Bioponics update from Ligaya Garden

Hi #hivegarden folks! I thought I'd share an update about our bioponics system. Bioponics is like aquaponics but we don't rely on fish for a nutrient source or harvestable benefit. I make our own natural liquid fertilizers which, as you will see, work quite well. Our bioponics system is one of the highlights of Ligaya Garden. Though the whole place is geared up to food production, this is the most productive. This year, we have had a particularly huge crop of Silverbeet - some of the largest leaves that I've ever seen. I reckon that you could row a canoe with some of them!












Lettuces do well, as does Celery. We've taken out a few Celery plants out because, well, you can only eat so much of anything! Onions, especially Shallots and Spring Onions do very well in bioponics also, as long as you don't position them where they get submerged by the rise and fall of the water. Putting them a centimetre or so above the high water mark allows them to send their roots down to find moisture and prevents the bulbs from being permanently in contact with water.







We have a small, separate system for seedlings. You can see that in the pic above. The Lettuces in there grew like crazy and got to that size in a little while when I was too sick to do much maintenance otherwise they would have been mover to the bigger beds. One of the benefits of bioponics is that it is easy to transplant plants or just move stuff around. That's because of the media that the plants grow in. The clay balls and scoria are easy to scoop up with the whole root system of the plant. The whole package gets placed somewhere else where the plants can start immediately growing because, as they're all in the same water, with the same nutrients and pH, transplant shock is minimized, if not eliminated.







For most of the time, all but two of the beds are permanently covered with bird netting. These beds are for leafy greens that don't require pollination in the same way that the Capsicum, Chilis and Eggplants in the remaining beds do. The bed in the pic above has had its netting lifted just for these pics.







A work in progress is the Grape Vine arbour that is growing over the back yard. It will provide seasonal shade to most of the area as well as to the bioponics. That's a work in progress but this year, It may yield some excellent White Grapes. I've recently started one at the other end of the garden with a tasty variety of red Grapes too. Now that we're cracking 2 degrees C rise above pre-industrial levels, shade is becoming super important, so using heat loving, food producing plants to provide that shade is the best option. We've reached a point of collapse now where we can't go back, so adaptation is the only option. Thank the heavens for Grapes!







An adjunct to the main system is the system of two beds in which we grow Water Chestnuts, Water Lettuce, Duckweed and Azolla. The latter three are harvested regularly and fed to the Chooks and Quail - they love their nutrient rich, moist goodness. This system relies on overflow from the bioponics and tone of the rain tanks to keep it full and flushed well.







The front garden is in full bloom now, as you can see in this pic of Jelina and Athena. That will take an entire post to cover it on its own. Maybe next week.

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