Should You Consider Aquaponics?
Are you looking for ways to go green these day? It's certainly all the rage, especially when it comes to organic food. But if we look more closely at how we grow our food, we can find a way to take our ecological efforts to a whole new level.
What I'm talking about here is aquaponics. It's one of the best ways to conserve our resources and our space. If you've never heard of aquaponics, you're not alone. It's still very new to the public, but actually aquaponics has been around for ages. Some might say it's as old as dirt.
Aquaponics is basically just the combination of hydroponics (growing plants in water) and aquaculture (growing fish in a tank). The plants and the fish work together to keep the system in balance. The fish provide fertilizer for the plants, while the plants filter the water for the fish. It's an eloquent picture of the balance of nature.
But besides this beautiful balance of nature, just what do we get from aquaponics? Why should we try to grow our food this way?
First, we can conserve water with aquaponics. The water within an aquaponics system circulates from fish to plants and back to the fish again. Very little, if any, of the water is wasted. It's a great way to conserve one of our most precious natural resources.
Secondly, it conserves space. More plants can be grown in less space with aquaponics than with traditional garden techniques. Some folks propose that 10 times the number of plants can be grown with aquaponics in the same space. That means more food per acre, which translates into feeding more people worldwide with less space.
And finally, the plants actually grow much faster with aquaponics. The waste from the fish provides rich nutrients to the plants which are supplied directly to the roots via the water. As a result, the plants absolutely thrive. In some cases they grow up to twice as fast as traditional gardens.
Basically, an aquaponics system will not just make you more ecologically responsible, but it will put your garden on organic overdrive. Plus, you'll have fish to eat in addition to your abundant harvest. So you might want to begin checking out aquaponics systems in your area. It's the wave of the future.
