I've decided I'm not much of an outdoor gardener once the weather starts getting cold. Someday I may try to build a simple coldframe just to test it out, but this winter I'm going to try to grow vegetables indoors.
I bought a book called Successful Indoor Organic Vegetable Gardening Manual
. It's a short, to the point book. A few typos, wish it had more pictures, but overall not a bad book. The technique the author uses is kind of like aquaponic gardening, but much simpler. An aquaponic system recycles the water from a fish tank to water the plants. The whole system is a little complex as the tank and the plant area are connected.
The book uses the same idea, but does not connect the tank and plant area. You set up a fish tank with a couple of algae eaters. Change the water every couple of weeks and use the dirty fish water to water the plants. The plants are grown in pots with gravel, maybe a little soil, and the dirty fish water. Apparently, the dirty fish water is full of nutrients that plants thrive on.
I have an old 10 gallon tank that hasn't been running in about 15 years, so this is a perfect excuse to get it going again. If the plants don't grow, at least I've gotten my tank going again.
I've had the tank running empty for about 3 weeks. Cleaned it up with a vingear/water solution. Bought a new filter
for about $12 at Walmart. It's very quiet. Much quieter than the filter I used years ago. I added a thermometer
and heater
from Amazon.com. Today I went and bought 2 Chinese algae eaters for a total of $5.98. At the moment I'm working on acclimating the fish to the tank water. Algae eaters require a temperature of about 76 degrees Fahrenheit. Two weeks ago, I started my plant seeds. All I really want is lettuce. That will save me about $3.00 a week. A tomato plant & cucumber plant would be great too. I'll probably start couple of those seeds this weekend. We'll see how it grows.
More Indoor Vegetable Gardening
I bought a book called Successful Indoor Organic Vegetable Gardening Manual
. It's a short, to the point book. A few typos, wish it had more pictures, but overall not a bad book. The technique the author uses is kind of like aquaponic gardening, but much simpler. An aquaponic system recycles the water from a fish tank to water the plants. The whole system is a little complex as the tank and the plant area are connected.
The book uses the same idea, but does not connect the tank and plant area. You set up a fish tank with a couple of algae eaters. Change the water every couple of weeks and use the dirty fish water to water the plants. The plants are grown in pots with gravel, maybe a little soil, and the dirty fish water. Apparently, the dirty fish water is full of nutrients that plants thrive on.
I have an old 10 gallon tank that hasn't been running in about 15 years, so this is a perfect excuse to get it going again. If the plants don't grow, at least I've gotten my tank going again.
I've had the tank running empty for about 3 weeks. Cleaned it up with a vingear/water solution. Bought a new filter
for about $12 at Walmart. It's very quiet. Much quieter than the filter I used years ago. I added a thermometer
and heater
from Amazon.com. Today I went and bought 2 Chinese algae eaters for a total of $5.98. At the moment I'm working on acclimating the fish to the tank water. Algae eaters require a temperature of about 76 degrees Fahrenheit. Two weeks ago, I started my plant seeds. All I really want is lettuce. That will save me about $3.00 a week. A tomato plant & cucumber plant would be great too. I'll probably start couple of those seeds this weekend. We'll see how it grows.
More Indoor Vegetable Gardening
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