The summer season is winding down and before you know it, the first frost will greet us one unexpected morning. . . but that doesn't mean it has to be the last hoorah for your summer vegetable garden. . .
Tomatoes, lettuce, beans, cucumber, okra, basil, arugula, peppers. . . Sounds like I'm painting a picture of mom's box garden, staked with spindly plants yielding vegetables with which to keep us eating salads through September. . .
Think again.
A technique that has been picking up momentum in urban neighborhoods for years, indoor gardening and windowfarming now make great sense for folks who want to grow organic produce year-round, especially in light of the economic times, the cost of produce, and the scattering of local farmers' markets as the autumn months approach.
The WindowFarms Project in New York City is spreading the word, doing the building and growing themselves, and going so far as to help others turn their apartment and studio windows into hydroponic farms.
And we're not talking about growing herbs on a windowsill. . . this gardening technique boasts the ability to grow 25 plants and churn out a salad per week — with the help of some plastic water bottles, a simple piping system, netting, and fishing wire.
Acting as a reservoir system, these farms depend on a water pump on a timer to pump water and liquid nutrients from the bottom level reservoir to the top level. Small holes drilled into the bottom of the top reservoir allow for a continual drip into the separate columns of plants growing in inverted plastic bottles. The plants then water each other, as the cap of each bottle at the bottom of each plant's unit drips water and nutrients into the unit below it. The lowest level of plants in bottles is connected via tubing to the bottom reservoir, where the pump starts the process again.
Intrigued, I did some research on WindowFarms, their technique, their following. I found more than I bargained for. As I said before, we're not talking about growing basil and thyme in tiny pots on the kitchen sill. . .
The WindowFarms Project originally asked twelve "Pioneers" to assist in research and development of the do-it-yourself hydroponic farm idea by designing, constructing, and then growing in their own windows — all with the notion of sharing techniques, success, mistakes; to create a community that could learn from one another:
[Our goals are] to start a Windowfarming craze in New York City and other dense urban areas, helping people grow some of their food year-round in their apartment windows... to give ordinary folks a means to collaborate on research and development at our.windowfarms.org.
This project fits within a larger context of our collaborative work: collaborative distributed R&DIY solutions for environmental issues. Our inspiration for community involvement derives from concepts of local production (think of the coming network of 3D multi-material printers), mass customization, and crowdsourcing. We envision the DIY aspect, not as a nostalgia-inducing hobby or a compromise during hard financial times, but as a futuristic infrastructure-light alternative to big R&D. Instead of waiting for products and services to be developed by industry, local social networks develop solutions for themselves by dividing scientists' breakthrough findings into actionable local steps.
If you're not as enthusiastic to break out the fishing line and drill holes in bottle caps in attempts to construct your very own hydroponic farm, fear not. . . You can cultivate your own garden for less than $200 (including seed kits), with a new system from AeroGrow. Their aeroponics system allows plants to extract nutrients from the air, versus from water and soil, by growing plants with their roots suspended in the air. The system is equipped with "smart" lighting and nutrient-cycling so that your tiny garden is guaranteed by AeroGrow to yield crops in less than a month's time.
Critics and other gardeners agree. . . there are more perks to indoor gardens than not having to leave the house to prepare a homegrown salad. Plants act as air-purifiers, becoming a front-line against dust and allergens, and they have been said to improve mental health, relieve stress, elevate mood, and increase oxygen flow in an indoor space.
Besides. . . what a great way to put all those plastic water bottles you've had sitting in your recycling bin for months to good use.
Brigid
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