Growing good food in hard times

[Guest guest]

There is an interesting system for growing food in greenhouses. It's

called aquaponics. There are various systems perfected in the last two

decades. The idea is to grow fish (usually talapia) and vegetables in

a balanced environment. One system uses fish tanks (for a lean-to

greenhouse about a 500 gallon tank) and growing tables (2 to 4 to a

tank approximately). Insects are kept under control with predatory

insects and the system is charged with fish food. The sun provides the

needs of the plants and also heats the pool(s) and the pool(s)

moderate the heat over the day. Talapia are harvested around one year

and range from one pound to one and a half pounds. Tomatoes, lettuce,

cucumbers, okra, bell peppers, etc can be grown (with adjustments to

the fish tank/grow table ratio.

A somewhat different system uses tanks under grow tables where the

plant material can fall into the tanks to feed the fish. The plants

are separated by a plastic net under the roots so that the fish can't

nibble on the roots.

This could be a solution to the food-supply warfare where one can grow

healthy food fit for human consumption instead of toxic food from

agrabusiness. It might also produce food when the food supply tanks,

although thought should be given to eliminating the need for

electricity (water pumps--fans, etc).

Here are a few links of interest:

http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/aquaponic.html#biblio

http://www.townsqr.com/snsaqua/index.html

http://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm?catid=24

There are further links within the articles.

I suppose that even dwarf oleander could be grown in a greenhouse, but

i suspect that you'd have to keep the oleander carefully separated

from all food crops and fish necessitating a separate greenhouse

without the fish--just hydroponics.