Open Day a Great Success

Visitors and volunteers enjoyed our wonderful Open Day on June 14th 2015.

International Liquors and Tobacco provided organic wines and iced tea for Open Day visitors to sample and enjoy.

More than 100 people took tours of the 3 aquaponics systems, entered the Summer Raffle and purchased produce, seeds and plants.

All proceeds from the Open Day help to keep the Lowlands Community Garden growing.

All the produce, seeds and plants on sale were non-GMO and grown without chemicals.

The 3 aquaponics systems at the Lowlands Community Garden are now complete and will soon be fully stocked with more than 5,000 non-GMO plants ranging from tomatoes to strawberries.

Plants almost growing before your eyes

You won’t believe how fast plants grow in aquaponics until you see it for yourself.

The first of 3 AP systems at the Lowlands Community Garden is now fully operational and doing great.

It consists of 3 x 1000 gallon tanks linked with syphons with 1100 tilapia fingerlings in the nursery tank.  There are 6 media beds: 4 x flood and drain with vulcanized rock media (72 cubic ft), 1 x wicking in netpots with coconut coir (18 cubic ft) and 1 x flood and drain with netpots and coconut coir (18 cubic ft) in addition to 288ft of troughs with 552 plants in 1″ plugs, 140ft of 3″ pipes with 168 plants in wicking bags and 168ft of 3″ troughs for the baby leaf greens.

In total we have more than 1,250 plants plus the baby leaf greens.

Systems 2 and 3 will be complete by the end of the month, ready to take all those fish as they grow and ready to take another 2,500 plants!

The system is of our own design but based on those used at Growing Power.

This is so much fun.

Tilapia Facts

When talking about our planned aquaponics system, much of the discussion is about the type of plants we are going to grow and how much more tastier and healthier organically-grown vegetables are for us.

However, aquaponics is not just about fruit and veg, it’s about fish too and the fish that does best in an aquaponics system is the humble Tilapia.

So I thought it would be interesting to find out about Tilapia and to share that information in a Blog form.

It is indeed, an interesting fish.

For a start, Tilapia have been farmed for at least 4,500 years and according to legend, it’s also thefish Jesus served to the multitudes (hence its nickname, St. Peter’s fish). The Nile tilapia was also eaten in Ancient Egypt, where it was represented by the hieroglyph K1

Tilapia is the common name for nearly a hundred species of cichlid fish from the tilapiine cichlid ‘tribe’. They are mainly freshwater fish, inhabiting shallow streams, ponds, rivers and lakes, and less commonly found living in brackish water.

Unlike carnivorous fish, tilapia can feed on algae or any plant-based food. This reduces the cost of tilapia farming, reduces fishing pressure on prey species, avoids concentrating toxins that accumulate at higher levels of the food chain and this makes tilapia the preferred “aquatic chickens” of the trade.

Tilapia is relatively new to consumers and has a sweet, mild flavor and a firm, flaky texture. In the US, Tilapia now exceeds Crab and Cod in popularity and has become the 6th most popular seafood after Shrimp, Tuna, Salmon, Pollock and Catfish.

The US produced 1.5 million tons of tilapia in 2005, although China is the largest tilapia producer in the world, followed by Egypt.

Tilapia can also help control mosquitoes. They consume mosquito larvae, which reduces the numbers of adult females, making a large aquaponics system like ours, almost mosquito-free!

So, they’re easy to grow, they keep the mozzies at bay and they’re damned tasty with fries and a cold Chianti – sounds like just the fish for me…

Bon appetite!

BTW – If you like to see some tilapia ‘in action’, as it were, go to:  http://youtu.be/xjzkajhXEYo

Fresh Local Organically Grown Food

Why the Lowlands Community Farm is Important.

Right now, more than 99% of all the food eaten on the Caribbean island of St. Martin is imported, which means that although there are about 100,000 people living on the island, less than 1% of what they eat is locally grown.

Obviously this is not a good situation, because if and when the ships that bring the food stop coming, either because of natural disaster or financial collapse, the people of St. Martin will be in serious trouble.  This is why a network of community gardens using aquaponics systems would be a practical alternative to imported foods, providing the local community with the tools to grow fresh, organic produce in a controlled environment.

We’ve already located the perfect site for our first community garden, which has a 400 square metre greenhouse frame that would be perfect for us to start with and we have a list of people who have already volunteered to help.