Sulphur Dioxide grapes

Snapped this at the local supermarket today. Am I the only one who find this a little distressing???

Thats all the motivation I need to get my aquaponics setup ASAP! 

Ordered drainage kits

Just ordered my drainage kits here:

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/shop.html?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=201&category_id=10

Above ground growbeds

Part of our endeavour is to not only grown fresh produce in our aquaponic greenhouse, but also have several above ground grow beds to grow root dwelling veggies like carrots, potatoes, and the like. After hunting around for an economical way to add above ground beds, I quickly discovered this is an expensive exercise. The primary options are:

1.     Treated pine sleepers. This option may appear to be cheap, but costs quickly escalate. For example, a simple one meter by one meter grows bed; at 600mm height will cost around $150.

2.     Corrugated iron/Color Bond Steel. This option is also quite pricey with most planter boxes coming in at $150+ per box.

3.     IBC. I managed to pickup three food grade IBC’s at $110 each delivered. This is by far the cheapest option.

I like the idea of using IBC’s as they are strong, robust, and can be moved easily. My biggest concern was getting something that was actually food grade as many claim to be, but are not. I was certainly proven wrong after ordering three units from Jack, who also sells these on ebay. I ordered them on Sunday morning by sending him a text, and they were delivered at 4.30pm that same afternoon!

The IBC’s provided had only been used ONCE! They contained, and have a small amount of syrup left in the bottom of them, and are literally brand new. They even have an FDA approved sticker on them which leads me to believe these are from the USA. The IBC’s were so new in fact they even has a sealed delivery docket and order form for more IBC’s from the manufacturer, SCHÜTZ. The price includes delivery, and Jack helped offload the IBC’s before getting back on the road. I strongly recommend if you need certified food grade IBC’s, and are in Melbourne, give Jack a call on 0417-777-706 and he will help you out. I don’t know Jack, nor had I met him prior to this transaction, but I am very satisfied with the service, and the quality of the delivered product.

I have already cut the cages up, and just need to cut the IBC’s in half now so stay tuned for an update in the next couple of days.

Aquaponic Animation

For those that don't quite know how an aquaponics system fits together I found this cool animation on the type of setup I will be implementing. This setup type is called CHOP2, or constant height one pump (version 2). Essentially the sump pump feeds the grow beds, and the fish tanks, both of which then drain back into the sump. This process just goes around and around and around essentially providing the plants with nutrients all night and all day, which is why aquuponics works so well! Check it out (Dont forget to click the red "Start Pump" button on the animation):

http://www.aquaponics.net.au/ChopMk2.html

Reasons to go Green

We all know we should and can do more to help the planet, but often are not present with reasons to do so. Here is a great site I found backed with sources for the information on why going vegetarian or vegan helps the planet in more ways than you might think. A great read:

http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/environment.html

Vital Greens Super Food

Just thought I would share something I recently discovered, and that is Vital Greens Super food. Previously I had been taking a multitude of tablets thinking I was getting what my body needed, but not really concerned about where it came from (source of the vitamins), nor if complementing minerals and vitamins to make absorption work properly were present. I then discovered this wonderful product that is all natural, and as organic as they can be (some things like minerals are not able to be certified as organic). This is all I take now first thing in the morning, and already in day two I am feeling great. Highly advised for anyone looking to replace multivitamins and other pills. Vital Greens includes naturally occurring whole food source vitamins, trace minerals, antioxidants, pro-biotics, essential amino acids, omega 3 and omega 6 essential fatty acids, digestive enzymes, cell pigments, plant sterols and fibres. And no I have no affiliation or connection with Vital Greens, I just think it’s a great product worth knowing about.

Greenhouse has arrived!

Talk about service. Got the greenhouse delivered yesterday (Friday) after only placing the order on Wednesday! Now to plot out the footing holes and start digging...

Greenhouse has been ordered

The greenhouse order has finally been placed. Clayton and Fiona over at SproutWell Greenhouses (www.sproutwellgreenhouses.com.au) have been most helpful in accommodating my needs. As some of you may know, I require a fairly large greenhouse to fit my kit in. The greenhouse I have ordered is The Prestige 3 meters wide by 9 meters long, which is not a common size for most suburban yards! Needless to say the bigger the better when it comes to having more grow room for organic produce, so we are putting in the biggest greenhouse we can fit. Pictured below is the 3M x 6M (which is essentially 2 X 3M kits joined). We are very excited!

