Godney Aquaponics


Godney Aquaponics
In the village of Godney, with the beautiful back drop of the Glastonbury Tor, Melv and Sal are embarking on a new venture. Fed up with the poor quality of veg in the shops, they have the ambition to set up an aquaponics system to provide fresh vegetables and salad crops for the village, and with a little help from their hens a supply of fresh free range eggs too.


What is Aquaponics??


What is Aquaponics??
Aquaponics is a sustainable method of producing quality food with minimal external inputs. It is a system that combines conventional aquaculture (e.g. fish in tanks) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment. Water from the aquaculture system is fed to the hydroponic system where the by-products are broken down and are utilised by the plants as nutrients, and the water is then re-circulated back to the aquaculture system.


Monday, 13 November 2017

Chickens' paradise

They talk about happy as a pig in s__t, but what about chickens???

With the polythene on the tunnel and thoughts turning to the installation of growing beds, we were now thinking of our growing material. We have been collecting all the top soil from the excavation of the pond and have several of the hay bales produced this year, to produce compost, but we also wanted some well rotted manure.

Part of the arrangement with the local farmer when he took our grass in the summer for free, was that in exchange we could have some trailer loads of cow muck, much to the hen's delight the delivery was today.

Straight through the barn, 3 large steaming trailer loads were backed into the field.


As each of the loads arrived, we needed to pen the hens up, so they didn't get entangled with the tractor and trailer. Watching the enticing muck be tipped the other side of the fence, they weren't too happy about this and they waited eagerly by the gate for the big release.



The third and final load arrived just after lunch and the hens were let out for the final time - they were ecstatic...


 and they swarmed over the pile of s__t, it was a chickens' paradise..




They were in heaven - extra large eggs for the next couple of days!!!
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