I really wanted a way to grow a substantial amount of produce without using any power that required a plug to do it, and to make it look good - more like furniture that you would want inside the house. So I built this. 

There are a million ways to set up some recyclables and an aquarium pump to grow a few plants. I've done this plenty of times. It wasn't good enough for the power it was using, and the materials never lasted that long. Plastic bottles are only intended to be used once - many bottles even say to not reuse them on the label. This system does use new materials for the initial build, but once it's set up it only requires water, fertilizer, seeds/cuttings and the occasional sheet of rockwool from then on out. Using new materials also reduces the chances that surprise contaminants will make it into the food (at the very least it should be better than grocery store equivalents.) The pump is solar powered - it pulls the solution from the reservoir below to trickle over the roots of the plants inside the box. The footprint is 36" by 8" and it accommodates 50 plants. The inspiration came from a book of old French ironwork that I have. I figured that if I was going to do this I might as well make it as spectacular as I could. I'm running it outdoors over the summer, but then it's coming inside to keep working near a sunny window to keep me eating fresh and healthy all year long.

*More complete pictures of this are coming in the next few days - I wanted to enter this in the Earthjustice contest but, since it needs to go outside for now (no window space big enough at the moment) I'm battling the chance of freezing. I was going to finally pop all of my seedlings into it tonight and just as I started I decided to double check the weather - they're predicting a freeze tonight and I didn't want to risk my tiny baby plants. I put one in to show how it works but I'll get them all into place ASAP for the glamour pics.*