It’s September already! These past 3 1/2 months have taken us down some completely unexpected paths and set us back. Having such a late start to the season certainly did help matters.

Click on picture to see our photo collection on Flickr or find the link at the end of this post to follow our thread on Murray Hallam's forum.

The main challenges have been insufficient fish to support our system which has led to many deficiencies. The discovery of this, however, has been dwarfed by something even more challenging… pests! Spider mites and thrips. Thrips are also known to carry and transfer plant viruses… we’re waiting for a diagnosis of something that got hold of all our tomato plants and our cucumbers.

We’ve learned you have to know so much more than just planting a seed. We’ve also learned that you need to be an expert on plant diseases and deficiencies. Let’s not forget that you need to be a pest expert too! What to look for and how to deal with things FAST! We have learned a ton, we’ve moved forward, determined.

Since we’ve chosen to Aquaponics to grow our food, we’re fish “farmers” first and foremost. All our decisions are always based on “the fish” and making sure they remain healthy. We are unable to use any chemical controls, none what so ever to control pests which can be very damaging. It has turned out to be more challenging than some organic growing practices we’ve encountered where many chemical controls can still be used under the “organic” umbrella.

You can find pictures of our progress here and steps along our journey here on Murray Halam’s forum.

It’s been a while since the last blog posting. We’ve been completely consumed with multiple video production projects and of course spending a lot of our time building the greenhouse. But we are extremely excited to provide an update on the greenhouse!

The Green Goods on our Sustainable Backyard Farming Project:
The ‘walls’ are up! The framed structure is complete! We spent the last week building a sub-floor and insulating the ground in order to keep the Greenhouse as warm as possible during the winter months. The floor is almost finished and we will being installing the roof glass later this week.

Douglas fir framed greenhouse coming together

Continuing to look for the best practices in sustainable greenhouse farming, we’ve started to look at renewable energy alternatives to regulate and maintain the temperature of the greenhouse. As an alternative to using electricity from the grid, we’ve looked at evacuated tube solar collectors and other heat exchange systems powered by the sun.

Aquaponics Farming in BC – Fish and Plants Working Together!?:
Since the last blog update, we’ve spent much time on the internet and on the telephone researching our options for sustainable growing and we’ve decided to become aquaponics farmers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics). Simply speaking, an aquaponics system is a tank of fish connected to a series of vegetable grow beds. The fish and plants help each other grow in a closed, symbotic relationship that requires much less water than than traditional aquaculture or field growing and it doesn’t use chemicals.

Who Inspired Us?
There are two important people who have inspired us to take this approach. The first person, is someone who looks more like a football player than an award winning urban farmer. His name is Will Allan of www.growingpower.org and his story is truly inspiring. Will Allan (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EpTWQWx1MQ) grew up on a farm in and enjoyed a career playing professional basketball before reconnecting with his hidden passion for growing local food in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As the charismatic CEO of Growing Power Inc. he farms as a way to promote equal access to nutritious and locally grown food, regardless of economic means. It is also an unbelievable way of building community and connecting to the children of the city.

The second person who has undoubtedly had the biggest impact on us is Murray Hallam (www.aquaponics.net.au ). He has such a simple approach to getting up and going that (his enthusiasm is infectious and encouraging, he makes you feel like you can do it too). He has an extremely rich forum where a wealth of knowledge is shared and exchanged. His insights and ideas are shared openly and they makes so much sense. It’s addictive, in a good way!

Water Usage:
We’ve also put some thought into efficient water usage. In addition to Aquaponics farming, we’re going to grow tomatoes and other suitable vegetables in “Wicking Pots”. (http://www.ecofilms.com.au/2010/12/11/a-visit-from-milne/) and http://www.ecofilms.com.au/2010/12/14/create-a-wicking-bed-garden-for-easy-vegetable-growing-powered-by-fishwater/) We’ll also be setting up a rain barrel and becoming familiar with the science of how and when to water our garden, again to be as efficient as possible.

Composting – it all starts with the soil:
There are some pretty incredible ways to reduce the amount of food waste that we put out at the curb every week – if you can get past the ‘icky factor’. We plan to set up a worm farm and a black soldier fly larvae composting system in order to give nature a chance to clean up our food scraps and provide some nutrient rich compost for our own garden. In case you don’t know, black fly larvae (no, they are not house fly maggots. These little guys aren’t as icky) can consume mind boggling amounts of food waste each day.

Too many larvae in the compost? No problem! With a BioPod you can have a self harvesting system that gets past a lot of the icky factor. This is what we will be using to harvest these guys for our fish feed. Take a look at this GREAT YouTube video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnfkW4WgtG8&feature=player_embedded

How can you help?:
Are you fans of our efforts in sustainable living? We hope that you’ve gained a nugget of information from some of the things that we are doing to improve the efficiency of food growth. You can follow our progress by following us on Twitter and Facebook. Spread the word and help us shift peoples’ attitudes and habits about sustainable food production. In the next post we’ll share websites that we visit on a regular basic as well as video material we have watched.

What we’re doing.
We’re building a greenhouse in our backyard! Yes, that’s right – we made the decision to level our deck and are in the process of building a greenhouse to grow food all year round.

Prepping the foundation, click to visit Flickr for more

Why are we doing this?
We’ve got some pretty strong reasons for retiring a perfectly usable deck – part professional, part personal. As professional film and video producers working with local B.C. farmers, we’ve learned a lot about the challenges that they face. And as part of our journey in becoming experts in this subject matter, we’ve really immersed ourselves in adopting a more environmentally sustainable life style. Building a greenhouse to grow some of our food is a way for us to put our beliefs into practice.

On a personal level, we are undertaking this project as a husband and wife couple to grow our lives together and also to grow a community of neighborhood hobbyist farmers. Using this project as a focal point, we can learn about our own neighbours and bring our block closer together for the purpose of growing food. With any luck, we could even spur a movement of backyard farms across the North Shore and beyond!

Most importantly, we are doing this to learn about growing organic food and respecting it for what it is and where it comes from – NOT just a cheap and easily accessible commodity as its seen as at the grocery store.

Why should we all care?
Because we all live in a society that is constantly focused on growth, we continue to put a heavy burden on our food supplies. In many ways, you (the reader) and I indirectly contribute to the unsustainable farming practices that have come about over time in response to population growth.

If we are able to grow natural, pesticide-free food for ourselves in a more sustainable way, we can become a part of the solution and become less of a contributor to unsustainable practices in our food supply chains.

Please contact us if you run a greenhouse project or do your own farming in your backyard. We’d love to hear and learn from you and share what we discover along the way as well. Check our pictures on Flickr and feel free to comment!