We’ve just finished all the bottles to our giant windowfarm that’s going to be hanging at Kulturhuset during June.

The rawmaterial to the windowfarm. 150 soda bottles.

We drilled holes in the bottom with a sawdrill. This gave us really nice equally round holes to fit the bottles in. We also cut out two holes for the plants since we’re going to plant double in some bottles and we want the plants to be visible from both sides. Instead of cutting the holes with a knife we used a soldering iron and melted the plastic into shape we wanted. This gave a really nice edge to the holes that’s a lot softer, rounder and kinder to the plants. I can really recommend it. We also made two small holes in the sides where the crossbars that are going to hold the bottles attached to the bars will go.

Hanging out the laundry.

We’re using two different types of bottles: 1,5 liter soda-bottles from Coca-cola that will hold the netcups and the plants and 0,5 liter Plantbottles, a new type of recyclable PET bottles that are partly made of organic materials which reduce the carbon footprint. The smaller bottles will not have plants in them but will be inserted in the columns so that the people looking at the windowfarm cen see the water dripping through the system.

After this we cleaned all the bottles, hung them out to dry and started painting. We dipped the bottles in paint to get a even coat and minimum hassle with spill on to the parts of the bottles that shouldn’t be painted. We chose a nice gray colour that will make the green from the plants stand out! After that all we had to do was watch the paint dry…

Check out the video of the painting process.

The finished result.

/Daniel & Kristoffer

http://KONSTruktioner.info

So I built my 2.0 window farm. Finding actual 1.5L bottles was nigh impossible here in Iowa City. However I did find two Evian bottles (and the net cups fit perfectly). For the third I used a Fuji water bottle, but because it was too wide, I put two net cups together (I used two zip ties to tie the bottoms to gether so one net cup could hold the clay pebbles and the other could act as a pedestal. I planted brussel sprouts, cherry tomatoes, and basil in regular soil pellets, and they are coming up nicely. I am a little concerned about whether I need to transplant them to more soil so they can get bigger before I set them in the bottles. Any suggestions?

Also, I have had some problems with the paint chipping off the bottles. I used just regular spray paint, and one has no problems, but the other two have areas that are just crumbling off. Insight?

Seems like we aren’t the only ones who can come up with interesting thing to make out of plastic bottles:

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

Just got my first column of my window farm (without the window) up.  I took a slightly different approach with suspension opting to use vinyl coated galvanized wire rope.  It’s a little pricer and harder to work with, but I think it looks good and it is very sturdy.  I also decided to use Nalgene BPA free water bottles.  I was looking for something made of plastic 4 rather than the Nalgene which is a custom 7 but initial tests have been good on this co-polyester, plus I like the look of the bottles.  Warning if you are going to use them, they are THICK.  I used hole saw blades in 3″, 1.75″ and 1.5″ sizes.  If you can’t find the plastic grit and instead need to use the tooth variety for wood and metal just remember to get the pilot in and then reverse the direction of the blade, should cut like butter without getting caught.  I also used a different mechanism for the bottom air feed, since I couldn’t get a bike tire or special order part, just some silicone caulk and everything came out good.  I’m going to get the other half up as soon as I am sure everything is working well.  Still need to do a few things like secure the lights, but for the most part it seems to be working well.

Sorry for the poor quality pictures all I have is my phone with me.  I will post better pictures later.

Hey all,

I’m an Irish man living in Brighton and trying to source components locally for a window farm.  What did you all use for bottles?  The instructions seem quite specific and I was wondering what a UK substitute might be.

Thanks,
Kevin.

It occurred to me the other day that terracotta pots would be a good container for a window farm for the following reasons:

1. They already have a wide top opening and a center hole in the bottom.
2. Terracotta is a tough material that won’t degrade when exposed to sunlight or water.
3. They are opaque which will discourage algae growth.

The disadvantages are:

1. They are heavy, unless you use plastic flower pots.
2. They reduce the amount of recycled material used in construction.
3. Terracotta can chip, crack, or break, which would cause leaks.

