.  The t-joint (a.k.a. t-valve) design is really simple and easy to install and use, whereas I found the method(s) outlined in the instructions to be really complicated and, frankly, intimidating.  The fact that the size of the check valve included with the air pump determines some of the other parts is pretty inconvenient.  Anyway, I hope the instructions are changed soon to include this more user-friendly design.

Speaking of the t-joint design, there are some issues that I ran into with parts.  Mainly, I bought a t-joint off the Petco shelf with all three openings the same small diameter.  It’s made for three of the standard 1/4″ OD tubes that come with the air pump.  The problem is that this makes a bottleneck for the flow of water.  At least I think it’s a problem.  Brian White say’s that the airlift tube should have an ID of 1/4″ for optimal performance, and he seems to have done his research.  I ran the 1/4″ OD aquarium tubing from the reservoir bottle to the t-joint, and from the t-joint up to the bottom of the 3/8” OD 1/4” ID rigid tubing from the parts list (McMaster.com #9245K17).  It works, but maybe it would be better if I had bought a wider t-joint and used wider tubing.

Speaking of things that could work better, there’s the Petco pump (#9902).  It’s not adjustable, as far as I can tell.  I guess I can add a little adjustable valve in the airline, but if I throttle it that way I’ll be wasting energy.  I think an adjustable pump should be recommended.

Then there’s the tubing.   Two kinds of tubing on the parts list reference McMaster part numbers, but the 3/8” ID flexible vinyl tubing for some reason does not.  Now, McMaster has a ridiculously extensive selection of tubing, so we should be able to find one that works.  I used #5103K36 (Chemical-resistant Clear Tygon Tubing, 3/8″ Id, 1/2″ Od, 1/16″ Wall Thk).  It was okay for joining the two long pieces of rigid tubing, but it was not flexible enough for the top, to curve down into the top bottle.  Technically speaking, the “bend radius” is too big.  Maybe #5231K185 (Clear PVC Tubing Chemical, 3/8″ ID, 1/2″ OD, 1/16″ Wall Thickness) would be better.

Chains.  I think the ball/bead chain is a good way to go, and McMaster was a convenient way to order it.  Weirdly, though, the part number on the parts list (#3606T16) turns out to be stainless steel chain, whereas in the instructions photos it looks like they’re using plastic.  It’s not important, but what’s up with that?  I also ordered the specified couplings (#3606T41).  They are listed in the McMaster catalog as being the same size as the chain, but for some reason the chain does not fit through the center hole.  I had to widen the hole.  I’m not sure what to suggest here.

I think that’s everything.  I don’t mean to complain; I think the design is great and I really appreciate having access to it, but I want to help make it better and easier for windowfarmers who come after me.  I hope this post is the right way to give this feedback.  Sorry it’s so long and boring!

 

Sincerely,

Bill

Here is my modification to the bottle caps @karenwslp made. After several leaks, and a need to just pull the tubing free during reservoir cleaning, I came up with an improvement to the bottle caps. Oh and these caps are from Poland Spring sports watter bottles. Just in case you can’t read the steps:
Step1) remove the blue cap.
Step2) Remove the plastic “Y” piece.
Step3) Insert 1/4 inch coupler onto top part of cap (hexagon shape in cap)
Step4) Insert size “00″ flat washer inside cap. *note use pliers to push it in
*use a little bit of aquarium silicone on the coupler before inserting it into the bottle cap to add extra sealant!

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

So, now it has happened to me to. Algae has started to grow in my windowfarm, or rather in the tubes. I knew it would eventually start to grow algae because the tubes are transparent, but that was what my local pet store had. The plants doesn´t seem to have suffered.

Now I have washed all the tubes with very warm water and soap and re-installed them. To reduce the possibility that it will come back, I covered the tubes with white tape.

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

I came here just in the right time to see cool mods like the t-valve technique (thanks @gaiatechnician), and the way of splitting airlift (credits goes to @kenokazaki) allowing two columns to be watered using only one reservoir and airlift. Read the rest of this entry →

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