DIY Aquaponics: What Veggies to raise?

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What Plants Can I Grow?

Aquaponics is particularly successful for growing leafy crops like lettuce, herbs, chives, spinach, arugula etc. because of the high nitrogen content in the water.

Other food crops do well including tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, beans, peas, squash and melons, but these fruiting plants may not produce as high a yield as with hydroponics only systems where higher levels of phosphorous and potassium may be maintained. These minerals may be added to the water adequately to raise these crops within an aquaponic system providing its addition is monitored properly.

Basil

Bell Peppers

Lettuce

Tomatoes

Watercress

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Basil

Genovese Basil (Ocimum basilicum)

Genovese' is one of the most popular herbs throughout the world because it yields 7 to 8 cuttings from each plant and makes the best pesto of all basils.

Genovese Basil is easily grown from seed. The seed germinate readily at temperatures between 75-85 degrees. It is especially suited to Aquaponics and grows to maturity very quickly, however it does best protected from the wind and scorching midday sun. It should be planted outside only when night temperatures reach 50 to 55 degrees.

If you practice companion planting, plant basil near tomatoes and peppers to enhance their growth. Pinch it back early and often to encourage bushiness. Do not let it flower unless you want to let it set seed as this destroys the flavor and shortens the lifespan of the plant.

Save the one that is always trying to go to seed for next years planting.

It has few pests when grown outdoors. Among those are the Japanese beetle and slugs. Japanese beetles can be picked off by hand in the early morning.

As for the slugs, beer traps, (shallow dishes of cheap beer placed close to the plants every 3') drown them when they crawl into them.

If grown in a greenhouse you must watch for aphids and whiteflies.

There are 150 varieties of Basils and all can be grown in an Aquaponics system so pick your favorite and enjoy.

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Bell Peppers

Pepper plants are picky about temperature. Their seeds germinate best in soil temperatures above 75� F, they prefer to be transplanted into garden soil that is at least 60� F, and they can't abide frost at all.

Optimal pepper-growing temperatures range between 65� and 85� F during the day and between 60� and 70� F at night. When daytime temperatures climb above 90� F or fall below 60� F, pepper plants often experience blossom drop�a condition where flowers fall off the plant before fruit can set.

Blossom drop causes low yields in otherwise healthy plants. The peppers' optimal temperature range causes difficulties for gardeners in desert areas, where temps can soar well into the 90s during the day but drop below 60� F at night.

One way to get around this problem is to plant peppers earlier in your growing season, when daytime temperatures are more moderate. If evening temperatures are chilly, place a lightweight row cover over your plants. Just be sure to remove the row cover on days forecast to reach above 80� F, since the temperature inside the row cover will be several degrees warmer than the ambient air temperature.

If nighttime temperatures are optimal but daytime temperatures rise too high, you must provide some kind of afternoon shade. Consider planning your garden so that taller plants, such as tomatoes, shade the peppers during the warmest hours of the day.

You can also shade the plants with shade cloth�a fabric designed to allow only a fraction of sunlight through. Shade cloth (also called shade netting and shade fabric) and row covers are available at most garden centers, through mail-order gardening catalogs, and online from various supply companies.

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Lettuce

GROWING FOR FUN AND PROFIT:

Fresh aquaponically grown lettuce demands higher prices than that which is field grown. And in some cases aquaponic lettuce can be harvested more quickly: in summer, within 4 to 6 weeks; in winter, within 10 to 12 weeks. The Japanese use extra lighting and make it happen faster. The extra cost of lighting might come in handy during the winter when, if you can get a crop to market sooner, you can gain more profit.

Some suggested lettuce varieties are: Bibb, Red Leaf or Oak Leaf, Ostinata, Black Seeded Simpson, Columbus, Vasco, Pinto, Marbello. Head lettuce isn't profitable - not yet. It takes too long to form a suitable head. Lettuce can be grown in gravel beds or on horticultural rockwool slabs (about 30 inches by 12 inches by 3 inches). But NFT methods have been used with great success throughout the world. For a short education in lettuce production, register on www.youtube.com in order to hear the audio and then goto:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHBhyqowSEc

for an eye opening video.

MARKETING TIPS:

It can be package in separate open plastic bags but packaging in plastic boxes as seen the the yourtube video above with the roots attached seems to be the best as the roots on packaging gives the lettuce longer shelf life which is very important since LETTUCE STORES VERY POORLY - HAVE A READY MARKET FOR IT! Even refrigeration doesn't help in most cases. Just imagine how your freshly picked lettuce will taste when compared to that brought by refrigerated trucks from 1,000 to 2,000 miles away! Some of those growers have to keep lettuce cool for as long as a week!

What can they do? If they don't have a ready market, they must refrigerate. Here is where you save money and make your operation more successful: set up your marketing so well that you won't have to refrigerate. IT CAN BE DONE AND IS BEING DONE! Lettuce can also be harvested cube, root and all. This usually convinces the customer that you are running a clean operation.

