This setup is made with some fence palings from Bunnings and some builder's film. The palings would be about $15 and the builders film about $5, another $3 for the hinge. The pots were obtained free from a local nursery's "pot exchange", and there is a $15 aerator from a local aquarium, so $40-$50 all up?
Basically its full of water, threw some seaweed extract, volcano dust and some worm juice in there, and that's all the nutrients the plants need. The aerator keeps the water full of oxygen and its completely dark in there, so no risk of algal blooms. Its got some lettuce, basil, chives, broccoli growing in it, the chives especially seem to love it.
If I were to do it again I would get some "net pots" from the hydroponics store, which are smaller, and I could fit 3x as many pots in there, with only 16 slots its not really an effective use of the space, I recently fit 10 pots on a aeroponics rig about 1/8 the size. Setup right, it could hold about 80 pots, thus being a rad little food production unit.
