PROJECT URBAN FARM
We are making this blog to document the progress of our backyard urban farm project. We are learning all about aquaponics, fish farming and creating our own little backyard farm. We believe that becoming as self-sufficient as possible is very important, especially in times like these. Our goal is to make our land work and produce for us. We have about a half-acre plot of land just 4 miles from the center of downtown Charlotte, NC. I call this adventure "Project Urban Farm". With this blog we hope to inspire people to make the most of their land even if it's a small apartment balcony.
This whole big idea began when Rob's dad gifted us some heavy equipment rentals so that we could fix up our back yard. Behind our little home was a half acre of land speckled with left-over gravel from a driveway long ago, tree roots emerging from the ground, and little patches of weeds, I mean, grass. So by the picture this description forms in your mind you can see this was no back yard get away!
Bring on the heavy equipment! The plan was to scrape the yard to get it ready for planting new grass, and to level a spot off the back porch so that we could put in a patio. Then, I watch this show that featured a family who turned their in-ground swimming pool into a tilapia pond and full on aquaponics system. I wanted one!! Since we didn't have a swimming pool, but we did have the heavy equipment I thought...dig a pond! So that is exactly what we did, because happy wife equals happy life :)
Rob and his dad had so much fun on those big 'toys'. They worked all weekend scraping, leveling, and digging. The hole they dug for the pond was WAY bigger than I was expecting it to be, but I loved it! The next step for the pond was to line it. We bought an EPDM product called Pond Guard made by DuPont. To be extra safe we also bought a non-woven fabric to put under the EPDM liner. The pond is about 4000 gallons, so for this size pond we spent about $350 on the EPDM and about $60 on the non-woven fabric. We had to lay the liners as flat as we could so that there weren't many folds and wrinkles for the future inhabitants to get stuck in. That was kind of a pain and definitely took some patience. Once that was done we put some large stones down on the liner to hold it in place. Then we filled the pond with the garden hose. Hello water bill! We let the water sit for a few days before putting fish in it. This gave the chlorine time to evaporate out of the water first. At this point the pond is still a good ways from finished, but we wanted to get the biology of the pond going so we put fish in it as soon as the water was free of chlorine.
Picking out the fish was a lot of fun! Our oldest son loved helping us carefully pick some really beautiful little gold fish. We bought about 50 fish total. Most were little feeder fish. Some were comet fish, and we picked 3 amazingly vibrant koi. We brought them to their new home in our back yard and voila! Our pond came alive! A lot of the feeder fish died just because they are shipped to the pet store in boxes that are packed so tightly they can hardly move. Because of this they arrive to the pet store sick. The pet store will treat their water and bring them back to health somewhat, but some of them don't make it. That's why they are feeder fish, meant to be dinner to some other larger fish. With that all said, we were scooping floaters out of our pond for days. I thought there was something wrong with the water or something. After all the weak fish died off, we were left with the strong ones. Now they are getting pretty big, especially the koi.
The edges of the pond are still unfinished. We are adding to it little by little. It's like a sculpture we are free styling piece by piece.
Water is pumped from the pond and into the very top header pond. We have various plants growing in there. Some plants are doing really well there, and some are not. It's like a giant science experiment, we're learning as we go. The floating plants are water lettuce and water hyacinth. They are both doing really well! They are supposed to help keep the algae at bay. The idea is for the plants to filter the pond water and the fish poop to fertilize the plants.
This is a better view of the planter box and the header bog. The growing medium inside the planter box is lava rock. We have things like tomatoes, water lilies,green onions, water iris,
celery, leeks, various mosses, mint, and spicy basil growing in the planter. The onions, leeks, and celery are all just the bottoms of the store bought plant after we used it. They are all producing lots of seeds for future planting :) We have a lot of work ahead, but it's been a lot of fun so far. I'm excited to keep everyone posted on the progress!
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