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Windowfarms - anyone seen them or used them for chilis?

Kappy

Kappy

Hi everyone!

Just recently I stumbled upon this website www.windowfarms.org, and was instantly taken with them due to my lack of growing area and living in a apartment in a colder climate. The website has a DIY section where they tell you what materials you'll need and you can build your own Windowfarm from recycled materials. To try it out I made a smaller version of a Windowfarm, a 1 column version using 16.9 FL OZ bottles of water to use for my herbs and such. The Windowfarm is great and is working awesomely :)

Just recently the site announced they'd be making a much more official looking Windowfarms (what you see on the first page of the site now) and it will be funded very soon so anyone can purchase the Windowfarm you see on that page. The Windowfarms they have displayed show different plants growing in them, and 2 of the plants are pepper plants!

So my question is, has anyone seen this site yet, has used a Windowfarm, and has tried it to produce pepper plants?

I realize if you did grow peppers this way you'll have very small plants and it probably wont do well for some varieties, but this could be a really great thing for new pepper growers who would like to get their hands a bit into hydroponics and are intimidated by them or for people who have a very busy lifestyle where it's hard for them to constantly look after their plants.

I'm hoping to soon get a official Windowfarm myself and I'll definitely be trying to grow some pepper plants in it and if there hasn't been any experience with them on here yet I'll create a report on how well they'll work... but that won't be until March of 2012 when they send out the new Windowfarms :) I think this could potentially be a great idea for peppers, what do you guys think?
 
Pic #4 seems to be of Orange Habaneros, so it does seems very likely that this could work with peppers. Is it very effective? I don't know. You'd have to do some research to find out the answer to that. Google is a good resource (I usually search for reviews and make a judgement after several results). :)
 
If you youtube window farms the creator put a video together of the collaboration that was put into creating the first systems. They show a lot of the supplies in the video too that you could use. Seems like an interesting idea for sure but i have a back yard i can use unlike the creator of this who lives in the city.
 
Thanks for the responses everyone!

As I said, I have created a water bottle windowfarm and I love it. I was mentioning this website to try to get others aware of this mini hydro system in case it hadn't been mentioned on here before and for those of us who don't have the luxury to grow things outdoors, have limited space, or want a new way to try hydro. Whether its using their official windowfarm or creating your own kind, I think this is a great idea to grow some peppers in and I wanted to see if anyone else on here had thought of this as well and had tried it.

The DIY section shows great diagrams for you to create your own windowfarm out of recycled material, so for those of you who have tons of water bottles laying around I encourage you to give this a try!
 
cory_huck said:
Kappy...That seriously would only take a few minutes to construct from parts at your local Lowes...
Click to expand...


Look at my first post lol, I know :) I mentioned there is the DIY section for Windowfarms and that I used the water bottle method to check it out.
 
only thing I'd suggest is trying to stay with some of your smaller more compact growing varieties, A lot of lopsided weight on the bottles seems like it would cause some issues. i grew bush beans as a trial run for a DIY setup like this. i placed the beans plants sideways out of holes i cut in the sides( 4x per 2L) and it worked quite well surprisingly. definately learned from this version that you have to put grommets or alike in the cut holes in the sides though, the medium settled over time and the sharp bottle sliced some stems off.

i think that you could make this work quite well, although some trial and error would of course be involved. you never know until you try :)
 
The bottles space for root mass is way too small. I have bonsai peppers under a foot tall that choke in 6" pots with hydroton. If you can make it work, more power to you.
 
Way kool ! I think it will be great for lower income urban dwellers. I have only 1 window that would work, and my Red Mushroom Pepper is in it ! Would be great for wheat grass !
 
Thanks for the replies everyone! Glad to hear a few of you have some experience with windowfarms :D The pot size would be an issue when plants get larger, but I plan to constantly cut back roots and see how well that goes for the plant. Soon I'm planning to create a 4 column DIY water bottle windowfarm and I'll experiment with pepper growing in it. Bushwhack and Mygrass, I'm glad to hear you've tried this out! Mygrass I'd love to hear how your Red Mushroom Pepper is doing and see if it does well in a windowfarm.
 
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