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.


Sunday, 31 May 2020

Where there's no muck theres spuds!

After seeing 95% of all our early potatoes behave in a deformed and depressing manner, with leaves curling and flowers failing to form we started to ask some questions...

As covered in a previous post we discovered that we were victims of herbicide contamination in muck we had imported to lighten our soils. True to this diagnosis in the same bed, the spuds which were not planted in muck were looking like early potatoes should.
They continued to grow well and produced leaves and flowers which were vibrant and healthy.
This week all flowers having made their appearance and the food cupboard without any potatoes in it (after not visiting the supermarket for 7 weeks), we decided to see what lay beneath. If we needed further evidence of the effect of the herbicide aminopyralid, it began to appear in a crate...
It is certainly proof indeed, where there isn't muck there are spuds - just in time for tea!!
It is now very reassuring to remember that the remainder of our spuds our not in contaminated ground, down the road in our next door neighbour's field and it is great to say they are certainly doing well.
Very well indeed...

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