Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

So I am thinking of starting a community garden with the majority of it being aquaponics. This idea is probably still at least a year or so away. I know I need to create a committee, create a rental argeement \ plan, find a sponser(s), find a location, get funding, materials, a lease, power, water, plants, and fish. I have tried searching this site for other community gardens, but I have found very little. If anyone knows of some successful gardens or groups please let me know, or better yet if someone here is running a successful garden I would love to pick your brain.

I am trying to find a good location, my county pop is about 3000. I am thinking about at least 1/2 an acre maybe closer to an acre.

I think i could use a combination of IBC's and blue barrels for the grow beds and lease them out (the lease would be something very small like $5 or so a month)

I am shooting for either a free or almost free land for this garden locked with a 3 year lease or longer.

I would like to raise catfish and once a year have a big fish fund raiser to help pay for expantions, new equipment, and supplies.

How many IBC halfs or Barrel halfs is appropriate for a family? My best guess right now is 1 IBC half or 2 barrel halfs per person

I would be very interested in hearing any ideas for layout / design. A rough guess right now is for between 75 and 120 people or 25 - 40 families.

I would like to have a green house (probably not the first year or so) and a childrens garden as well as something for the scouts and schools maybe.

I cant really seeing this happening to be honest. The outgoings will not be any where near the incoming. Even with sponsors and monthly payments from the members you will be running at a loss.

Check out the documentory The Garden, its on netflix instant play. Not about aquaponics but its an interesting movie about a huge 10 acre garden in the middle of LA and their struggles.

There is a Community Garden just down the road from me. I know they were planning to add an aquaponics system but to my knowledge it hasnt been done yet.
Here's their website which may give you a few ideas.
http://www.busseltoncommunitygarden.org.au/index.htm

I do not have any delusions of making a living or even a profit from this. The primary goal for this garden is to help others. My town has had the 2 largest employers pull out and we have a real need to help people not just for the food, but for socializing and fellowship, to give the people a little piece of thier pride back ("I grew this food with my family for my family"). I only need to break even. This plan will not happen with out several things being donated or sold to the garden at very low prices. I need to find donated land, used equipment, and several people to donate start-up funds. I need to make this as efficient a system as possible and get the communities support even if they don't use the garden. I can offer tours of the garden and short classes about aquaponics. I have never been afraid to work hard and I have been decribed as "tenacious, but in a good way". When it's all said and done I want the people to see this as their garden not as Mike's garden.

Im about to go to my community garden meeting in the next half hour
We have been working on it for over 9 months and still not one plant has been planted.
All the legals, getting the land,getting the permaculture designs and now we are writing for grants
Have over $150,000 in grants out there waiting for a reply.
Aquaponics will be included in about a year or so when we set it up and get more grants.
We have big ambitions of a food forest as the major part of the garden as well as an outdoor kitchen and market.
We have about 3 acres and access to another 4 for expansion.

I cant offer any practical help mike , cept to say BRAVO , what a bonza idea , and , being planned for all the right reasons I for one certainly wish you every success

The world could do with a few more people with this type of attitude

I just finished watching this. It's a tough movie to watch. It is possible even probable that this garden would have to move one day, the nice thing about aquaponics and IBC's, with a fork lift and a truck you can relocate and you don't have to start over from scratch.

Thanks Prawnz, all I can do is my best.

Snags, When do you think you will hear something about the grants? and how long ago were they applied for? That is deffinatly something I will need to try for. How many people/"farmers" are you expecting to be involved?

My idea is for this to be mostly ap or grown in pots and containers. I don't know how good the dirt is around where I would like to put it. it was near a chemical plant and a paper mill, so... We are going to stay out of the ground as much as possible. Flowers and plants that are not food.

Hey mattlevy thanks for the movie recommendation. I love documentaries about sustainability. Is Save the Farm about the same lot? Sounds similar.

We have interest from about 20 people so far and probably many more will come on board when there actually is something physical to come on board to.
We hope to involve the local school.
We should find out about a few of the grants in a few months.
We need fencing irrigation and earth works before we can start planting about 1000 fruit trees.
We have really bad soil here too mainly clay and rocks and leached subtropical soils as does most of the area.
So It will be a slow process of turning bad soil into good soil through sheet mulching, ripping, swales.growing green manures and leguminous plants,chicken tractors. worm farms and composting.
All this will be documented, as the main aim is to educate, so people can do it on their piece of land too.
We are in a rural area where people are land rich but soil poor.
We are isolated and have expensive food that is mainly trucked in,the aim is to localise organic food production and make our community more resilient in a high oil priced future.
We hope to provide income and entrepreneurial opportunities for people to be able to grow and sell their produce through a regular markets.
We also want to have working models of wicking beds and aquaponics as alternatives to starting from scratch and having to create soil.
There will also be food preparation and preserving classes and artistic and cultural events.
All not for profit, with any profits returned to the members in the form of a community bus or machinery or tools that benefits us and our community

I think they are about the same garden, after I watched The Garden I was searching for similar documentaries and ran accros Save the Farm the description sounds the same but i have not watched.