Container gardening and hydroponic have been great methods for home vegetable gardening – but a new hybrid called aquaponics, a combination of hydropoics (water-based gardening) and aquaculture (fish cultivation) is possibly the next best thing for year-round sustainable agriculture.
Aquaponics uses a number of tanks, heaters, pumps, pipes and gravel beds to cultivate fish, and then the fish waste fertilizes the vegetables. The quantity of produce grown far outnumbers the amount cultivated in container gardening – and with 80 to 90 percent less water. Some of the fish such as tilapia can be used like a composter and will eat table scraps &mdash additionally, some growers are in turn using the fish as food!
While aquaponics has been ideal for areas riddled with continuous droughts, the phenomenon is growing in America. According to the NY Times there are about 800 to 1,200 aquaponics systems in America and perhaps another 1,000 school classrooms.
Read more about the new gardening method over at The New York Times.
Related Posts:
• Farm in a Box: Eco-Efficient Gardening
• Floating Garden Aquarium
Image: Flickr member Kanu Hawaii licensed for use under Creative Commons; Graph via The New York Times
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Comments (5)
I know how irrational my response is to this idea but still I have to say "YUCK!"....
I'm so excited about this idea, but am having trouble finding good instructions on getting started.
Here's good place to start: http://www.instructables.com/tag/?q=Aquaponics&limit:type:id=on&type:id=on&type:user=on&type:comment=on&type:group=on&type:forumTopic=on&type:forumTopic=on&sort=none
& this paper's a wealth of info: http://farmshow.com/
I have content about this fascinating subject, something I find so very simple yet could be so very powerful on any scale, from a simple backyard aquaponics system capable of providing for a family or on the scale of a commercial enterprise feeding thousands or more! http://www.squidoo.com/aquaponics-guide
isnt this exactly what nature does? yucky water from river, goes through a swamp, gets cleaned by the plants, then comes out as clean(ish) water. Ingenious though :)