Well, I guess its been awhile since I last posted.  This is what's been happening:

• Planted a whole bunch of organic and heirloom seeds.  Planted 2x what I needed thinking I'd be lucky to get a 50% sprout rate.  Ended up with more like a 95% sprout rate!
• Discovered I should be avoiding nightshade vegetables due to an autoimmune disease - so I gave away my tomato, eggplant and Marconi pepper sproutlings
• Transplanted sproutlings to net pots and placed in rafts
• Placed rafts in troughs
• Spent countless hours fiddling, adjusting, trying to stop leaks in troughs
• Scrapped existing troughs and tried something different

I'm not sure I ever mentioned this before, but I am not very patient.  And I don't pay a lot of attention to details.  So when I was drilling holes and assembling the three troughs, I didn't pay much attention to where I was putting the holes in relation to the other troughs.  So after lots of fiddling and moving things around and a couple tubes of silicone sealer I decided that this system wasn't working.

I discovered a five foot cattle feeding trough at the local Farmers Supply.  Perfect!  All I had to do was plug the drainage holes and drill one hole to make a standpipe (I could have used one of the existing drainage holes, but wanted it on the side instead of the bottom) and then I could float all three rafts in one trough.

Only problem was I didn't mention the INTERIOR width of the trough.  So I ended up having to saw off one row of holes from each float.  Oh well.

Also, I didn't mention the width of the feet on the trough.  I thought it would sit up on my table.  I realized that wouldn't work, so then I thought it would straddle the table.  That also didn't work.  Finally put it on the ground with the fish tank beside it and I think we are in business!

 

As you can see, things are starting to grow.  Here is what I planted:

• Rouge d'Hiver lettuce
• Oakleaf lettuce
• Parsley
• Cilantro
• Basil
• Chamomile
• Broccoli
• Broccolini
• Marigolds
• Dahlias

Unfortunately, I'm not exactly sure what is where since I rearranged things when I had to lose a row on each float.  So far it seems like the flowers are doing the best, but hopefully everything else will start to fill out too.

I'm hoping to add fish next week.  Still trying to figure out what to feed them and also how to get all the right bacteria growing without killing the fish or the plants.

So I guess now I'm back to the waiting part.  I am so. not. patient.

A Setback

Well, it was bound to happen eventually...I had a setback with my system design today. 

1. The paint on the underbed boxes flakes off if you so much as look at it wrong - despite using the bonding primer recommended by the guy at Lowes
2. When filled with water the sides of the underbed boxes bow out and are unstable.  I already suspected this would happen, which is why I was working on the PVC frame idea.  Which brings me to...
3. The PVC frames were a failure.  If I make them tight enough to hold the underbed box up, it causes the sides to bow in.  Once I begin to put water in it the weight causes the sides to collapse in and fall down out of the frame (and yes, I had a support under the bottom...but still no joy)
4. Even if the PVC frames worked, the boxes are really to long for the table and once I add the extra 3/4" on each side for the PVC the four boxes together are just too big for the table

So, I trashed the whole underbed box idea and went with the bins that were recommended (and I should have used in the first place. *sigh*

Fortunately, I was able to return all of the paint and associated accessories that I hadn't used yet to Lowes and get pretty much everything else I needed for only $3 more than the credit.  Go me.  All I need now is water and fish.

More tomorrow...

Plans...

In the Friendly Aquaponics D-I-Y guide they recommend sketching/drawing out your system plan.  They say it will help you better understand how to set everything up.  I wasn't going to do this at first, but yesterday I sat down and did it.  I have to say...I am SO glad that I did!  It really helped me understand how I needed to do the plumbing (and I realized I would have made some mistakes if I had skipped this step!).  Now if only I could wrap my brain around the water chemistry...that's going to be my next thing to concentrate on.

Today I'm going to measure my boxes and make my PVC shopping list.  Until then...here are my plans!

Sweet Leaf Aquaponics

January 21 the husband and I traveled to Melbourne, FL to attend a workshop at Sweet Leaf Aquaponics, led by David Lindemann.  What a great experience! 

David lives in this cute little 1950's house on a half acre lot that backs up to a golf course with his significant other Nancy, two dogs, at least one cat and LOTS of worms and lizards.  He's managed to turn his back yard into a fantastic garden, both aquaponic and otherwise. 

Dave talks to us about his growing beds

Salad anyone?

This tomato plant has escaped the bed and invaded the walkway.

The aquaponics section is less than a year old, but is already quite prolific!  Greens, okra, basil, mint and more are growing like weeds.

Dave shows us the root system growing in the nutrient-rich water.

Dave told us that he and Nancy have even enjoyed a couple of fish dinners, courtesy of their Tilapia tank.

Part of the day was spent hands-on, building portions of the Aquaponics system.  We drilled holes in blue board for rafts, drilled holes in PVC to attach air lines and learned Dave's special folding technique for the bed liner.

The weather was beautiful, the company was good and we learned so much!  We were also treated to a delicious, home cooked, vegetarian lunch courtesy of the Sweet Leaf garden and Nancy.  It was so good I had to ask for the quinoa pie recipe and have already made it at home!

So, plans are developing for our balcony aquaponics garden and seeds have been ordered.  But more on that next time...

The Beginning...

I live in a 2nd floor condo with an east-facing screened-in balcony.  I try to eat only organic produce and meats, but that gets awfully expensive after awhile.  I've thought about growing some veggies and herbs on my balcony, but I've killed every house plant I have ever owned.  When we lived in a house, we tried to plant a veggie garden and everything died there, too. 

I first heard about aquaponics when I attended a conference where one of the presenters was Colle Davis, the founder of Portable Farms.  My husband and I thought this was genius and started researching how to do this ourselves.  At the time we figured we might do it some time in the future, when we were in a house with a yard again.  But then, during our research, we found Friendly Aquaponics. 

Friendly Aquaponics offers designs and plans for micro-aquaponics systems.  Small enough that we could put one on our kitchen counter if we wanted to!  So we decided we would purchase Friendly's plans and use this to design a system for our balcony.

I spent hours reading through the materials and searching online for all of the parts I would need.  I felt like I had a pretty good understanding of what I would need to do and that I could probably find everything I needed, but I still felt like I needed some hand-holding before I could start.  Plus, we are fortunate to have more money than time.  While I am sure I could eventually build and implement a system on my own, I am also sure it would cost many hours of frustration and probably take way longer than it needed to.

Further research brought me to Sahib Punjabi and Sahib Aquaponics.  Sahib is two hours down the road in Winter Park, Florida.  We have exchanged some emails and I am hopeful that we will be able to work together to design an ideal system for my balcony.  I am even more hopeful that he will quote me a reasonable price to pretty much put it all together so that I can just load it up in the trunk of my car, drive it back to Jacksonville and put it together on my patio.

Anyway...here is what I am starting with: