3 Years into the Aquaponic Garden Experiment

After 3 years of gardening with aquaponics I am so completely beyond hooked on the idea it’s a little bit nuts.  Everything’s going to be just fine though, we know what to call it so therefore … we can find a cure!
 
Obsessive Compulsive Aquaponic Disorder, it’s real and I have it.  Okay maybe it’s not really real type real but it’s pretty real all the same.  If it holds water I will, at one time or another, ask myself how it would work for an aquaponic garden.  Is it deep enough?  Does it hold enough water?  Would the fish like it?  Oh ya, I've got O.C.A.D. and I'm proud to say it!  Have you got O.C.A.D. yet?  Go ahead, it’s just gardening … just give it a try!

Seriously though, after these last 3 years of testing theories and trying new and different foods just because they would grow in the system, I really think there is something to this aquaponics thing.  My garden is not the biggest or prettiest or fanciest or most expensive or any of that crap but you know what it is?  It’s proof that anyone who really wants to garden with aquaponics can do it with very little expense or knowledge.

From about 1 year into Aquaponic Gardens
(the fish pump was a bad idea)

When I first got involved with aquaponic gardening, about a year or so before the YouTube channel started to document everything, my system didn't even have a pump.  I had some old coffee cans with little drain hoses into a wading pool from the neighbours.  Very kind of them.  If I went into the garden area I would refill the cans and they would slowly drain back into the pool.  No pump, no power.

As primitive as that system sounds, it worked.  It worked well enough I  have spent the next 3 years finding out just how much I could grow and how little I could spend.  In that time, this little aquaponic garden has produced foods I can't even pronounce and herbs with flavour depths I'd never imagined from what I was used to.

The truth is, the experiment is over and now things are getting a little more serious.  Hard to believe from me I know but all the same I’m gonna try.  I set out to find out if it works and it does.  Simple as that really.  What now?

Now it becomes about getting other people into aquaponic gardening & spreading the word.  Now it’s about bringing back the idea of ‘Victory Gardens’ which so many of us all over the world would benefit from.  Now it’s about inspiring others to find new places to turn into aquaponic farmland when it was just industrial wasteland before.  Now things are just getting started to get growing.  Now it’s about insuring that as many families as possible start their own little aquaponic gardens and feel the freedom that growing your own food can provide.

What now for you?

Best regards,
JT Bear.

What is Aquaponics?

Here is a quick look at the introduction to aquaponics that I have in the beginning of my little eBook.  I hope to have a version I am happy to post on the FundRazr campaign as a 'perk' for peoples kind donations.  How does this look to you?  Please feel free to share any thoughts on writing style or general content.  Thanks for your time!

What is Aquaponics?

Basically, aquaponic gardens and farms are attempting to re-create the system that nature uses. In an environmentally controlled area, such as a greenhouse, these systems are used with great success to raise both fish and plants in a closed loop waterway.  As the fish live, breathe, eat and make waste their water can become quite toxic to them if left untreated.

Aquaponic gardens, however, clean and filter that water for the fish before it returns to them.  As the water is pumped through a system, it will travel through both bio-filters and plant roots, each having a very important part in keeping those fish healthy.

The biofilter, aka your happy bacterial colony in the growing media, are a two part team.  The first part converts the raw ammonias from the fish pollutants into nitrites and then the second part  finally converts those into nitrates.  Once these previously toxic elements have been naturally converted they become a healthy source of nutrients for the plants that are growing in the aquaponic garden bed.  The plant roots are eager to get any source of extra nutrients that they can find, and as such, they will rapidly deplete them from the water rushing by.

It is by taking advantage of this natural bacterial cycle that aquaponic gardens are able to do so well for food production almost regardless of the gardeners personal skill level.  It is my opinion, that aquaponic gardens might just be the much needed answer to providing food security for individuals as well as for entire communities.

When edible fish and plants are used they can provide more than enough food in return to cover the initial cost of setting it up.  If you think of your garden as an investment, it’s the best returns you can find on the market without breaking the laws.  Think about the price of a packet of seeds when compared to the price of some produce!  It’s even more when you use the price of ‘Organic’ foods for your math and I feel that aquaponic foods are probably better for you anyway.  Did you know that ‘Organic farms’ can still use fertilizers and pesticides as long as those products are ‘certified’?  Using anything like that in an aquaponic system would cause massive damage because they are designed to use technology to simulate nature.

Nature doesn’t have those type of products … just saying.