Friday, March 29, 2013

Backyard Aquaponics: DIY system to farm fish with vegetables




Uploaded on Aug 22, 2011
Rob Torcellini bought a $700 greenhouse kit to grow more vegetables in his backyard. Then he added fish to get rid of a mosquito problem and before long he was a committed aquaponic gardener.

Now his 10 by 12 foot greenhouse is filled with not only vegetables, but fish. And the best part is: the poo from that fish is what fertilizes his garden. Aquaponics combines fish farming (aquaculture) with the practice of raising plants in water (hydroponics).

It's organic by definition: instead of using chemical fertilizers, plants are fertilized by the fish poo (and pesticides/herbicides can't be introduced to kill pests because they could harm the fish).

Since the plants don't need dirt, aquaponics allows gardeners to produce more food in less space. And in addition to the vegetables they can grow, most aquaponics gardeners cultivate edible fish as well.

 In this video, Rob shows us the aquaponics greenhouse in his Connecticut backyard, that he built mostly from scavenged parts, as well as his DIY indoor system where he's growing lettuce under a grow light.

Bigelow Brook Farm: www.bigelowbrook.com
Original story on faircompanies:
http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/...


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Wednesday, March 27, 2013

High School in LA Teaches Students about Aquaponics and Growing Foods


 

growingyourgreens
Published on Feb 25, 2013
John from http://www.growingyourgreens.com/ goes on a field trip to Venice High School, which is the site of The Learning Garden. In this episode John will share with you the amazing garden including aquaponic system growing at Venice High School and how it is used to teach kids about where food comes from with real world experience. After watching this episode you will also learn about a Seed Bank at the Learning Garden where you can get FREE seeds to start your garden.

My videos with fruit trees for Southern California:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJeBvn...
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cXPUw...


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Donnie/ Sinbad the Sailor Man

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Aquaponic Greenhouse


DigitalFoodDesert
Uploaded on Nov 20, 2011
Aquaponic greenhouse 12ft deep x 8ft wide x 8ft high constructed of wood, cow fence wire and 6 mil plastic film.

A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse) is a building in which plants are grown. These structures range in size from small sheds to industrial-sized buildings. A miniature greenhouse is known as a cold frame.

A greenhouse is a structural building with different types of covering materials, such as a glass or plastic roof and frequently glass or plastic walls; it heats up because incoming visible solar radiation (for which the glass is transparent) from the sun is absorbed by plants, soil, and other things inside the building.

Air warmed by the heat from hot interior surfaces is retained in the building by the roof and wall. In addition, the warmed structures and plants inside the greenhouse re-radiate some of their thermal energy in the infrared spectrum, to which glass is partly opaque, so some of this energy is also trapped inside the glasshouse.

 However, this latter process is a minor player compared with the former (convective) process. Thus, the primary heating mechanism of a greenhouse is convection. This can be demonstrated by opening a small window near the roof of a greenhouse: the temperature drops considerably.

This principle is the basis of the autovent automatic cooling system. Thus, the glass used for a greenhouse works as a barrier to air flow, and its effect is to trap energy within the greenhouse. The air that is warmed near the ground is prevented from rising indefinitely and flowing away.

Although heat loss due to thermal conduction through the glass and other building materials occurs, net energy (and therefore temperature) increases inside the greenhouse.



Gigantic water lilys (right) – Victoria amazonica (giant Amazon water lilys) in an enormous greenhouse at the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden, Russia.





The Royal Greenhouses of Laeken, Brussels, Belgium. An example of 19th-century greenhouse architecture.

 Types

 Greenhouses can be divided into glass greenhouses and plastic greenhouses. Plastics mostly used are polyethylene film and multiwall sheets of polycarbonate material, or PMMA acrylic glass. Commercial glass greenhouses are often high-tech production facilities for vegetables or flowers. The glass greenhouses are filled with equipment such as screening installations, heating, cooling and lighting, and may be automatically controlled by a computer.


Netherlands


Greenhouses in the Westland region of the Netherlands
The Netherlands has some of the largest greenhouses in the world. Such is the scale of food production in the country that in 2000, greenhouses occupied 10,526 hectares, or 0.25% of the total land area.[citation needed]

Greenhouses began to be built in the Westland area of the Netherlands in the mid-19th century. The addition of sand to bogs and clay soil created fertile soil for agriculture, and around 1850, grapes were grown in the first greenhouses, simple glass constructions with one of the sides consisting of a solid wall.

