Fish - Permaculture School

Well, the blog’s been a little silent lately but not due to a lack of activity; on the contrary, we’ve been busy!

Broken Roto-Grow Gets A New Perspective

This Roto–grow was missing its motor and the glass tube that shields the lights from water, as a result, we’re giving it a new perspective… literally… by turning it on its side and suspending eight florescent grow lights down the centre. Eventually, a small pump will bring water to the top where it will be allow to tickle down through the plants to a central reservoir.

@KPKNE Gardening

The Jasper Place High School’s Knowledge and Employability program sets up for another season of gardening. This year, they’re setting up a little supplemental lighting next to their West facing window. They’ll be growing heirloom tomato varieties, herbs, and annual flowers.

Lactic Acid Bacteria Starter For Homemade Ginger Ale

This lactic acid bacteria starter was created by adding ginger root, water, and sugar. The bacteria naturally found on the root consumes the sugar and performs an “incomplete” form on cellular respiration called lactic acid fermentation. Fed every day, the starter gets stronger over time and is eventually added to our homemade ginger ale as a way of carbonating it.

Aquaponics Expansion

Two of the four new aquaponics units at Jasper Place High School in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Original aquaponics system can be seen in the background. When complete the addition should allow us to grow all of the lettuce greens for the school’s Culinary Arts program and Cafeteria.

High School Aquaponics It’s been a little over a year since students and I at Jasper Place High School assembled an aquaponics system in the school’s Culinary Arts’ classroom. The project was successful and gathered a lot of attention in the local media but all-in-all pretty small and not capable of producing as much as we want/need.

Expansion One of the great things about having had an aquaponics system at the school for over a year is knowing what you’d do differently the next time. Well, “next time” is hear and we have indeed learnt a few things:

Ease of Access: In terms of assessing all of the plants, we wanted to try to get things as close to table-top height (36″) as possible; I think that we ended up 38″ high. In addition, each unit will be placed a foot and a half apart to increase access to the sides and back.
Keep it Modular: In case we ever want to move or reconfigure the design, smaller connectable units was a better choice than one large system. In addition, each unit is assembled using bolts instead of nails or screws.
Build in Versatility: Though, the tops of each unit are intended for plants, the lower tanks could be used as a simple water reservoir, to hold fish, to grow duckweed (tilapia love it) or even as another grow bed.
Keep it Simple: The less there is the less chance there is that anything will go wrong. In our new design, we’ve combined our two (2′x3′) grow beds into a single (4′x4′) bed.