If you'd like to grow some herbs, salad greens, or other small plants but live in an apartment or condo with no land you can buy or build an urban window garden that uses a pulley system to convert the vertical garden space to horizontal so it can collect more sunlight during the day.


Gardening weblog Urban Gardens shares this design that came from French firm Barreau & Charbonnet who named this method the drawbridge-like garden Volet Végétal.

The video above gives you the basic plan to make one for yourself. Build the rectangular frame and the inner frames from lumber, attach the mini frames to the main frame with nuts and bolts that allow it to pivot, Attach the main frame to a sturdy pipe that allows the frame to swivel, and attach sturdy ropes or chains to the top of the frame and to hook eyelets that allow you to utilize the pulley to change the from from vertical to horizontal and back.


This is a very cool idea that isn't hard to build and would work well as long as your windows open the right way.

Thinking Outside the Window Box: Urban Garden System Suspends From Windowsill | Urban Gardens via Make