How Does a Windowfarm Work?
An Automated Plant Feeding & Watering System
A windowfarm is a vertical hydroponic food growing platform.
Simple - recognizable, easy to use parts
Efficient - low power & use of existing conditions
Organic-friendly - designed to be healthy for plants and people
Build One or Buy One - Download our online instructions to build one using your own locally sourced parts. OR buy one from our online store and jump right into planting your veggies!
To build or to buy?Organic-Friendly
Windowfarms were designed to do a better job of using organic nutrients than other hydroponic systems do. Organic nutrients can be tricky to use. For example, organics tend to separate into a sludge over time at the bottom of their reservoirs and to clog water pumps. The funnel-like bottoms of Windowfarms' keep the organic sediment circulating through the roots. By using air pumps, with no mechanical parts to clog, the systems are less subject to pump failure.
Low Power Pumping
The electric air pump is super efficient and is only turned on part of the time.
Most hydroponic systems use both a water pump to pump water through, and an air pump to aerate the water. A windowfarm uses only one-- the far more energy efficient air pump-- to do the work of both pumps. Bubbles from the air pump carry little pockets of water as they travel up a rigid tube spine and spurt the water out onto the plant's roots.
The air pump turns on only when the timer flips it on. For most people's plant/windowclimate combination- 15 minutes every hour is more than enough.
Easy To Adjust
Sometimes a windowfarmer wants to adjust her pump settings.
Maybe she wants to give her windowfarm more water because her radiator just kicked on for the winter and she's getting higher evaporation rates. Maybe she notices that her rosemary likes drier conditions.
The timer looks like a clock and she just presses in more or less pins for each hour. She can set it so that at night, the pump turns on less often.
Automated, But Smart and Simple
Automated, but simple and smart- A reservoir at the bottom of every windowfarm holds water infused with nutrients that plants love. The system cycles the liquid nutrients through each column of plants for a week to two weeks at a time using a simple pump and an easy-to-use mechanical timer.
Have more questions?