By the early 20th century, greenhouses began to be constructed with all sides built using glass, and they began to be heated. This also allowed for the production of fruits and vegetables that did not ordinarily grow in the area. Today, the Westland and the area around Aalsmeer have the highest concentration of greenhouse agriculture in the world.[citation needed]

 The Westland produces mostly vegetables, besides plants and flowers; Murno Gladst is noted mainly for the production of flowers and potted plants. Since the 20th century, the area around Venlo and parts of Drenthe have also become important regions for greenhouse agriculture.

Since 2000, technical innovations include the "closed greenhouse", a completely closed system allowing the grower complete control over the growing process while using less energy. Floating greenhouses[clarification needed] are used in watery areas of the country.

 The Netherlands has around 9,000 greenhouse enterprises that operate over 10,000 hectares of greenhouses and employ some 150,000 workers, efficiently producing €4.5 billion worth of vegetables, fruit, plants, and flowers, some 80% of which is exported.[citation needed]



Young tomatoes in an industrial-sized greenhouse in the Netherlands

Source: Wikipedia


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Donnie/ Sinbad the Sailor Man

6,000 lbs. of Food on 1/10 acre- Urban Farming


FoodAbundance
Published on Mar 20, 2012

 Over 6,000 pounds of food per year, on 1/10 acre located just 15 minutes from downtown Los Angeles. The Dervaes family grows over 400 species of plants, 4,300 pounds of vegetable food, 900 chicken and 1,000 duck eggs, 25 lbs of honey, plus seasonal fruits throughout the year.

From 1/10th of an acre, four people manage to get over 90% of their daily food and the family reports earnings of $20,000 per year (AFTER they eat from what is produced). This is done without the use of the expensive & destructive synthetic chemicals associated with industrial mono-cropping, while simultaneously improving the fertility and overall condition of the land being used to grow this food on. Scaled up to an acre, that would equal $200,000 per year!

To follow the Dervaes and their Urban Homesteading activities, you can find them at http://urbanhomestead.org

Urban and near-urban farming can be highly productive, causing whatever size of land you have to work with to produce with more abundance. It is time to solve hunger worldwide, through creating local food abundance.... Anyone can do it, once you learn how.


Urban agriculture is the practice of cultivating, processing, and distributing food in or around a village, town, or city.[1] Urban agriculture can also involve animal husbandry, aquaculture, agroforestry, and horticulture. These activities also occur in peri-urban areas as well.[2] 

Urban farming is generally practiced for income-earning or food-producing activities, though in some communities the main impetus is recreation and relaxation.[3]

Urban agriculture contributes to food security and food safety in two ways: first, it increases the amount of food available to people living in cities, and second, it allows fresh vegetables, fruits, and meat products to be made available to urban consumers. It decreases food deserts.

A common and efficient form of urban agriculture is the biointensive method. Because urban agriculture promotes energy-saving local food production, urban and peri-urban agriculture are generally seen as sustainable agriculture. Another aspect of urban farming, especially in densely populated American cities, is the use of grow-bags to raise a wide range of crops.

 Many apartment dwellers with no yards to speak of, or people with very small yards, will set up these bags on a balcony or thin strip of land. Also, many types of hanging bags are available to plant, expanding the area available for planting.

The bags themselves are made from a variety of materials, including canvas, weed barrier fabric, and polyester, all having semi-porus properties so the soil can drain adequately. The term "Bagriculture" was coined in 1998 by Los Angeles animator and amateur archaeologist Rudy Zappa Martinez to describe this type of agriculture.

The recognition of environmental degradation within cities through the relocation of resources to serve urban populations[4] has inspired the implementation of different schemes of urban agriculture across the developed and developing world. From historic models such as Machu Picchu to designs for new productive city farms, the idea of locating agriculture in or around the city takes on many characteristics.





An urban farm in Chicago


A small urban farm in Amsterdam

History

 


Huerto (vegetable garden or orchard) Romita) organization dedicated to urban agriculture located in the La Romita section of Colonia Roma, Mexico City.
Community wastes were used in ancient Egypt to feed urban farming.[5] In Machu Picchu water was conserved and reused as part of the stepped architecture of the city, and vegetable beds were designed to gather sun in order to prolong the growing season.[5]

Allotment gardens came up in Germany in the early 19th century as a response to poverty and food insecurity.[6] Victory gardens sprouted during WWI and WWII and were fruit, vegetable, and herb gardens in US, Canada, and UK.

 This effort was undertaken by citizens to reduce pressure on food production that was to support the war effort. Community gardening in most communities are open to the public and provide space for citizens to cultivate plants for food or recreation. A community gardening program that is well-established is Seattle's P-Patch.

