DIY Window Pane Vegetable Garden

So, your only outdoor space is a window. French designers Barreau & Charbonnet don’t want that to limit your gardening potential.

Experimenters in small urban gardening, Barreau & Charbonnet have developed a pivoting window garden, Volet Végétal, that maximizes the space for an urban garden plot beyond the standard window box. Spotted on PSFK.

Above: The Volet Végétal concept was Barreau & Charbonnet’s entry in the Parisian design contest “Jardin Jardin” as a product for people who are living in apartment deprived of gardens and balcony.

Above: The components of the Volet Végétal. While not for yet available for sale, the designers are working on “managing business and technical development to distribute it.” In the meantime, you can create your own with a pivoting wooden frame made to fit a window and to hold plastic plant troughs.

Above: Attached to the outside of a window, the Volet Végétal can be kept in a vertical upright position for easy garden tending and to act as a green screen, or it can be lowered to offer sunlight (and natural irrigation) to the plants and to open the view.

Above: A wooden version of the system uses simple pulleys and pivoting garden beds.

Above: Three views of the the window shutter garden prototype. (N.B.: For more inspiration, see images of Urban Gardens in our Gallery of rooms and spaces.)