I am sure you have heard of aquaponics. It is everywhere. Growing plants in water. Adding the nutrients the plant needs to the water, instead of to soil.
They even have whole growing systems, with growing lights and everything. They are not cheap! I guess if you live in the city and don't have a garden, or an allotment, these things come in handy. Not every apartment in the city has a balcony either, or even a sunny exposure to grow herbs and vegetables. And maybe even if they do, all those exhaust fumes are not really what you want going on your food. So there is definitely a market for those systems.
I am not part of the target audience. I live in a small town. I have a balcony with some southern exposure. I could grow a few vegetables, however, I like flowers lol.
I also have an amazing CSA service that delivers organic fruits and veggies directly to my door from various local farms. So why bother, if I can support small farms instead?
So why am I telling you any of this?
Because somehow I ended up with one of the aquaponics plant seed boxes in my possession. A friend of a friend of a friend gave it to my friend, and since she does not grow vegetables, she gave it to me.
For a while, this box was sitting in my outside cabinet on the balcony. This year I am fully committed to use it or lose it. So "use it" I would.
I honestly do not know if the seeds are still viable, after all this time and fluctuating temperatures out there, but I figured I give it a shot.
I opened the box and found out that the seeds are in tiny plastic pods. Inside a wee bit of foam. You are supposed to pop the lids on the pod and then insert the whole thing into the aquaponics system, dissolve the nutrient tablet in water and pour that into the system's watercompartment, then set the timer for the light and presto! Step back and watch 'em hatch!
Well. What to do if you don't have such a fancy system?
Make one, of course!
I decided to use a Trader Joe's cookie container. It was just deep enough to hold the pods suspended in the lid. And they would have room for a bit of the roots. Later I could pop the lid on a bigger container, when the roots got too big for this one.
I washed out the container and tried to take the labels off. Alas Trader Joe's glue is some other stuff and those lables were going to stay on through the apocalypse. Grudgingly I abandoned that endeavour and went straight to "planting."
I used one of the little tops to measure where I wanted the pods to go and how big the holes in the lid of the cookie tin should be. A sharpie made just enough of a mark for me to see where I needed to cut.
With my craft knife, I made pie piece cuts inside the circle I had drawn. I figured it would help keep the pods in place, like the straw in a take away soda cup lid.
Alas this was not so, the lid plastic is too springy, so I had to cut holes into it after all.
With that done, all that was left was to dissolve the first nutrient pellet, add water and nutrients to the cookie tin bottom and pop the lid on top.
Now this tiny aquaponics system is sitting on my tiny balcony, enjoying the spring sunshine we are having here the last few days and... hopefully sprouting. 🤞
I will keep you posted. All of the pods have a germination time of 7 days and up. So we will have to be patient to find out if the seeds were still good. Wish me luck!
Have you ever tried one of these systems? Have you wondered how they work and maybe read up on aquaponics? Would love to hear your experiences and thoughts on this.
Hope you all have a great weekend ahead of you. I will spend mine watching peppers grow and sewing new tea towels.
Xo,
B. 🐝