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A Windowfarm is a hydroponic urban gardening system that was originally developed by Britta Riley using open-source designs. A Windowfarm is an indoor garden that allows for year-round growing in almost any window. It lets plants use natural light, the climate control of your living space, and organic “liquid soil.”
Windowfarms was a Brooklyn, NY-based social enterprise that helped city-dwellers around the world grow their own fresh food. Windowfarms made vertical indoor food gardens that optimize the conditions of windows for year-round indoor growing of greens, herbs, and small vegetables.
In the hydroponic system, nutrient-spiked water is pumped up from a reservoir at the base of the system and trickles down from bottle to bottle, bathing the plants’ roots along the way. Water and nutrients that are not absorbed collect in the reservoir and will be pumped through again at the next interval. Plants grown in soil have roots that extend far and wide, but hydroponically grown plants roots are hairy and dense. Because the roots are so compact, a hydroponic system is a much more efficient use of space.
In 2009, Founder Britta Riley built the first Windowfarm with friends in her 5th floor Brooklyn apartment window. She collaborated to open and crowdsource the development of a home hydroponic food growing system for apartment windows, building a now defunct social media sharing site, around a set of instructions for making the systems out of repurposed water bottles and plumbing supplies. The site now has nearly 40,000 registered users who have built Windowfarms.
Through two Kickstarter campaigns, the social startup raised over $285,000 to bootstrap itself into manufacturing designed Windowfarms in the US and with sustainable practices, with an updated focus on the plants the systems grow — all with the goal of reviving agricultural biodiversity in small scale systems.
One year after funding succeeded on their second campaign the WindowFarm team made a final update to the Kickstarter project page, announcing domestic orders fulfilled. [1]
As of December 31, 2016, debtors, investors, and former employees received a notice that "Windowfarms is going out of business and will not be able to make good on its outstanding balance on your invoices. The company will be fully dissolved by the end of the fiscal year 2016 and does not have sufficient assets to offset this and other debts." [2]
Although a lot of information from both windowfarms.org and their community has been lost, some of it has still survived. An effort is being made to collect this data online. [3]
Britta Riley estimated Windowfarms’ delivery for December 2012. Product and delivery costs for International pledges: [4] from $120 to more than $300 per backer. As of April 2014, International backers [4] never received their product nor reimbursement and Windowfarms ignores enquiries, phone calls or emails from International backers. Simultaneously, Britta Riley (Windowfarms) continues promoting [5] and selling her product locally. [6]
Windowfarms’s definition and mission is ambiguous. There was a community [7] where people from everywhere exchange and develop ‘vertical window farms’ and the commercial [6] WindowFarms priced from $199 to $399. One was a social community and the other was a company for which Britta Riley is co-founder.
The designs are released under a Creative Commons license which, despite being Non-Commercial (as well as Attribution and Share-Alike), didn't prevent Britta Riley's company from selling the kits for profit. [8] [9]
July 2013, CBC News published an article explaining how Canadian and international backers feel ripped-off [10] [11] [12] [13] by Britta Riley, co-founder of the Windowfarms. [14] A Netherlands-based part of the community wrote an open letter to Riley, asking her to contact them, [15] and Canadian backers set up a website called windowfarmsfraud.com.
Windowfarms was commissioned to build two large arrays of Windowfarms at The American Museum of Natural History in conjunction with the globe-traveling special exhibition on food, “Our Global Kitchen: Food, Culture, Nature“. The LED grow light powered hydroponic research garden was on view for 10 months at the Columbus and 79th street entrance November 2012-August 2013.
Hydroponics is a type of horticulture and a subset of hydroculture which involves growing plants, usually crops or medicinal plants, without soil, by using water-based mineral nutrient solutions. Terrestrial or aquatic plants may grow with their roots exposed to the nutritious liquid or the roots may be mechanically supported by an inert medium such as perlite, gravel, or other substrates.
A green wall is a vertical built structure intentionally covered by vegetation. Green walls include a vertically applied growth medium such as soil, substitute substrate, or hydroculture felt; as well as an integrated hydration and fertigation delivery system. They are also referred to as living walls or vertical gardens, and widely associated with the delivery of many beneficial ecosystem services.
Urban agriculture refers to various practices of cultivating, processing, and distributing food in urban areas. The term also applies to the area activities of animal husbandry, aquaculture, beekeeping, and horticulture in an urban context. Urban agriculture is distinguished from peri-urban agriculture, which takes place in rural areas at the edge of suburbs.
Aquaponics is a food production system that couples aquaculture with hydroponics whereby the nutrient-rich aquaculture water is fed to hydroponically grown plants.
A houseplant, sometimes known as a pot plant, potted plant, or an indoor plant, is an ornamental plant that is grown indoors. As such, they are found in places like residences and offices, mainly for decorative purposes. Common houseplants are usually tropical or semi-tropical, and are often epiphytes, succulents or cacti.
Aeroponics is the process of cultivating plants in an air or mist environment, eliminating the need for soil or an aggregate medium. The term "aeroponic" originates from the Greek words aer ("air") and ponos ("work"). It falls under the category of hydroponics, as water is employed in aeroponics to deliver nutrients to the plants.
A herb farm is usually a farm where herbs are grown for market sale. There is a case for the use of a small farm being dedicated to herb farming as the smaller farm is more efficient in terms of manpower usage and value of the crops on a per acre basis. In addition, the market for herbs is not as large as the more commercial crops, providing the justification for the small-scale herb farm. Herbs may be for culinary, medicinal or aromatic use, and sold fresh-cut or dried. Herbs may also be grown for their essential oils or as raw material for making herbal products. Many businesses calling themselves a herb farm sell potted herb plants for home gardens. Some herb farms also have gift shops, classes, and sometimes offer food for sale. In the United States, some herb farms belong to trade associations.
