So... where to start?

Last fall I ran across a gardening concept known as aquaponics that was totally new to me. Living in central Texas, one of our main challenges is water, especially during those long hot summer months. I read this article about a technique that recirculates water in a closed loop and uses only about 10% of the water needed for traditional gardening. After receiving yet another gazillion dollar utility bill from the city the thought of cutting down on water usage but still being able to garden piqued my interest.  

At first I the more widely known technique of hydroponics in which one mixes up a bunch of nutrients in a water bath like some mad chemist growing "franken-veggies" in the lab came to mind. However, as I read further I quickly learned that aquaponics takes the whole nutrient bath concept one step further by allowing mother nature to do the job of creating the nutrients for you. 

I thought to myself, "Wait a minute, you mean that I can use 90% less water, not have to worry about constantly mixing up nutrient brews, and on top of that you don't need anything more elaborate than a couple of containers, some PVC pipe, and a water pump?" COUNT ME IN!

So what exactly is "aquaponics"?

In short, aquaponics is a system that consists of a fish tank, a container of some sort to hold your plants, some sort of PH neutral medium to support the plant roots, and a pump to circulate the water. It's basically a mini-ecosystem that works like this:

• The fish do what fish normally do in the water
• There is a pair of bacteria that go to work on the ammonia the fish produce
• The first bacteria converts the ammonia to nitrites
• The second bacteria converts the nitrites to nitrates
• Plants thrive on those nitrates and in return removes them from the water, essentially cleaning it for the fish.
• Extra credit if you throw a colony of worms in the plant grow bed to take care of the solid waste from the fish that will eventually build up and have to be rinsed out of your media.

Too darned simple, it's got to be more complicated than that! Well, that's what I thought. I've now been doing this for just under a year. I started with two small systems made from recycled "IBC totes". In that short time from those two small systems I have enjoyed:

• All of the salad greens I could eat for a few months
• A couple of varieties of peppers
• Kale
• Cabbage from which I made some excellent homemade sauerkraut
• A couple of varieties of squash
• Basil
• Climbing Spinach
• Eggplant
• Okra 
• Tomatoes grew well, but with a thriving garden comes other opportunist critters, one of which kept picking the fruits just as they started to ripen

Keep in mind here that we are only talking about a couple of puny less than 4'x4' grow beds here! As a bonus I have also enjoyed some fresh Talapia grown in the fish tank.

I have been gardening all of my life and can honestly say that this is by far the most productive and lowest maintenance garden I have ever grown. Everyone who has seen it tells me I need to start a blog. So... here it is. As time goes on I will post pictures of my first couple of beds as well as document my progress in expanding the system with an eye towards totally "transfarming" by backyard into an elegant and edible landscape.