 

Why Organic?

I wanted to quickly touch on the point of being organic.

“Organic” seems to be all the rage at the moment, but so it should be! As we become more and more aware of how our food is produced and what goes into our drinking water, etc. we all have the same notion to try to move away from this type of system, and back to something natural, fresh and...well....organic. It's not always that simple, nor cost effective to do so however. My wife and I made a commitment when we ventured down the aquaponics path that even though setting up a large scale (3000 litres +) aquaponics system would be costly, the health benefits for ourselves, our family, our future children and friends far outweighs the cost.

But being organic is not so simple, if you stay true to the term. Fish feed, fertilizer, water salts, water testing, even the water (fluoride in tap water is NOT organic!) used need to be organic, or free from contaminants of any shape or form. This is a huge challenge in itself. As an example we need to use rain water to fill the tanks, not tap water.

Originally we had ambitions of registering the domain name organicaquaponics.com.au, and selling my excess produce to make a dollar out of it. I had an epiphany at this stage that rather than selling the excess produce, why not just give it away, in an attempt to help others understand how this all works, and how they can benefit from home grown, organic produce.

A great idea is the welcoming of gold coin donations as this will help replenish seedlings at the start of each season, and also restock fish supplies and feed should we decide to eat them and give them away (undecided at this stage). My thoughts were to have a money jar in the greenhouse on a pedestal. If this was taken on by many people, we will then launch a fund raiser jar to help pay for a solar system to power the aquaponics greenhouse, so that it is completely carbon neutral. I also hope to encourage trading of produce with neighbours for things I do not grow at home.

Combining an organic method of food production and aquaponics makes for a very healthy, sustainable food production system that’s both environmentally friendly, and extraordinarily good for one’s self. If you are thinking about getting into aquaponics, go organic. It's going to be a little harder and more challenging, but I am sure the results will speak for themselves.

In the beginning….

Welcome to our first post! This will be one of our longer posts as we need to get everyone up to speed and introduce ourselves. My wife and I are working professionals that maintain a typical lifestyle in the outer northern suburbs of Melbourne (Australia). We don’t live lavishly, but do enjoy the odd perk in life. We have two beautiful dogs (Harley and Bella) that will frequent in the photos to come.

We have been renovating our house for the past few years, and we are now starting to focus some attention on the backyard. We bought this house with the intention of providing a large space for our dogs, a play space for our future children, and growing our own produce. We have a larger suburban block of land being just shy of ¼ acre, and our house being double story has a small footprint. This leaves a fairly large yard for tinkering with! We live on a very sloped block of land which makes landscaping difficult, but makes aquaponics easy…

Here is a couple of photos of the backyard after we had just bought the place, and put new fences in. Unfortunately this was taken from the bottom of the yard facing back towards the house so one cannot really gather what the yard looks like from this photo, but it’s all I have at this stage:

Pre-Retaining wall photo:

My passion for aquaponics started a few years back when I discovered this fantastic method of food production on the internet via various forums. Since then I kept my eye out for bits and pieces to build a system from, and slowly started collecting…

Fast forward to today and we are almost ready to put it all together and start farming! We figured this was an ideal time to start the blog so that others can also learning a thing or two from our rights and wrongs. We recently remodelled the backyard with some earthworks, a large retaining wall, and some trees (Lilly Pilli’s) across the back to kick off the landscaping of the yard. The large retained platform has been made especially for the aquaponics system with a greenhouse and other earth bound produce like carrots, potatoes, etc. Here are some pics:

Retaining wall drainage and plastic layed down:

Another view:

 Shed site being cut:

Birds eye view: 

So there you have it! That is where we are up to at this stage. Since the earthworks and retaining wall construction, I have cleaned and moved the IBC's down to the back left side of the retaining wall as intended. I have also cut the metal stands (pictured above) to an appropriate height for planting and maintenance.