Peter,

My thinking at this point would be try a tomato plant or two planted in a
plastic mesh planting basket (like we use for our pond plants) with the
tomato planted in that sanitized, baked clay potting medium I've been using
for my lillies and other plants for years. I'll place it in my filter falls
where only the bottom third or so of the basket will be submerged. I won't
use anything else.

It's worth a shot and the worst that can happen is I'm out the cost of the
tomato plant.

Thanks for the feedback.

JB
"Peter" wrote in message
...
I got really interested in this idea a couple of years ago, but a couple of
things put me off:

1. It seemed to be a necessity to run the project in a green house, which
I would struggle to fit into my small back garden.
2. A visit to a hydroponics shop, revealed a couple of things. The ideal
water conditions for hydroponics aren't necessarily ideal for fish. The
number of parameters which you need to measure and control makes marine
fish keeping look simple. I would want to be very careful about adding
additives to help plants in case fish are adversly affected.
3. The vast majority of hydroponics related material seems to be target at
the growing of one illegal crop, which apparently is the one of the few
industries, that Britain has gone from being a net importer to a net
exporter.

I'm not saying don't do it, but do lots of research. I'd be really
interested to here how you get on.
Peter

JB wrote:
There was an interesting article in today's New York Times on
"aquaponics",
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/ga...gewanted=print
where the author uses "waste" water from a 150 gallon fish tank to
fertilize his plants. He's posted a YouTube video of his set up at
http://www.youtube.com/user/web4deb if you're interested. The article
describes pretty amazing production in his crops of cherry tomatoes,
lettuce, cucumbers and strawberries.



This got me to thinking. I have a bio filter falls that is planted with
mint, Louisiana Iris, Forget-me-nots and other plants, in addition to the
fiber mats and lava rock. This set up keeps my 3,000 gallon pond clear.
(I don't use any U/V filtration.) Each summer I have to remove
significant amounts of mint from the filter falls as it dams up the
spillway where the water returns to the pond. Wouldn't I be better off
cultivating something that I could use (eat) and not throw away for
mulch? What if I were to put a couple of tomato plants in my filter falls
instead; or, some other food crop?



Has anyone else tried "farming" from their ponds?



I think I'm going to try this out this year!



JB