The grass roots permaculture movement has been hugely influential in the renaissance of urban agriculture throughout the world.

The idea of supplemental food production beyond rural farming operations and distant imports is not new and has been used during war times and the Great Depression when food shortage issues arose. As early as 1893, citizens of a depression-struck Detroit were asked to use any vacant lots to grow vegetables.

They were nicknamed Pingree's Potato Patches after the mayor, Hazen S. Pingree, who came up with the idea. He intended for these gardens to produce income, food supply, and even boost self independence during times of hardship. During the first World War president Woodrow Wilson called upon all American citizens to utilize any available open space for food growth, seeing this as a way to pull them out of a potentially damaging situation.

Because most of Europe was consumed with war, they were unable to produce sufficient food supplies to be shipped to the U.S., and a new plan was implemented with the intent to feed the U.S. and even supply a surplus to other countries in need. By the year 1919 over 5 million plots were growing food and over 500 million pounds of produce was harvested.

A very similar practice came into use during the Great Depression that provided a purpose, a job, and food to those who would otherwise be without anything during such harsh times. In this case these efforts helped to raise spirits socially as well as to boost economical growth.

Over 2.8 million dollars worth of food was produced from the subsistence gardens during the Depression. By the time of the Second World War the War/Food Administration set up a National Victory Garden Program that set out to systematically establish functioning agriculture within cities.

With this new plan in action, as many as 5.5 million Americans took part in the victory garden movement and over 9 million pounds of fruit and vegetables were grown a year, accounting for 44% of U.S.-grown produce throughout that time. With its past success in mind and with modern technology, urban agriculture today can be something to help both developed and developing nations.

Facts

  • 50% of the world's population lives in cities.[7]
  • 800 million people are involved in urban agriculture world-wide and contribute to feeding urban residents.[8]
  • Low income urban dwellers spend between 40% and 60% of their income on food each year.[9]
  • By 2015 about 26 cities in the world are expected to have a population of 10 million or more. To feed a city of this size at least 6,000 tonnes (6,600 tons) of food must be imported each day.[10]
  • 250 million hungry people in the world live in cities[11]

A tidy front yard flower and vegetable garden in Aretxabaleta, the Basque Country

Resource and economic

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), has defined urban agriculture as:[12]
[A]n industry that produces, processes and markets food and fuel, largely in response to the daily demand of consumers within a town, city, or metropolis, on land and water dispersed throughout the urban and peri-urban area, applying intensive production methods, using and reusing natural resources and urban wastes to yield a diversity of crops and livestock.
The definition of urban agriculture as an industry that responds to the nutritional demands of a city, from within that city, with the use and reuse of that city's resources while acknowledging economic and resource use does not reconcile aspects of regional health, food security, and application of grassroots organizations.
(This definition is based on the work of Luc Mougeot of the International Development Research Centre and used in technical and training publications by UN-HABITAT's Urban Management Programme, FAO's Special Programme for Food Security, and international agricultural research centres, such as CIRAD.)



A vegetable garden in the square in front of the train station in Ezhou, China

Environmental

The Council on Agriculture, Science and Technology, (CAST) is an international consortium of scientific and professional societies based in Ames Iowa that compiles and communicates credible science-based information to policy makers, media, private sector, and the public. CAST defines urban agriculture to include aspects of environmental health, remediation, and recreation:[13]
Urban agriculture is a complex system encompassing a spectrum of interests, from a traditional core of activities associated with the production, processing, marketing, distribution, and consumption, to a multiplicity of other benefits and services that are less widely acknowledged and documented. These include recreation and leisure; economic vitality and business entrepreneurship, individual health and well-being; community health and well being; landscape beautification; and environmental restoration and remediation.
Modern planning and design initiatives are more responsive to this model of urban agriculture because it fits within the current scope of sustainable design. The definition allows for a multitude of interpretations across cultures and time. Frequently it is tied to policy decisions to build sustainable cities.[14]

Food security

Access to nutritious food is another perspective in the effort to locate food and livestock production in cities. With the tremendous influx of world population to urban areas, the need for fresh and safe food is increased. The Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) defines food security as:[15]
All persons in a community having access to culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate food through local, non-emergency sources at all times.

Source: Wikipedia


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CYA Later Taters
Thanks for watching.
Donnie/ Sinbad the Sailor Man 

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Aquaponics~ A Quick Animation




Aquaponics /ˈækwəˈpɒnɨks/ or pisciponics is a sustainable food production system that combines a traditional aquaculture (raising aquatic animals such as snails, fish, crayfish or prawns in tanks) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment.

