Our Aquaponic Journey: Part Two

Happy February everyone! I’m not normally one to apologize for long blog absences, as they’ve been happening a lot for the past year. After doing some thinking, however, I decided that it was either time to get back into blogging more, or say my farewells and move on to new things. So, without much hoopla, I’m putting it out there that I plan to be more regular with posting and share more about what it’s like for an everyday “conventional” family to move toward greener living. I’ll do my best to post three times a week, without stressing too much over pretty pictures. I do a lot of “microblogging” over on my Instagram account, so it should be easy to elaborate more with some tutorials and information here on the blog instead of clogging up my feed with long descriptions. Anyway, that’s that.

In aquaponics news, the system is moving slooooooooowly. Very slowly. The cold weather and rain isn’t exactly a great motivator to lug around gigantic, heavy boards and beds. But it’s moving. I finished up the first grow bed, a 4′x8′ media bed over the fish tank. I’m planning to fill it with gravel, and keep this for my perennials. I got a little whimsical and ordered a couple of dwarf banana trees, some coffee plant beans, and berry bushes. Cranberries, actually. I also grabbed a variety of perennial herb plants that are good for teas and remedies, like Anise, Toothache Plant, and St. John’s Wort.

I also finished up the second grow bed, which I’m planning to use as a raft bed. That means it will be filled up with water and have styrofoam floats on the top, with little baskets for the plants. Here’s where I plan to try out vegetables and greens. I have one more bed to build identical to that one, which will fit on the left side. It’s going to be a tight fit in here! I’m planning on building a frame for each side of the greenhouse and removing the fixed greenhouse panels onto the frames so they can lift up for ventilation and pollination, as well as making harvesting a bit easier. It seems my goal of having it finished on February first was a bit too over-zealous, so now I’m hoping for March 1st to get things moving. I made things harder for myself by jumping into building before watching all the videos and reading completely through the instructional pdf, and now I’ll need to take a break and stain/seal the grow beds from the moisture. It would have been so much easier to pre-stain before installing them! But, at least I figured that out now, so I have a bit of wiggle room left in there. That’s it for now, I’ll be back soon with another update, as well as some more fun homesteading adventures!

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