[Health] Growing Food with Aqua/Hydroponics

[Alpharius]

How are you growing Romaine past July? It starts flowering and growing upward. It than tastes bitter and has plant semen inside the leaves.

I haven't, yet... We'll see how it turns out. I might just have some romaine for Caesar salads in the late spring/early summer.

I havn't checked the specs and not sure if you've gotten the thing but I think your going to be surprised by the size of the thing. Lettuce does grow pretty quick and grows pretty dense so you can get a decent amount in a small area but I think these things are more for growing fresh herbs on your countertop. If you grow some mint or cilantro you can definately keep up with how much you eat, if your trying to grow lettuce or peppers your going to be waiting months for one meal worth I have a feeling.

I like the aquaponics thing for leafy herbs and it seems it could do enough leafy greens for the occasional salad.

I vastly prefer dirt gardening outside for anything I want to grow in quantity. If you have enough dirt outside it can become a very low effort high return venture.

To my knowledge there is no way to aquaponically compete with an established asparagus mound. A few hours of hard work spread over three years can give you a small chunk of outdoor garden space that might boost your property value for decades.

* BBinger would hate to do that math that leads to a sustainable salad a day aquaponics system.

* BBinger would also hate to do the math to plan a sustainable aquaponics system involving tilapia for once a week personal consumption.
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Some things it's better to grow outside, i.e... asparagus and flowering/fruiting plants. For leafy greens and herbs, hydroponics and aquaponics works fairly well. I have seen some hydroponic systems with tomatoes, but I've heard mixed results. Maybe I'll try them out next fall/winter, we'll see.

BBinger, I'll track down some specs for you if you want.

 

[The Beast1]

So... uh you guys ever grow anything of the 420 variety (where legal of course)?

 

[Alpharius]

So... uh you guys ever grow anything of the 420 variety (where legal of course)?

I don't, but it could certainly be done. There's plenty of info out on the interwebs on it.

Even if it is legal where you are, I'd be careful about where the growlights are placed - mine aren't that great and it's still really obvious at night which room has the lights in it. Lets potential thieves know exactly where in the house you're equipment is.

 

[Alpharius]

Moved all my systems and grabbed a couple pics before doing so. Here's what mine look like, you can see the Aquafarm (Notice the monster Kale plant that will not quit!)


And my homemade 20 gallon


I switched out a lot of the herbs and greens in favor of tropical plants because I was getting sick of forcing myself to eat so much salad and the herbs weren't doing too great.

 

[atlant]

Always been interested in this myself. Do you think an Aerogarden would be suitable to grow peppers? I've seen some comments that the yield will be low because of the limited horizontal and vertical space. The Aerogarden has my interest because it at least looks somewhat stylish, whereas all the DIY solutions where people use plastic containers and pipes from IKEA and the like are of course cheaper, but also a big eyesore.

I think the best one I've seen so far is this one: http://www.greenfortune.com/streamgarden.php, it looks pretty presentable, and also would let me use my own lighting and thus would be more flexible in regards to plant size. Unfortunately not directly available where I live. The system in kbell's video looks nice too. In any case, the little Aquagarden thing with the betta I could buy here, so I might just give that a try to start out with, just for fun.

Also, how maintenance heavy are these things once up and running? With lighting, pumps etc set up correctly could I go traveling for 2 weeks and come back to a not completely ruined system and/or plant (I mean for the ones without fish, which need to be fed more often, I guess)

 

[Alpharius]

Always been interested in this myself. Do you think an Aerogarden would be suitable to grow peppers? I've seen some comments that the yield will be low because of the limited horizontal and vertical space. The Aerogarden has my interest because it at least looks somewhat stylish, whereas all the DIY solutions where people use plastic containers and pipes from IKEA and the like are of course cheaper, but also a big eyesore.

I think the best one I've seen so far is this one: http://www.greenfortune.com/streamgarden.php, it looks pretty presentable, and also would let me use my own lighting and thus would be more flexible in regards to plant size. Unfortunately not directly available where I live. The system in kbell's video looks nice too. In any case, the little Aquagarden thing with the betta I could buy here, so I might just give that a try to start out with, just for fun.

Also, how maintenance heavy are these things once up and running? With lighting, pumps etc set up correctly could I go traveling for 2 weeks and come back to a not completely ruined system and/or plant (I mean for the ones without fish, which need to be fed more often, I guess)

The aerogarden is about as maintenance free as it gets. It really is set it up, walk away, come back in a week to refill water. As far as the aquaponic tanks go, there are autofeeder tablets and similar items you can buy, or you can always have a friend stop by and feed them while you're gone.

As far as peppers go, I'd try for a high yield plant like a Basket of Fire.