Living in an equatorial metropolis of 8 million people and owning/operating a preschool in the midst of this concrete jungle made the prospects of maintaining an organic in ground garden difficult to say the least.
I had no intentions of giving up on my dream to not only use a garden to teach the water,nitrogen cycles and microcosm of earth's abundance but to also provide cooking classes, and organic vegetation to my junior champs. But, how in a limited space of full sun exposed concrete where the temps are exceeding 35c daily? The answer my steemians is aquaponics. Trouble was my 15 years of commercial farming experience where there are seasons offered very little knowledge on design,implementation, construction,maintenance, or even what plants and fish are suitable. To say I was a fish outta water, or in over my head was a gross understatement. But. I mustered on and was able to create this prodigious aquaponics system seen below with no input and very little manpower. Hell, I didn't even own a screwdriver as I'd only just moved to Malaysia a few months before.
I'm still learning and realising I would have done things a bit differently in hindsight but cest la vie right? Honestly, my main concerns at first were no mosquitoes and not killing any fish! I still have two beds not being used that are designed as DWC or deep water culture. Currently they are a guppy farm, the reason for this is a lack of funding to install the proper electric outlets needed to run this part of the system. But, never mind that, I will get it done asap.
I have 35 over a foot long Catfish and a few Patin that are creating the necessary 💩 poop to make all these plants flourish. They are as follows, chives, mustard greens,pak Choy, kangkung, red,green, and amaranth spinach, lettuce, dill, mint, okra, and eggplant. I also use the water to fertilise and feed my ground plants but that another post for another day. Thanks for spending some time hanging at the urban farm. Until next time keep it green!
These are my 2 hyydroton/washed gravel media aquaponic beds using cut IBC tanks.
Another angle of the lush vegetation
This is my sump tank I am using kangkung as a natural filter
The all mint mainstay grow bed 1 of4
This shows my 1000 litre fish hold that gravity feeds the 4 beds
A very recent harvest of pakchoy and mustard greens
The initial water flow test is a success
