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.


Tuesday 6 March 2018

The first step...

With progress going so well inside the barn we decided to give ourselves a couple of days off to work in the polytunnel - a real treat...

We couldn't wait to get started.




First Melv cut the grass - is that a chicken I can see getting in on the action! That must be Steve - who constantly escapes over the fence - 'The Great Escape'


Just over half the 84 foot long tunnel was going to be devoted to the aquaponics side of our growing, with the remainder for conventional growing.



The first job for the conventional growing area was to start to build the raised beds, leaving walkways in between for good and easy access.


We lined the timber with plastic to help preserve it and used Teram to keep the weeds down in the walkways.


 
Once we had finished half of the first bed, it was time to get some desperate asparagus plants in, that we have been growing on for the last 2 years and which made the move from Stawell with us - our first bit of planting!
 
 
With three planned, whilst Sal planted the asparagus, Melv cracked on with bed building
 
 
And before long they were taking shape and were soon to be ready to be filled with earth - that will be the next job when we take our next day off...
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