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Posts Tagged ‘Hydroponics’

aquaponics is the process of growing food that combines the pros of aquaculture (raising fish in tanks) and hydroponics (growing plants without soil) while eliminating the cons.

Aquaponics is a sustainable food production system:

• Aquaponics has very low water consumption: less than 1% of the water used in traditional farming.
• Aquaponics uses 70% less energy than traditional in-ground farming methods!
• Aquaponics creates eight to ten times more vegetable production than farming in-ground.
• Aquaponics is fully scalable: backyard family systems to full commercial systems.
• Aquaponics is pure, clean, and natural: USDA Certified Organic.
• Aquaponics is easy to learn and operate: anyone can do it!

Aquaponics has been around for a long time, but recently more and more home owners have started to develop home based systems. In part this is due to people wanting to take control of their food security. Additionally in todays wired world the internet is allowing more people to access better information.

There are quite a few good resources online. My particular favorite is: Backyard Aquaponics because of their large community of experienced Aquaponicists. Most started by developing small “learning” systems and have graduated on to larger systems that can keep their family stocked with fresh fish and veggies. In some cases they have developed large commercial scale operations that produce food for sale. You can track their progress through the forums, see detailed designs and most importantly get valuable insight and advice from people who have “been there and done that”.

I will soon begin my own “learning system”. based on my climate, growing season and land availability I have a few tough choices to make. Which type or types of fish to grow? What grow media should I use? Technical details such as valves, pumps general design and layout. Thankfully great resources exist to help me find the answers to these and many more questions.

Aquaponics has the potential to feed a whole lot of people with energy-efficient, sustainable food-production methods. A lot of this will be done by individuals and families with backyard aquaponics systems. As these systems become more economical and efficient, backyard systems will become more common until every neighborhood has one. This will put tremendous power back into the hands of individuals, as they become more and more responsible for their own food security and head toward “food freedom”.

Indoor Gardening Easy, Clean, and Pesticide Free – Make Your Own
By Carm Paynter

When I think of gardening I think dirt, weeds,bugs and cold, dirty fingers. I also think of wonderful, flavorful, fresh and pesticide free food and that’s the reason I tolerate all that other “stuff”.

Would you be interested in getting rid of the dirt, weeds,bugs and the cold dirty fingers and still get great garden produce. What If you could grow all this indoors with almost no effort? Does this sound like something you want to do? Then you need to think Hydroponics.

A method of growing plants both for home and commercial use without using soil is hydroponics. The interest in home hydroponics is a recent phenomenon and is increasing in leaps and bounds and with very good reason. Hydroponic plants are usually more healthy, mature earlier, and use less space.They can be grown year round.

If you are serious about growing clean, flavorful, healthy food and herbs at home year round I would suggest you get one of the many portable hydroponics systems. Get one that promises to have all the instructions you need. If you don’t have a large window to supply enough light for growing plants, get a system with a proper light source

If you are interested in constructing your own system you will be able to find lots of information on the various types of system to build. Don’t let the idea of building your own scare you. It is really quite simple.

Try this to get a beautiful lettuce crop: Get yourself a cheap plastic tote from any hardware store. Be sure it is dark colored. (light colors allow excess green algae growth) You will need 2″ thick styrofoam slightly smaller than the tote. This needs to be carefully shaped, pay particular attention to the corners. It has to move up and down freely inside the tote. (It will float on the liquid underneath). Cut it so that you do not allow any more light than necessary under it. Cut 2″ holes in the styrofoam raft to accommodate your plants growth. they should be 7″-8″ apart.

Next you need an air pump, an air stone and a length of plastic tubing from the pet store. Put the air-stone in the bottom of the tote and carefully place the tubing down the corner so as not to interfere with your styrofoam raft. Use a bead of silicone and press the tubing into it and let dry for a few hours. The air stone infuses the solution with oxygen. Cut foam rubber discs the same size as the holes in your raft. Cut these about 2/3rds of the way across. These will hold your seedlings in the raft. That is essentially all there is to the construction.

You need seedlings for your Hydroponics garden. I like to use small plastic pots with vermiculite to start my seedlings. With very small seed you can start them on paper towels and transplant to your pots. Water your seedlings with 1/2 strength growing solution. When the seedlings have reached a height of about 3″, carefully wash the root system to get rid of all or almost all of the growing medium. put the stem into the foam rubber, put one foam rubber/seedling in each hole in your hydroponics system and watch the show until you are able to enjoy using your lettuce.
For more of Carm’s Hydroponic gardening information come visit us at http://www.hydroponicsgarden-howto.com Carm has been interested in agriculture and the effect of large commercial agriculture on the environment for some time.

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