We spent our weekend dismantling our greenhouse we built a couple of years ago to prepare for the installation of an aquaponics system.

What is aquaponics?
Aquaponics is the marriage of aquaculture (the raising of fish for eating) and hydroponics (raising of plants in water). The beauty is that it creates a sustainable closed system. The water from the raising of fish is normally a waste product but is actually filled with nutrients that provide what plants need for growing. So rather than having to feed the plants with inorganic nutrients, which is the normal practice in hydroponics, the plants utilize the "waste" from the fish.

We've been studying this for a couple of months and are very excited to be taking another step in building sustainable practices into our home. Building the solar greenhouse allowed us to extend our growing season and with minimal heat to enjoy fresh tomatoes in January from our own garden. Now, we take this a step further.

Old grow bed

New cleared space