In aquaculture, effluents accumulate in the water, increasing toxicity for the fish. This water is led to a hydroponic system where the by-products from the aquaculture are broken down by nitrogen fixing bacteria, then filtered out by the plants as vital nutrients, after which the cleansed water is recirculated back to the animals.

As existing hydroponic and aquaculture farming techniques form the basis for all aquaponics systems, the size, complexity, and types of foods grown in an aquaponics system can vary as much as any system found in either distinct farming discipline.[1]

History

 

Aquaponics has ancient roots, although there is some debate on its first occurrence:
  • Aztec cultivated agricultural islands known as chinampas and are considered by some as the first form of aquaponics for agricultural use[2][3] where plants were raised on stationary (and sometime movable) islands in lake shallows and waste materials dredged from the Chinampa canals and surrounding cities are used to manually irrigate the plants.[4][5]
  • South China and Thailand who cultivated and farmed rice in paddy fields in combination with fish are cited as examples of early aquaponics. These polycultural farming systems existed in many Far Eastern countries and raised fish such as the oriental loach (泥鳅, ドジョウ),[6] swamp eel (黄鳝, 田鰻), Common (鯉魚, コイ) and crucian carp (鯽魚)[7] as well as pond snails (田螺) in the paddies.[8][9]



Diagram of the University of the Virgin Islands commercial aquaponics system designed to yield 5 metric tons of Tilapia per year.[10]

The development of modern aquaponics is often attributed to the various works of the New Alchemy Institute and the works of Dr. Mark McMurtry et al. at the North Carolina State University.[1]

Inspired by the successes of the New Alchemy Institute, and the reciprocating aquaponics techniques developed by Dr. Mark McMurtry et al., other institutes soon followed suit.

Starting in 1997, Dr. James Rakocy and his colleagues at the University of the Virgin Islands researched and developed the use of Deep Water Culture hydroponic grow beds in a large scale aquaponics system.[10]

The first aquaponics research in Canada was a small system added onto existing aquaculture research at a research station in Lethbridge, Alberta.

Canada saw a rise in aquaponics setups throughout the ’90s, predominantly as commercial installations raising high value crops such as trout and lettuce.

 A setup based on the deep water system developed at the University of Virgin Islands was built in a greenhouse at Brooks, Alberta where Dr. Nick Savidov and colleagues researched aquaponics from a background of plant science.

The team made findings on rapid root growth in aquaponics systems, on closing the solid waste loop, and that because of certain advantages in the system over traditional aquaculture, the system can run well at a low pH level, which is favoured by plants but not fish.

The Edmonton Aquaponics Society in Northern Alberta is adapting Dr. Savidov's commercially sized system to a smaller scale prototype that can be operated by families, small groups, or restaurants. They intend to further develop the closed solid waste loop.[11]


Vegetable production part of the low-cost Backyard Aquaponics System developed at Bangladesh Agricultural University

The Caribbean island of Barbados created an initiative to start aquaponics systems at home, with revenue generated by selling produce to tourists in an effort to reduce growing dependence on imported food.[12][13][14]

In Bangladesh, the world's most densely populated country, most farmers use agrochemicals to enhance food production and storage life though the country lacks oversight on safe levels of chemicals in foods for human consumption.[15]

To combat this issue a team led by Professor Dr. M.A. Salam at the Department of Aquaculture of Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh has created plans for a low cost aquaponics system to provide chemical free produce and fish for people living in adverse climatic conditions such as salinity-prone southern part and flood-prone haor area in the eastern region.[16][17]

Recent years have seen a shift towards community integration of aquaponics, such as the nonprofit foundation Growing Power that offers Milwaukee youth job opportunities and training while growing food for their community.

The model has spawned several satellite projects in other cities, such as New Orleans where the Vietnamese fisherman community has suffered from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and in the South Bronx in New York City.[18]

In addition, aquaponic gardeners from all around the world have gathered in online community sites and forums to openly share their experiences and promote the development of this form of gardening.[19]

Source: Wikipedia.org

More to come on This and Hopefully I will have some of my own videos to show on my attempt at building a working open air Aquaponics system this year.
Somebody Come and Play Today! Earn as You Learn, Grow as You Go!

The Man Inside the Man
from
Sinbad the Sailor Man
A
JMK's Production


Share this page




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CYA Later Taters!
Thanks for stopping by.

Donnie/Sinbad the Sailor Man

P.S. Sweet Sixteen My Breakout Year's Hottest and Fastest Growing Biz Op? Do You Want In? If You Do! Click Here and Sign Up!