![On the back of a Dragonfly [B&W]](http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6194/6128449851_14ec409b56_s.jpg "On the back of a Dragonfly [B&W]")
With the goal of making it possible for New Yorkers to grow some of their own food even if they don't have access to their own patch of dirt, my collaborator, Rebecca Bray and I started the windowfarms project. We built the first windowfarm in my Brooklyn apartment in February of this year and within two months I was getting a salad a week from my kitchen "greens and beans" garden.
Our first goal is to get as many people as possible growing some of their own food, for the sake of all of our health, our sense of self-suffiency, and our environment. 
Toward that goal, we have put downloadable "how-to's" for a couple of different systems up on our site here. The easiest version holds three plants, costs about $15 for parts, and can be assembled in about an hour. The more robust windowfarm, for a full New York apartment window, holds up to 25 plants, costs about $125 for parts, and can be assembled in about 6 hours with 2 people. We also are periodically hosting how-to workshops in New York, including Family Day at the Whitney Oct. 3 and Open Studios Day at Eyebeam Oct.24.
Our second goal is to get ordinary folks involved in the research and development of solutions to environmental problems.
Our projects are all about R&D-I-Y (Research and develop it yourself!!). We have created a user-generated website at our.windowfarms.org where we can all share, test, refine, and comment on evolving designs for windowfarms and for other potential DIY solutions to environmental problems.
A giant windowfarm is currently on display in the windows of Eyebeam Art and Technology Center in Chelsea through Aug 27. We thank Eyebeam for their gracious support of this project through their artist's residency program. 
here's nothing worse than reading about the latest trends in organic gardening or composting from the confines of your urban apartment building in a cloudy climate, knowing you can't experiment or even participate. This month, Bust magazine featured a group of women who are helping city dwellers —the gals behind the community of window farmers.
Author Devan Boyle talked to the Brooklyn-based scientists Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray, who grow a weekly salad of "tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, okra, basil and peppers" from "25 plants [in] a 4'x6' window." The women devised a hydroponic gardening system using 5-gallon buckets and recycled plastic water bottles. Their website teaches anyone with $30 and a window how to make her own vertical farm.
As winter approaches and even the most rural of us are taking our gardens down for the season, Riley and Bray write that we can grow food year round, even in an office window, as they had delicious yield from a dimly lit NYC window. Their step-by-step tutorials with images offer two different methods of window farming.
For those feeling nervous about the task or just eager to share, Riley also created a blog and online forum for fellow window farmers to chat about their crops. The sharing of the experience is important to Riley and Bray, who feel window farming participants "rediscover the power of their own capacity to innovate, and witness themselves playing an active role in the green revolution."
According to Bust, the pair consider window farming "a starting point for environmental reform" and have used their research to "bring relief to 'food deserts' in sandy towns just outside Johannesburg, South Africa." The Window Farms creators say they are "both starting a window farming craze in cities worldwide and hoping to accelerate the pace of sustainable design by having ordinary citizens think of themselves as innovators."