This article presents common techniques and facts regarding the cultivation of cannabis, primarily for the production and consumption of its infructescences. Cultivation techniques for other purposes differ.
Organopónicos or organoponics is a system of urban agriculture using organic gardens. It originated in Cuba and is still mostly focused there. It often consists of low-level concrete walls filled with organic matter and soil, with lines of drip irrigation laid on the surface of the growing media. Organopónicos is a labour-intensive form of local agriculture.
Vertical farming is the practice of growing crops in vertically stacked layers. It often incorporates controlled-environment agriculture, which aims to optimize plant growth, and soilless farming techniques such as hydroponics, aquaponics, and aeroponics. Some common choices of structures to house vertical farming systems include buildings, shipping containers, tunnels, and abandoned mine shafts. As of 2020, there is the equivalent of about 30 ha of operational vertical farmland in the world.
Root rot is a condition in which anoxic conditions in the soil or potting media around the roots of a plant cause them to rot. This occurs due to excessive standing water around the roots. It is found in both indoor and outdoor plants, although it is more common in indoor plants due to overwatering, heavy potting media, or containers with poor drainage. The leaves of plants experiencing root rot often yellow and die, and if allowed to continue, the condition can be fatal.
A flowerpot, planter, planterette or plant pot, is a container in which flowers and other plants are cultivated and displayed. Historically, and still to a significant extent today, they are made from plain terracotta with no ceramic glaze, with a round shape, tapering inwards. Flowerpots are now often also made from plastic, metal, wood, stone, or sometimes biodegradable material. An example of biodegradable pots are ones made of heavy brown paper, cardboard, or peat moss in which young plants for transplanting are grown.
Deep water culture (DWC) is a hydroponic method of plant production by means of suspending the plant roots in a solution of nutrient-rich, oxygenated water. Also known as deep flow technique (DFT), floating raft technology (FRT), or raceway, this method uses a rectangular tank less than one foot deep filled with a nutrient-rich solution with plants floating in Styrofoam boards on top. This method of floating the boards on the nutrient solution creates a near friction-less conveyor belt of floating rafts. DWC, along with nutrient film technique (NFT), and aggregate culture, is considered to be one of the most common hydroponic systems used today. Typically, DWC is used to grow short-term, non-fruiting crops such as leafy greens and herbs. The large volume of water helps mitigate rapid changes in temperature, pH, electrical conductivity (EC), and nutrient solution composition.
Controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) -- which includes indoor agriculture (IA) and vertical farming—is a technology-based approach toward food production. The aim of CEA is to provide protection from the outdoor elements and maintain optimal growing conditions throughout the development of the crop. Production takes place within an enclosed growing structure such as a greenhouse or plant factory.
Ebb and flow hydroponics is a form of hydroponics that is known for its simplicity, reliability of operation and low initial investment cost. Pots are filled with an inert medium which does not function like soil or contribute nutrition to the plants but which anchors the roots and functions as a temporary reserve of water and solvent mineral nutrients. The hydroponic solution alternately floods the system and is allowed to ebb away.
Kimbal James Musk is a South African restaurateur, chef, and entrepreneur. He owns The Kitchen Restaurant Group, a collection of restaurants located in Colorado and Chicago. He is the co-founder and chairman of Big Green, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has built hundreds of outdoor classrooms called Learning Gardens in schoolyards across America. Musk is also the co-founder and chairman of Square Roots, an urban farming company growing food in hydroponic, indoor, climate controlled shipping containers. Musk currently sits on the boards of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, both of which his brother Elon is the current CEO. He was on the board of Chipotle Mexican Grill from 2013 to 2019. He is the brother of Elon Musk and Tosca Musk, son of Errol and Maye Musk, and a major shareholder in Tesla.
New York Sun Works, founded in 2004 by Ted Caplow, is a non-profit organization that uses hydroponic farming technology to educate students and teachers about the science of sustainability. To further this goal, NY Sun Works created the Greenhouse Project, an initiative dedicated to improving K through 12 grade environmental science education through the lens of urban agriculture, empowering children to make educated choices about their impact on the environment. The Greenhouse Project was inspired by NY Sun Works’ first project, the renowned Science Barge; a prototype, sustainable urban farm and environmental education center previously housed on the Hudson River and now located in Yonkers under different ownership.
Freight Farms is a Boston-based agriculture technology company and was the first to manufacture and sell "container farms": hydroponic farming systems retrofitted inside intermodal freight containers. Freight Farms also develops farmhand, a hydroponic farm management and automation software platform, and the largest connected network of hydroponic farmers in the world. The company has installed more than 600 farms around the world, on behalf of individuals, entrepreneurs, educational and corporate campuses, and soil farmers. The company's mission is to empower individuals and communities to grow fresh and sustainable food locally, regardless of climate or location.
Eden Green Technology is an agricultural technology company headquartered in the city of Cleburne, TX. The company develops and manufactures hydroponic vertical growing systems for commercial food crops and research and development greenhouses. In 2021, the company recently received a $12 million investment which will help open up a new facility.
Click and Grow is an Estonian indoor gardening company, founded by Mattias Lepp in 2009. It develops consumer electronic products for growing edible plants indoors.
