Training Day 4

Today was a full day of learning about greenhouses. There are so many options out there. The bottom line is to really go and figure out what would be best for your location, goals and budget.

After having a quick dinner in my hotel room while watching Dawn of the Dead (the modern version) on SY FY, I went down to the car to get some bottled water and bumped into one of my classmates, Joe. There are 4 of us from the training program in this hotel: Me, Joe, Bart, and Tom. Joe told me that the guys were going for a beer and dinner and he invited me to come along. It was great fun and I'm so glad I went. I was at first worried that having dinner and drinks with a bunch of older married men would be weird... but Joe isn't that much older than me. And honestly, I'm a NYC girl. I can easily handle ANY weird social situation. And on the scale of weird social situations; being a single woman out to dinner with a bunch of married men.... this was a minus10 in my book. The real truth is that I'm prone to worrying.

Anyway, this afternoon we spent a lot of time at the greenhouses and I took a bunch of photos before my phone died:

The elevated hoop house is the big structure you see in the back. There are two troughs here- the one in the front has freshly planted vegetables but doesn't have a shade cover. The far one has more mature plants and has a shade cover. The front trough NEEDS a shade cover badly. 

The two tanks on the left- with the green rims- are breeding tanks for the tilapia. When it starts to get cold, the fish in those tanks will be transferred to indoor tanks. The table is just a work table and the structure in the back... well, that's just a project Randy is working on.

This is the Chinese style greenhouse from the front. The big black tub is there to collect rain water.

The view of Randy's house (the classroom in in the walk out basement) from the Chinese style greenhouse.

A white kitten who is proving to be a terrible barn cat but OMG he's adorable. Randy might have to get rid of him because he's not doing his job as a barn cat. So he will end up as a house cat... maybe at my house?!

This is the plastic pot that the plants grow in when in the rafts in the troughs. You can see plants growing out of some that are actually IN the rafts, in the background.

Inside the Chinese style greenhouse. That's Tim's arm you see there...

Also inside the Chinese style greenhouse. That's Randy bending over there...

The back wall of the Chinese style greenhouse is where the tomatoes are grown. This whole set-up is for experimenting and for show. Randy builds these for people. 

This is a view of the back room of the Chinese style greenhouse. There are two fish tanks that are back there, but it's still a work in progress. You can see Randy standing next to one of the tanks and in the foreground are my classmates Joe on the left and Lars on the right. 

This is a more traditional style hoop house greenhouse. It's lifted off the ground a bit by poles. It's also re-configured to incorporate the best parts of the Chinese style greenhouse. This is the type that would be best for Aaron and me, once we really get up and running.  The trough on the left needs to be harvested. The trough on the right shows what it's like without any rafts on it. There are about 4 air stones in there.

This is the far end of a seedling bed. It gets watered with the fish water twice a day from the bottom up.

This is my teacher, Tim.

Birthday

Today is my birthday and I'm missing my friends and my city SO MUCH. I'm trying not to be too dramatic and cry, since I'm still at my training course and I think it would freak my fellow students out JUST a teeny bit.....

So here's a photo of inside of of the greenhouses at Today's Green Acres. It's in the process of being cleaned up and completely re-planted.

A view inside Today's Green Acres experiment greenhouse. To the left you can see the fish tank. It's not made of glass- it's the big white structure in the corner with the two green beams running along the middle and top. The reason for not using glass or even plexiglass is a tank like this is it's much less expensive and these are fish that are not ornamental and actually prefer to be in darker spaces. 

A better shot of the fish tank. It can handle up to 300 lbs of adult tilapia and the ones in this tank are about 1 to 2 1/2 pounds.

In this photo you can see plants growing out of the rafts that are floating in the troughs. The water in the troughs come directly from the big fish tank. (Not in this photo) On the right hand side you can see the sprouting beds. Someone had grabbed two flats of sprouting plants and put them on some empty rafts. I  think they were just moving stuff around. That's not a perminent spot for them till they get bigger. Then they will be transferred to little mesh pots and stuck in those holes in the rafts in the troughs.

In this photo my classmate Mary is drilling a hole in a raft with the help of Randy, the owner of Today's Green Acres. We use a plywood guide over the pressed styrofoam. This isn't typical styrofoam- it is much sturdier, lasts longer, and is rated safe to use in food production. It's really high quality stuff and can get pricey, but Tim Mann- one of the owners of Friendly Aquaponics and my teacher- said that his operation has had the same rafts for 6 years. Of course, some break due to accidents and they have added more rafts to their system as their business has grown. But that's still a great track record.

Training Day 1

Today was my first day at Aquaponics training at Today's Green Acres in Elora, Tennessee. I'll do my best to describe what I did and saw, but honestly, I'm totally running on fumes. I didn't sleep well last night for a variety of reason.... I was nervous and excited about today, it felt weird that Wiley wasn't with me at night, and I kept getting anxious about the possibility of bed bugs and fleas in my hotel room. Never mind that I checked and didn't see any evidence of bed bugs.... I just get the heebie-jeebies sometimes I guess.

Anyway, back to today:

The owner of Today's Green Acres, Randy, is a certified teacher of the Friendly Aquaponics system. One of the owners of Friendly Aquaponics, Tim Mann, is also here to lead the class. There are a total of 9 people in the class and they are from all over the states. It's all men except for me an another woman. There are two from California, one from Kansas, one from Louisiana, one from Michigan, one from Indiana, one from Chicago, and the lady from Alabama. And me, of course. The guy from Chicago and I are the youngest people in the class. Most everyone else is in their 50's and 60's.

We started out with introductions and hearing the stories of both Randy and Tim. It was a long day- starting at 8 AM and ending at 5:40 PM. We learned a lot and I even got to do some water testing in the big fish tank. I tested for PH balance, nitrates, nitrites, water hardness and ammonia levels. I can happily report that the fish in TGA's tank were healthy and the water was fertile!

We saw some great slides of different things that Tim has done on his farm in Hawaii. He's got a cool set up that's totally outdoors year-round. Can't do that in Tennessee, but then again, it's cheaper to live here than there... so that's the trade-off. He's got a whole experimental section and he's currently trying out pineapple (with results that are fine, but not so great for commercial applications) and banana trees! He's had to support the banana tree with a brick or two under the float, but the tree has matured 1 1/2x faster than normal and has sprouted 11 baby shoots. He's also tried just planting a banana tree in the ground and watering it with his fish waste water and another as a control nearby that gets watered with the hose and rain. The one that was watered with the fish waste water is 3x bigger and has produced 3x more fruit than the one without. The photos of the two are amazing... I'll try and upload them at some point.

Anyway, I'm falling asleep fast, but I cannot say how happy I am and how lucky I feel to be able to be here and learn from Tim and Randy. They are so enthusiastic and so open to sharing as much information as they can. I'll write more tomorrow, but now I'm completely falling asleep at the computer.

If you have a question, ask!