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.