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Tomatoes

Someday soon, tomatoes grown in greenhouses will become not only harder to resist but unavoidable � and perhaps even delicious. The four largest U.S. greenhouse growers (located in Arizona, Texas, Colorado, and California) together make up 67 percent of domestic tomato production. All of them use hydroponic growing systems, in which tomato plants are grown with only water and nutrients. That�s right: no dirt required.

By the beginning in the early 1990s, production of hydroponically grown tomatoes began to increase nationwide. Today, nearly 40 percent of the fresh tomatoes sold at retail around the country are hydroponic. In that time, overall U.S. tomato consumption has exploded; in the past 20 years, our chomping of fresh tomatoes has grown more than 30 percent, to approximately 20 pounds per capita per year. And as demand has increased, growers are trying to find ways to improve the flavor and texture of the hydroponic tomato.

Tomatoes are merely the first in what growers hope will be a long line of commercially successful greenhouse-grown products. The sheer volume of tomato production worldwide overshadows all other greenhouse vegetables, but greenhouse cultivation of herbs, cucumbers, and salad greens is continuing to expand. Much experimentation is also being done with strawberries, which are highly susceptible to soil-borne diseases that are no longer treatable with the toxic and ozone-depleting methyl bromide.

Customers focus mostly on greenhouse-grown vegetables in January, but availability isn�t the only motivator behind water-grown produce. Hydroponic growing appears to be the next big revolution in worldwide agriculture. Many believe it has the potential to feed large populations while using fewer chemicals, making better use of resources, worrying less about contamination, and harvesting much higher yields per acre.

In research circles, hydroponics is referred to as controlled-environment agriculture, also known as space-intensive agriculture. The goal is optimum use of resources while maximizing output through manipulation of all growing conditions. The uniformity of the produce coming out of these controlled environments � where the growing media and the light and nutrient inputs are all carefully calibrated � has made hydroponics commercially viable after the high initial startup costs of greenhouse construction, equipment, and supplies. Growers can therefore turn around and charge more for the privilege of eating perfectly formed tomatoes or peppers in the dead of winter.

The costs of greenhouse growing vary greatly, depending on location. In Canada, winter growing is more expensive due to the region�s cold weather and short days; there�s simply a greater need for heat and artificial light sources up north in winter. Those needs are the reason why, in this country, huge commercial operations have developed in areas such as Arizona and New Mexico, where sunlight is abundant and warmer weather more frequent.

The basics

Hydroponic produce is grown either in what you might call a giant water bath or soilless media. (Using soilless media isn�t technically hydroponics, but for simplicity, the industry lumps it in with water-only growing.) Some operations use just a water solution, while others use media made from natural materials such as clay pebbles, river rock, pea gravel and rockwool, one of the most extensively used growing mediums; it�s a manmade fibrous material made from a mixture of cooked volcanic rock, limestone, and coke.

In both growing systems, nutrients (typically mined or manmade) are mixed in solution with water that flows either directly over the plant roots or over the growing media. This solution includes everything necessary for producing healthy soil-grown plants, including nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, and magnesium. (Some smaller hydroponic operations and many research facilities are now linking aquaculture and hydroponics to recirculate the nutrients gained from fish production into hydroponic vegetable beds; this type of system may someday replace the need for mined or manmade nutrients.) Rockwool, a preferred growing medium for tomatoes, needs to be replaced every 16 to 18 months. As a result, many growers are looking to coconut fiber (or coco peat, as it is sometimes called) to reduce waste, because coconut fiber is organic and can be composted. Overall, however, hydroponic systems are far less wasteful than field agriculture. Nutrients and water, for example, are typically recaptured in aquaponic systems at rates of approximately 90 to 95 percent; they�re recirculated and monitored by computers. Hydroponics, in fact, generally uses just one-hundredth of the fresh water demanded by field-grown crops.

In addition to the inherent efficiency of hydroponic growing, many hydroponic growers use integrated pest management (IPM), a system that relies on beneficial organisms and natural predators to manage insect pests instead of chemical pesticides. When they do occur, most pest outbreaks in a hydroponic environment can be controlled with biologicals. such as parasitic wasps and lady beetles, instead of sprays. We can use biological controls more effectively in this manner. When hydroponic growers pay attention to detail, you can have shelf life, flavor, and appearance, besides marketing yourself as pesticide-free. The neat thing about hydroponics is you are gearing the environment and the nutrients to a specific crop, and even with tomatoes there can be a big variance. The greenhouse allows for minute adjustments for those variances in small spaces, even for different plants growing side by side.

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Watercress

Watercress Is a member of the Mustard Family. It grows naturally in springs and wet ground in temperate climates. Though easily grown from seed, it is usually propagated by bits of stem which can be gained through purchasing it at the grocery store. It will readily take root in wet soil or a glass of water and need no further attention. It grows best from mid-autumn until spring. If allowed to flower, the leaves become too rank in flavor to be edible.

It is especially easy grown in Aquaponics either in a media or raft system.

Start plants with seed by sowing lightly in pots filled with a mix of garden soil, limestone, and organic compost. Keep moist at all times, keeping the plants in a partially shaded area. Seedlings become large enough to move in April or May.

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