Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

After wandering around to a few other parts of the world I'm returning to the Chihuahuan desert. Growing a 'traditional' garden is out of the question. Growing anything outside of a greenhouse/shade house is not a real good possibility. So I'm going to jump in with both feet into aquaponics. I'm going to be building a large pit greenhouse. I'm thinking 12' X 40'. I think that being at least half underground will help to moderate some of the temperature extremes we have here. This will be all solar powered. Fortunately there is a whole lot of sunshine here just about year around.

My goal will be to produce all of my food in this greenhouse and the courtyard orchard that will be protected behind a tall adobe wall. Absolutely everything is trucked in here and about the only thing that is available is iceburg lettuce and tomatoes hard enough to put a dent in something if you throw one. That's mighty hard on a vegetarian! So I will be counting on my AP greenhouse to provide me with variety so I'm not tempted to start eating cactus.

I've already learned a lot from the little bit of reading I've done here on the forum and I look forward to further perusal.

Any suggestions for what to use for growing beds? That is the one point that I keep wavering on. I saw some really cool GB made from feed troughs and I'm seriously thinking about going that route. They would be easy to move around and pretty much modular. Then some days I think I'll just make some and line them with pond liner. Very difficult to reconfigure those at a future date though. Whichever I choose, I'll definitely be growing strawberries and leafy greens in either pvc pipes or pvc gutters in order to utilize the vertical growing area. Has anyone used billboard covers to line GB's with?

Just so you know how serious of a gardening fanatic I am....I'm building the greenhouse before I'm building my house!

Glad to have you on the forum

Welcome aboard TX, now doubt you'l here from a few more Texans on here. They should be good for some locallay based experience.
Good luck with it all, just watch out though, most of us are addicted to AP now.

Welcome to the forum, east Texas here. My system is also buried partially underground, and I use IBC's for my grow beds right now, but will build some out of wood also after my green house is finished.

Thank you for the welcome!

Helomech I've been following your progress. When I saw the first picture showing that red iron ore clay I said, yep he's in east Texas! I'm originally from around the Lake Palestine area and I've dealt with that clay most of my life. Not sure how I went from the deep piney woods out to the extremely remote, mostly treeless, rugged mountains of SW Texas, but I love it out here.

I am 30 minutes south of Palestine, just north of Crockett.

Hiya, Ms. Gypsy!
I'm still in the planning stage, as well. I'm in Vegas. Heat, and brutal sun, crummy soils... all lead me to AP. I have some experience with power tools... but I no longer have access to heavy equipment... so going underground here means breaking kaleche. I want some sumps underground... to mitigate temps. My Greenhouse will be more shade-house.... and a method to suspend growth.

I want strawberries, too... and some folk have had luck with black berries... so if I can keep 'em cool... YUM!

Will you make your own adobe, or are you near a source?

I'm familiar with the area you live in Helomech. Maybe the next time I'm in east Texas I might be able to check out your system if you don't mind having folks out at your place. I will probably be in east Texas at least 4 times a year or so.

Dancinhrblady I got very lucky and located a piece of property that doesn't have any caliche! For the most part it is a sandy-ish soil with areas of clay. Perfect for adobe. I'll be building with earthbags. I'll use earthbags for both the greenhouse and the courtyard wall.

Sure you are welcome to come out. Won't be much to see at the beginning of the summer because I have to take the green house down, take everything out of the system and finish the walls and build the permanent greenhouse. Then I get to move everything back in and finish it. Wow, I doubt I will be finished in the next 2 years.