The Aquaponics Project: Indoor Planning and Planting

Today was a good day for many reasons but mainly because it was my eight year anniversary. I love my wife. I am so lucky. Thank you Jen for the amazing eight years and the many more to come. We were able to go down to Santa Monica over the weekend and eat at RFD (vegan restaurant.. good food!!), see Cirque Du Soleil OVO, and then hit Barnes and Noble. What a night!

I did have some time, while hanging with the kiddos to tackle another aspect of my project, the indoor planting of spring seeds. The hardest issue is deciding on this first time around what to plant, how many to plant, and how many different variations for scientific purposes. This will drive me to the looney bin so I decided to just get things going. The plan is to get spring plants going that will not do well in the sun.

The tank and trough are ready to go the only concern is frost. Where I live we should be clear at the beginning of March so now is the time to plant.

I decided to go with two different medias for my seed trays which will eventually be transplanted into 2-3" net pots.

Media 1: Coconut Noir (coconut fiber) with 50% Vermiculite. This is the mixture that was recommended by Friendly Aquaponics in their manual. I do not like the consistency of the substrate. It is too fine. I am afraid much of it will end up in the water. We will soon see.

Media 2: Rockwool: I found this at our local Hydroponics shop. Rockwool is a growing media that is made of rock and sand, is inexpensive, and has the consistency of cotton candy.

I planted eight plant total for each vegetable. Four in media 1 and four in media 2.

The plants I am starting with are as follows;

Romaine Lettuce
Bib Lettuce
Great Lakes Lettuce
Arugula
Spinach
Pak Choi
Leeks
Green Onions
Broccoli
Corriander
Swiss Chard