Hello everybody, thanks for stopping by to check out the blog! Seems I haven't posted anything here since 2015 so I should probably fill you folks in on what's growing on with my aquaponic garden experiments.
If you watch my YouTube channel (JT Bear) then you may be aware that I was sent a EuroGrower Garden and tried to grow in it with the standard hydroponic garden style they had in mind. Sadly this didn't work out well for either me, or my poor plants, so I made the switch back to what I know will work for me, and that's aquaponics. Converting the EuroGrower garden was as simple as adding a table for some lift and a few pipes to extend the plumbing that was already included. After adding a few cheap feeder fish into the new basement aquaponic set-up, it was ready to run! Which was a good thing since I was still trying to keep last years Aji Penec plant alive ...
Well, after our little feeder fish got comfortable and started eating, the garden perked right up, I got several more months growth from that chili pepper plant and we even managed to squeeze 6 or 7 pepper pods from it before the end! Tragically, hydro isn't going down as a high point in my gardening career ... life grows on. There have always been a few things about the standard hydroponic set up that didn't quite work for me anyway and really those are what lead me to aquaponic gardening in the first place.
With the EuroGrower now being an aquaponic based garden, I no longer am required to dump out 30 gallons, or more, of water each week just so I can mix up a fresh batch of nutrients and fill it up all over again. That has always seemed wasteful to me, I couldn't make myself do it with the hydro and my plants suffered the dearest cost. A moment of silence for those 8 fine peppers now gone to the great compost in the sky. Anyway, with the fish I simply need to remove 10% or so each week and only add perhaps 5 gallons of new water to the system instead of 30. Those 5 gallons get poured into many of our houseplants, who all seem to love it, and no water gets wasted from the system. I simply don't have enough houseplants to do that with 30 gallons ...
Now that I've made the switch, back in Feb of 2018, I feel a lot better about the basement garden that I've got running. Besides, who doesn't enjoy spending a little bit of time watching & feeding fish?
Sunday, August 12, 2018
Thursday, October 15, 2015
What's the BIG DEAL with Aquaponic Gardens?
So there are a LOT of folks out there wondering just what is the big freaking deal with aquaponic gardens these days?!? Is this some sort of new crazy hippy fad or what? Well, yes and no ... let me explain.
The shortest way to say it is that the planet is in trouble. Big trouble no matter what new feed you read, the news isn't pretty. That's part of WHY aquaponic gardening is becoming such a popular way to provide for yourself and spend a little time feeling better. How do these things relate to each other? Easy.
One of the biggest issues we hear about, aside from people killing each other, is how people are starving all over the world. Even in so called first world countries the citizens can be seen on the streets clearly in need of better food sources. In second & third world countries the situation is even worse. Growing food for large numbers of people requires damaging huge patches of land, in many ways that's just all there is to say about it, but it doesn't NEED to be that way. Many of us that are growing with aquaponics are only too happy to speak of the many benefits that go along with it.
First would either be the health benefits of locally grown food but second would undoubtedly be the water saving nature of the gardens design. If you were to look at an aquaponic garden for the first time you may be asking ... just how does this massive pool of water use less water than a soil garden? To be fair, that's a reasonable question. Allow me to answer it for you. Aquaponic, and hydroponic, gardens recycle the water in a loop that ends up back at the source. Any water used, is returned. Quite simple really. In soil gardening the water is often lost to gravity draining it down and away before the plants can even really notice it, let alone benefit from it! With aquaponics the garden bed is waterproof, or at least it should be, so the water drains into pipes and back to the filters & fish tanks. Not wasted.
Another place that traditional gardens tend to loose a fair bit of water is to simple evaporation. Before the water can soak into the soil to pass by the roots it must battle the heat of the surrounding environment or risk becoming a future raindrop. In aquaponic gardens the top layer of grow media is kept dry to help prevent this loss of such a valuable resource. The end result is a garden that uses water without really loosing it. Water is still consumed by the plants and expelled into the air via the leaves but otherwise it just stays in the system!
Having all of this water moving past the roots helps the plants to thrive and in doing they produce amazing flavors. The taste of aquaponic basil simply cannot be beat in my opinion! Raising fish in the aquaponic gardens, the source of all the good stuff for the plants, is a secondary bonus that traditional gardens doesn't provide. For folks such as myself, raising goldfish provides for the plants and saves me a fortune in therapy. For others, raising edible fish provides another chance to save or make some money and provide for the ones they love. Either way, good deal!
So what is the big deal with aquaponic gardens? They are the answer to a big chunk of the worlds problems. Don't believe me? Try it for yourself, you'll be telling folks to try it in no time!
The shortest way to say it is that the planet is in trouble. Big trouble no matter what new feed you read, the news isn't pretty. That's part of WHY aquaponic gardening is becoming such a popular way to provide for yourself and spend a little time feeling better. How do these things relate to each other? Easy.
One of the biggest issues we hear about, aside from people killing each other, is how people are starving all over the world. Even in so called first world countries the citizens can be seen on the streets clearly in need of better food sources. In second & third world countries the situation is even worse. Growing food for large numbers of people requires damaging huge patches of land, in many ways that's just all there is to say about it, but it doesn't NEED to be that way. Many of us that are growing with aquaponics are only too happy to speak of the many benefits that go along with it.
First would either be the health benefits of locally grown food but second would undoubtedly be the water saving nature of the gardens design. If you were to look at an aquaponic garden for the first time you may be asking ... just how does this massive pool of water use less water than a soil garden? To be fair, that's a reasonable question. Allow me to answer it for you. Aquaponic, and hydroponic, gardens recycle the water in a loop that ends up back at the source. Any water used, is returned. Quite simple really. In soil gardening the water is often lost to gravity draining it down and away before the plants can even really notice it, let alone benefit from it! With aquaponics the garden bed is waterproof, or at least it should be, so the water drains into pipes and back to the filters & fish tanks. Not wasted. Another place that traditional gardens tend to loose a fair bit of water is to simple evaporation. Before the water can soak into the soil to pass by the roots it must battle the heat of the surrounding environment or risk becoming a future raindrop. In aquaponic gardens the top layer of grow media is kept dry to help prevent this loss of such a valuable resource. The end result is a garden that uses water without really loosing it. Water is still consumed by the plants and expelled into the air via the leaves but otherwise it just stays in the system!
Having all of this water moving past the roots helps the plants to thrive and in doing they produce amazing flavors. The taste of aquaponic basil simply cannot be beat in my opinion! Raising fish in the aquaponic gardens, the source of all the good stuff for the plants, is a secondary bonus that traditional gardens doesn't provide. For folks such as myself, raising goldfish provides for the plants and saves me a fortune in therapy. For others, raising edible fish provides another chance to save or make some money and provide for the ones they love. Either way, good deal! So what is the big deal with aquaponic gardens? They are the answer to a big chunk of the worlds problems. Don't believe me? Try it for yourself, you'll be telling folks to try it in no time!
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