Aquaponic Gardens - What’s In It For You?

When you first get involved in aquaponic gardening it’s a wonderful journey into plumbing, fish keeping, water chemistry and so much more but as with all things in life you need to start with a goal.  What’s your goal with your garden?  Are you wanting to grow fresh herbs for your kitchen since the store bought ones just don’t have the depth of flavour that they once did?  Are you trying to teach your children the basics of where our food comes from?  Perhaps your trying to bankrupt the evil corporations by declaring your own food independence, or just trying to have a little fun and save a few dollars along the way for other things, like paying for the roof.
Whatever it is, odds are pretty good that you've got a goal.  For example, when I first got started with aquaponics my goal was to see if this odd method of gardening really worked for people with little to no budget.  Gardening shouldn't be an expensive thing but all of the aquaponic garden systems that I saw were huge and way out of my price range.  I think I can safely say that I have achieved that goal since I've made it work in so many ways that cost so little to setup and maintain.
Now my goal has turned into a deeper desire to learn as much as I can about aquaponics in general and spread that out to the masses like a grassfire in late summer.  I honestly believe that this method of agriculture is going to be a large part of the solution and I want regular people, like you and me, to make that happen.  This is something of a larger goal but YOU can help.
What is YOUR aquaponic goal?  Write that down somewhere that you can see it often with a little box to check off when it has been achieved.  Better yet, comment below with your garden goal, aquaponic or not, and then come back to us later & reply to it when you get  to say it’s done.  That way we can all share in each others success!
I think for many of us the first goal is getting the plumbing right, or growing that first super juicy (and they are) strawberry/tomato, or tasting the amazing flavour of some fresh home grown basil picked just before use …  Whatever your garden goals may be I wish you the best of luck & many happy harvests!

John Tumbling Bear.