The Mystery Planter, then. The upper part of a water bottle a new substrate to test (crushed-clay-pebbles-with-fancy-name) , four or five different seeds, and a wick.

Which, as it turns out, is made of the wrong material: a piece of coco mat whose ability to wick up water is zip. Lesson learned, felt’s next.

But at least the larger seeds I put in don’t seem to mind much, and because my WF is hanging in a brighter and warmer spot now, evaporation – something the coco is capable of supporting apparently – currently supplies enough moisture to keep them going. It remains to be seen whether their roots will reach far enough before they run out of puff.

I’d like to preface this post by saying that if these issues have been dealt with before or the solutions appear to be self-evident, please bear in mind I lived through the 1960′s. I think that says it all.

I am working from the ”new” 3-plant airlift sytem pdf file. I am in the process of assembling the items in the Materials List (ML) and have a few questions:

1. the ML requires 1 x 3/8 OD  – 1/4 ID Kuritec Reinforced

                                      2  x 1/4 OD – 1/8 ID vinyl tube

                                      1 x 3/8 OD – 1/4 ID (vinyl tube??)

      Step 6 of the assembly instructions tells me to, “fasten together the bottle stack, the rod, and the lift tube (3/8 ID rubber tube at 4’6″ long).”

Is the ML missing an item or is there a mis-print in Step 6?

2. The ML calls for 5 liters of clay pellets. I can fill a heck of a lot of 3″ diameter net cups with a 5 liter bag of pellets. Do I really need this amount?

3.  Should the vinyl tubing be clear or opaque? I’m thinking the tubing will be subject to “algae bloom” if it is clear. However, thinking is not one of my strong suits.

4. Does the size of the bottles used in the stack have to be 1.5 L? I didn’t realize that the 1.5 liter size was almost unheard of in this region, until i went looking for them.  

5. I don’t wish to seem critical but I have to say that the less than $30.00 cost estimate is way off target. In this little corner of the world, (Atlantic Canada), an air pump of the specifications detailed in the ML is going to run me about $35.00. A 1 liter (about 35 oz) container of hydroponic nutrients will run me the better part of  $25.00. (OK, they’re Canadian dollars but it’s all I’ve got to work with.) The actual cost really doesn’t matter to me, I like the concept. Plus anything that can give me fresh “sweet million” tomatoes in mid-winter is worth shelling out for.  However, I do feel that the stated cost estimate is a bit mis-leading.

Thanks in advance for the advice and assistance.

Ed

New plants in the farm!

So we had a little problem.  Our strawberries died.  I’m not sure what happened, but we could never make them happy.  So after changing out the old plants with new ones and doing some changes, everything is growing well.   We are growing mint, peppers, and nasturtiums.  

Check out our last posting that shows the detailed explanation of how we put our farm together.

http://our.windowfarms.org/2010/04/26/our-hydroponic-window-farm-experience/

Now that we have had our window farm up and growing for a few months, here are some things we have learned. 

Use net pots.  We decided not to use net pots and had major clogging issues.  The roots grew to the bottom of the bottles and bunched up creating water flow problems.  Also, airflow could be restricted making your plants unhappy.

Control the dripping.  By using short tubes to direct the drip from one bottle to the next, we are able to control what gets wet.  The top of the strawberry plants hated getting wet and sometimes the drip was too far away from the other plants making them dry out.  Now we control right where we want the drip to go.

Check for leaks.  We had to refill our reservoir at least once a day.  But after we used the short tubes to control the dripping we noticed we were using less water.  Water was splashing out the sides.  Also with the clogging water was getting stuck, using the net pots solved this.  We now refill only about a half a cup a day.

Grow mint!   The mint we are growing could not be happier!  And it makes the whole apartment smell nice.  No more chemical fresheners!

And try not to get the clay pellets in your garbage disposal. It doesn’t like them.

Hope you like the pics!