What Plants Can Be Grown in an Aquaponic System

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Our Humble Beginnings

Abundant Harvest was launched in 2010 on two acres of land donated by Restoration Church, with a “zero” dollar budget and with materials donated by the community. We were able to grow and distribute to the low-income, senior and military in the community 2,264 lbs. of healthy fresh produce. We received 550 volunteer hours from several community organizations in the greater Colorado Springs/Fountain area to realize this goal.

The Greenhouse

Abundant Harvest built a prototype “hoop house” style greenhouse to demonstrate how efficient a closed-loop technique for producing fish and vegetables can be using aquaponics. We more than doubled our food production but found that the prototype greenhouse has serious limitations. The building is poorly ventilated and insulated, making it unsuitable when temperatures are below freezing for much of the winter and soar to 120 degrees in the summer.
AHA prototype greenhouse

Abundant Harvest volunteers building a “hoop house”

The good news is that there is a development plan to build an energy-efficient 4000 sq. ft. aquaponics facility for growing vegetables, herbs, and fish, using up to 80% less water compared to traditional farming. Our mission    will continue to include the donation of 50% of harvested produce and fish to needy families in the community through charitable food distributors. AHA has chosen Sprung Greenhouse Structures. They offer many advantages over typical greenhouse structures, including weight, durability, opacity, height and air-tightness. The fiberglass insulation system in Sprung fabric structures outperforms other types of construction, resulting in less environmental impact and lower operating costs. Additionally, there is virtually no air leakage, thanks to the unique design and performance insulation. sprung greenhouses Currently, Sprung structures are utilized in hundreds of different applications, in over 100 countries, for some of the world’s leading organizations. With well over 12,000 structures in use, Sprung continues to expand the vision established by the company roughly 130 years ago.

Nowadays traditional farming is starting to lose ground in favor of the new ways of growing plants. Most people have directed their attention towards hydroponic farming which enables them to grow vegetables in their own house or their garage just using water and some specially designed pots. Yet, the drawback of the hydroponic farming is the fact that you will need to use chemical substances to feed the plants and make them grow normally. This significantly affects the taste and the quality of the crops.

aquaponics-inside

With aquaponics this does not happen. Aquaponic relies on the symbiosis between plants and fish. Thus, you can define aquaponics as a mixture of aquaculture and hydroponics, where you get to grow both plants and fish in a perfect interdependence. Because of this, you will never need to use any type of chemical substances, thus resulting tastier and healthier crops. Only placing a small amount of chemicals in the water will immediately have serious effects on the fish, endangering their lives and you do not want that to happen.

You may wonder what type of vegetables are you able to grow using the aquaponic system. well, almost any plant you can think of, excluding, of course, the plants whose fruits grow inside the ground, like potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, garlic and so on. Fruity vegetables like cucumbers, strawberries, tomatoes, squash, okra, pepper, melon; herbs like basil and oregano; different types of beans and peas as well as green leafy vegetables grow very well in this type of system.

What will amaze you even more is the great taste your veggies and legumes will have. You will not believe that something so good can be grown in your garage or in your living room. They have a far better taste than the veggies you buy from the market as they are all natural, organic and have no other chemical “improvements”. Just what is best of the plant! Your meals will be healthier and tastier!

If you want to get great results make sure you buy organic seeds, so that you know exactly that your crops will be 100% organic. This way you will enjoy the real taste of freshly harvested vegetables in the comfort of your home. What can be better than that?!

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