THE WINDOWSILL, HYDROPONIC, INFLATION-BUSTER GARDEN

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That's not bad. In fact, it's pretty darned good. If you were to maintain this level of production for a full year, you'd find yourself raising over 14 pounds of food on every square foot of one of these hydroponic gardens. Which figures out to an annual harvest of more than 70 pounds of leafy green vegetables from our 5.1-square-foot window box test plot. Which, in turn, means that if we were to grow only lettuce (which sells in nearby supermarkets for 570 a pound) year round in our "full sized" setup, we'd be shaving forty dollars a year off the family food bill ... and eating far-fresher-than-supermarket lettuce in the bargain!

Best of all, I believe that it's even possible to improve on these figures. Currently, for example, we're experimenting with a rather unusual growing technique that should further increase a hydroponic garden's production ... but more about that in another article. For now, it's enough to know that we've already impressed ourselves by raising a rather incredible amount of fresh, tasty salad greens in a very small space and for very little money.

HERE'S HOW WE DID IT

Our first three window box hydroponic tanks were nothing but aluminum foil roasting pans purchased at a discount store. Each has (we're still using them) an inside dimension of approximately 11" X 19", or a surface area of roughly 1.45 square feet.

We turned these trays into hydroponic gardens (Fig. 1) by first punching a small hole in one corner of each container, and then inserting the end of a 2-1/2-foot length of 1/4-inch plastic tubing. About two inches of this tubing was epoxied to the bottom of the tray, and the rest was allowed to protrude outside. It's important, by the way, to have a small piece of fiberglass or galvanized window screen glued over the two-inch-long end of the tube inside the gardening box (to keep the drainage hose from becoming clogged during use).

Once the hose was attached to the foil roasting pan and the inlet end of the drainage tube was protected with a piece of screen, the tray was filled to within a half inch of its rim with sand, crushed gravel, or perlite (only inert growing mediums, as you know, are used in a hydroponic growing system).

Although seeds may be sown directly into any of these growing mediums, we've found that when they are they often get washed around by the hydroponic solution and then sprout in unexpected places. Experience has shown us that it's far better to start seedlings in small paper cups of vermiculite, and then transplant the tiny plants to the gardening trays.

A short piece of fiberglass insulation can be taped around the outside of each tray, if you like, to help stabilize the temperature of the minigardens. And you'll find that a spring-type clothespin is all you need to hold the drainage tube to the container's lip during each flooding cycle so that the hydroponic fluid can't run out of the bed until you're ready for it to.

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