Have you ever heard of portable farms?

[babylonsister]

http://www.portablefarms.com/index.php

In Less Than 5 Minutes a Day, You Can Grow Your Own
Organic Vegetables and Home-Grown Fish For Your Family

Portable Farms LLC has received interest from 124 countries since our official launch on June 17, 2008. In these unsure economic times, a Portable Farm™ offers people a simple way to grow their own food. They can either use the food for their own use, or consider selling the surplus vegetables and fish for extra income. A Portable Farm™ doesn't require soil, and needs only minimal water.



Yearly Production From a Portable Farm™

A 6' x 8' unit produces 400 vegetables and 100 pounds of fish

A 10' x 20' unit produces 1,100 vegetables and 400 pounds of fish

A 20' x 30' unit produces 3,600 vegetables and 1,400 pounds of fish

A 100' x 100' unit produces 60,000 vegetables and 23,000 pounds of fish

Because Portable Farms™ are small and compact, you can put them in your backyard, garage, basement, barn, porch, hoop house, driveway or greenhouse. The fish and vegetables can be grown in sunlight or with grow lights. A Portable Farm™ can be used in very cold or very hot climates and produces healthy vegetables and fish year round. It can also be Solar Powered.

Lots more at link~

Related article:

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2008/dec/26/122608escondido-couple-launches-aquaponic/?zIndex=28073

Escondido couple launches aquaponic fish- and veggie-farming system

[NV Whino]

1. You mean I could make my fish earn their keep?

I have to look into this.

[Terry in Austin]

12. Fish don't fart

According to the website.

Ah, the stuff you can learn here!

[originalpckelly]

20. I love that.

Can you imagine fresh fish? God that would awesome. And you could make sure they got offed in the most humane way, although, I don't know if I could kill a fish on purpose. My poor Betta. :-(

[Matariki]

2. I remember reading about this sort of self contained gardening in the 70s

The 'self-sufficiency' aspect of it always fascinated me. Thanks for posting this.

[Massacure]

18. Is it really self sufficient though?

You cannot just pull hundreds of pounds of something out of thin air, it has to come from somewhere?

[tangent90]

3. I don't even have a pit for my hoop house.

I think.

;-)

[babylonsister]

4. Well...I don't even know what a hoop house is.

:shrug: And welcome to DU!

[tangent90]

6. Thanks. I suppose it's a building where you keep your croquet stuff.

:D

[babylonsister]

8. Ah, my croquet stuff! 'That' house! Gotcha.

Maybe basketballs, too? ;)

[leftstreet]

5. Interesting. Your veggies grow in fish poo.

No soil, just gravel.

(I wondered how it would work.)

[tangent90]

7. All veggies grow in something's poo.

Worms make the bestest poo. :D

[leftstreet]

10. lol

It's a Poo Down!

Welcome to DU

:hi:

[a la izquierda]

9. And I don't have to kill my fishies either!!

One can use koi if vegan/vegetarian! That is a really, really neat idea. I'm going to seriously look into this.

[PretzelWarrior]

11. i heard something similar about urban farming

on a massive scale. like growing veggies on the tops of skyscrapers. the article was even complete with artists renderings of such. that would be such a COOL idea.

locally grown produce in NYC, BOSTON, Chicago. Less than a mile from your condo. lol.

[trof]

13. Please post this in Environment. K&R

[babylonsister]

14. Heh. That's where I started putting this. It's there, thanks. nt

[lumberjack_jeff]

15. I'm building my greenhouse right now.

I also have some 250 gallon tanks that I'll use for the fish.

They also call this aquaponics, and it doesn't need to be exotic. The fish give off waste, especially ammonia. Left alone, the water eventually builds up enough to become toxic. Luckily for fish, bacteria live in rocks that convert the ammonia to nitrates. Plants love nitrates.

In an aquaponic system the plants are simply grown in pea-gravel-filled (no dirt) trays which are periodically flooded then allowed to drain back into the fish tank. This drainback also aerates the water. In this closed system, the thing that must be avoided is the addition of any chemicals. It's organic by necessity.

I'll have to start with commercial fish food but eventually, I hope to use primarily worms.

My goal is 100# of Tilapia a year in a 250 gallon tank. I figure It'll cost about $500 for everything, greenhouse, trays, tanks, pump etc.

http://www.aquaponics.com/InfoEducation.htm

[babylonsister]

16. Wow! Very cool, and thanks for the link! Please let us know how

this all has worked out once everything is up and running. You will be self-sufficient!

[Gabi Hayes]

17. how do fish get from tank to plate?

[lumberjack_jeff]

19. Fishhooks, gill nets, longboats, dynamite... I'll figure something out.

:D

[catgirl]

21. I just got my potato bags that I had ordered

Yup. I'm going to have lots of potatoes this year and it won't take up much room.

[Politicalboi]

22. Will my pot smell

Fishy?

[Juche]

23. Where do the fish get their food

If the fish waste is used to grow the crops, where does the fish food come from? Do you need to buy that or can you use some of your vegetables to feed them?