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Aquaponics Conference in Florida
Crikey! He’s larger than life and into growing fish and vegetables – together! Now he’s jetting off overseas! Australia’s Aquaponics Guru Murray Hallam will be winging his way over to Orlando Florida in September as a special guest speaker at the Aquaponics Association Conference to be held in the US. Murray is a popular speaker in his regular workshops as well as appearing on TV around Australia who just loves talking about fish and plants and so do his fans! They can’t get enough of him. “Its crazy really!” says Murray working in his...
read morePigaerator Compost
When’s the last time you bought a car or a piece of “farm machinery” that doubled and quadrupled in value as it got older? Imagine also if your “farm machinery” did all the work for you – for free? Joel Salatin from Polyface Farms does just that using his pigs to move stuff around. Sounds crazy right? Recently in association with Regen Agriculture in Australia we filmed an entire days workshop with American “lunatic farmer” Joel Salatin who devised a unique way of getting his farm animals to...
read moreHow Not to Milk a Cow
A year ago we filmed with Elisabeth Fekonia a fantastic little DVD on Home Cheesemaking and All things Dairy. What we didn’t show you on the DVD – is what happens when best intentions don’t necessarily go according to plan. Elisabeth was instructing the camera how to milk a cow. She went into quite elaborate detail on how to curl the fingers, draw the first milk out from the cow teats and was explaining the finer points of udder control when the cow decided she had had enough. We’ve hidden the footage in our vaults....
read moreUrban Permaculture DVD Trailer
Its been a whirlwind trip over the last six months putting the pieces together for what is to become The Urban Permaculture DVD with Geoff Lawton. Nothing goes quite according to script and yet making a video like this is a bit like herding cats. Its chaotic. Like walking into a jungle of vines, monkeys and snakes, you are not sure where you are heading or if the whole project will sink into a disaster. Permaculture is a bit wild and rampant and just when you think you have it all figured out, neat and tidy-like and have it organized and in...
read moreJoel Salatin’s Australian Workshop
We thought we’d give a plug to our good friends at Milkwood Permaculture and Regen Agriculture who have brought out to Australia some great innovative thinkers and farmers doing things outside the square – empowering people to independent action and making a success of their localized community endeavors. Who is Joel Salatin? Joel Salatin is an American farmer, author and lecturer. He uses holistic and unique methods of animal husbandry to sell his products to the consumer by cutting out the middleman. Joel is coming out to...
read moreAquaponics: When Growbeds Get Old – Sh*t Happens
Years ago there was an old expression applied to computer industry surrounding software programming – “Garbage in – Garbage out!” That expression of what goes around, comes around can equally be applied to aquaponics and the biofiltration mechanism that keeps the whole system flourishing along nicely – the growbeds. The filter system where the billions of bacteria survive can eventually get clogged up with fish solids and “dead zones” appear that turn the system nasty and unfriendly to growing plants...
read moreAquaponics: CHOP 2 it 18 Months Later!
How quickly does time fly? Since building and testing his innovative toteponics system based on CHOP2 technology we caught up with Aquaponics guru Murray Hallam to ask how its all been going? Murray immediately lights up with his usual enthusiasm, “Can you believe it – its 18 months since we built that first system and its still functioning perfectly well, day in day out.” The DIY Aquaponics DVD that features how to build this system in detail has also been tremendously successful with aquaponics enthusiasts right around the...
read moreAquaponics: Getting your plants to Thrive!
Over the last three months we’ve been trialling a little additive called potassium hydroxide with the regular stuff we’ve been putting into our aquaponics system and – boy has the plant growth taken off! For the most part, feeding your fish just pellets is fine but we always wondered if this was enough? Were the plants getting enough nutrients? Does commercially obtainable fish food contain all the elements needed for healthy plant growth? This is a debatable point with some people arguing that fish food is enough to power a...
read moreEasy to Build Polypipe Greenhouse
Sometimes you see something and you think “Wow! Thats a great idea.” We came across this very simple and easy to build greenhouse at Rosina Buckman’s backyard. Rosina has some terrific tips mentioned previously here and here. Most greenhouse designs are overly complicated with lengthy instructions and steel engineering that makes them unaffordable to most people wishing to have something in their backyard to grow their seedlings or indeed even a basic shelter to cover their aquaponic systems from the rain, wind, birds and...
read moreUsing Ducks in the Urban Garden
They say nine out of ten people that ultimately get ducks into their gardens first started off with chickens. So what are the advantages of keeping ducks? The popular perception or myth is that ducks need a large expanse of water; they make a lot of mess; destroy your garden and their eggs are large and oily. But that’s not necessarily the case. Its true domestic ducks do like to spend 10% of their time in water but the duck pond can be replaced with a child’s plastic paddling pool or even an old spa bath found out the local...
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