Hydroponics = expensive? Think again! Last year two Brooklyn-based urban gardeners, Britta Riley and Maya Nayak, created a blueprint for a vertical hydroponics system that costs just $30. The plants grow in recycled plastic bottles and the system uses just a few extra components.

Riley and Nayak were so happy with the results that they decided to share their idea with thousands via the Internet. The pair initially raised $27,000 for their project, called “Window Farms” through an online micro-donation website. Now a “window farming” sensation is sweeping across the United States and further afield.

The simple hydro systems are little more than a column of upside-down water bottles, with plants growing out of holes cut into the sides. An air pump is used to pump the nutrient solution to the top and gravity feeds it, via piping, to each plant in the column. Window farmers grow not only herbs but vegetables too—some gardeners use T5 fluorescents to supplement light levels during the winter to secure a year-round harvest.

Strawberries, cherry tomatoes and peppers work really well in window farms, but Riley’s favorite is bok choi.

“Buttercrunch lettuce grows great and lots of herbs,” Nayak says. “Anything leafy and green, essentially. You can’t grow carrots. I mean, you can’t grow root vegetables. Potatoes, garlic. Those things don’t work.”

“It’s just fun to have food growing in your own apartment,” Riley says. “Especially during the winter months when you’ve got this lush bunch of green lettuce that’s growing in the window and kind of freshening the air in your apartment and it actually just looks pretty.”

Riley and Nayak have set up a website with a downloadable instruction manual for all would-be window farmers. In addition to the water bottles, the only extra equipment required to set up a window farm is an aquarium air pump, air valve needles, and a hook to hang the system.
Fancy setting up your own window farm? Check out the project’s website at: www.windowfarms.org