One of the challenges of going organic is getting a good supply of organic fertilizer that is both practical and affordable. Making it yourself through composting can be a solution, but that can be a labor intensive hassle and it has its limitations. Buying manure is, well it's manure, and not the most pleasant thing to deal with.
Buying commercially available organic fertilizer can be expensive, and one persons idea of organic may be different than another persons or labels idea. So what's the solution? I will tell you about a solution that is quickly changing the way a lot of organic gardeners are producing food. I am not going to just give you a source of organic gardening fertilizer, I am going to give you a completely different way of growing organic plants.
With conventional and organic gardening, the method is to work hard to till and condition the soil, plant your crops in the ground, and then regularly dump massive amounts of water and fertilizer into the ground. Much of the water ends up evaporating, while the majority of the rest, along with most of the nutrients, soaks into the ground and is lost. It's only a small amount that is actually used by the plants, many of which may be weeds.
Humans have been growing plants this way for thousands of years, but many people are starting to realize maybe this is not the smartest way to grow plants. Instead of actually growing plants, much of the time and effort is spent working the soil, watering and fighting pests like weeds and gophers.
What if you could just grow plants and avoid all that other work, expense and wasted resources. The good news is you can. New technologies like hydroponics and aeroponics allow you to do that, but they have their problems and don't always work well being truly organic. This is where aquaponics comes in.
Aquaponics is a system that is changing the way many farmers and gardeners are growing food. This may start to sound weird, but bear with me, it gets good. Ok, here is the weird sounding part. Aquaponics is the process of growing fish and plants together in a mutually beneficial system.
So you were looking for organic fertilizer an now some guy is talking to you about growing fish? Don't worry, here is the good part. Fish are easy to raise, which is why aquarium fish are so popular. The problem with fish is they release a lot of waste material in their water that needs to be filtered out. But with aquaponics, this is a good thing. This fishy water is full of the valuable nutrients that the plants need. And plants do an amazing job of filtering water.
With an aquaponics system, plants are not planted in the ground, they are planted at a comfortable working level in grow beds. Water from the fish tank circulates though the grow bed, were the plants get all the water and organic nutrients they need. Then the water, cleaned by the plant roots, flows back to the fish tank.
This is a system with a natural cycle where nothing is wasted. The results people are getting from these systems is spectacular. People are able to grow as much as 10 times the amount of vegetables in the same amount of space, in less time, and with only 2% of the water of traditional gardening. And it's all organic. It is reported by many that food grown this way has more of a garden grown taste than other non soil systems like hydroponics.
Not only is this a great way to grow vegetables, you also get fish. Food fish like tilapia can grow quickly and they will eat just about anything organic. You can eat them, sell them or just keep them as pets, although I don't recommend actually petting them.
You can learn more about aquaponics with this aquaponics guide. Learn how to set up a low cost simple system and try it out for yourself.
Buying commercially available organic fertilizer can be expensive, and one persons idea of organic may be different than another persons or labels idea. So what's the solution? I will tell you about a solution that is quickly changing the way a lot of organic gardeners are producing food. I am not going to just give you a source of organic gardening fertilizer, I am going to give you a completely different way of growing organic plants.
With conventional and organic gardening, the method is to work hard to till and condition the soil, plant your crops in the ground, and then regularly dump massive amounts of water and fertilizer into the ground. Much of the water ends up evaporating, while the majority of the rest, along with most of the nutrients, soaks into the ground and is lost. It's only a small amount that is actually used by the plants, many of which may be weeds.
Humans have been growing plants this way for thousands of years, but many people are starting to realize maybe this is not the smartest way to grow plants. Instead of actually growing plants, much of the time and effort is spent working the soil, watering and fighting pests like weeds and gophers.
What if you could just grow plants and avoid all that other work, expense and wasted resources. The good news is you can. New technologies like hydroponics and aeroponics allow you to do that, but they have their problems and don't always work well being truly organic. This is where aquaponics comes in.
Aquaponics is a system that is changing the way many farmers and gardeners are growing food. This may start to sound weird, but bear with me, it gets good. Ok, here is the weird sounding part. Aquaponics is the process of growing fish and plants together in a mutually beneficial system.
So you were looking for organic fertilizer an now some guy is talking to you about growing fish? Don't worry, here is the good part. Fish are easy to raise, which is why aquarium fish are so popular. The problem with fish is they release a lot of waste material in their water that needs to be filtered out. But with aquaponics, this is a good thing. This fishy water is full of the valuable nutrients that the plants need. And plants do an amazing job of filtering water.
With an aquaponics system, plants are not planted in the ground, they are planted at a comfortable working level in grow beds. Water from the fish tank circulates though the grow bed, were the plants get all the water and organic nutrients they need. Then the water, cleaned by the plant roots, flows back to the fish tank.
This is a system with a natural cycle where nothing is wasted. The results people are getting from these systems is spectacular. People are able to grow as much as 10 times the amount of vegetables in the same amount of space, in less time, and with only 2% of the water of traditional gardening. And it's all organic. It is reported by many that food grown this way has more of a garden grown taste than other non soil systems like hydroponics.
Not only is this a great way to grow vegetables, you also get fish. Food fish like tilapia can grow quickly and they will eat just about anything organic. You can eat them, sell them or just keep them as pets, although I don't recommend actually petting them.
You can learn more about aquaponics with this aquaponics guide. Learn how to set up a low cost simple system and try it out for yourself.