fish feeds plants, plants clean water, water feeds fish… rock/paper/scissors II [aka Aquaponics at TSW]

so this past week and coming week at the Simple Way we have had a bunch of volunteers fly in from California as well as some local guys helping out with our latest project which is known as Aquaponics and i thort i’d stick some of the updates here so you can check it out – most of this is lifted directly from the Shane Claiborne page on Facebook:

Check out our newest adventure — Urban Aquaponics!!!

Over a year ago, we began to dream of creating an aquaponics system on our block — raising fish that “enrich” (poop) and fertilize water that gets pumped to raised bed gardens where fresh veggies grow like crazy. Hundreds of you have supported us in this adventure (we raised over 10,000 dollars!)… and tomorrow is the day we start to construct the whole system. We are thrilled to see another dream come true. Thanks for making it happen. Keep an eye out here for regular updates over as we build this sucker over the next two weeks. And check out this video from several months ago where we cast the original vision for Simple Ponics!

or alternatively click here. but not here as that is just a link to the fire ant wikipedia page which does not have a lot to do with aquaponics at all.

It won’t be long now until we have fresh fish tacos right in the food desert of North Philly.

here is a link to day 1 as the team arrived and started to get the equipment ready for the big build [our local team had spent more than a week digging and laying the foundations and creating the cement slab it would be built on]

another update which shows the framework of the greenhouse that will house most of the aquaponic system…

and finally a short video of day 3 of the work as the team realised they were way ahead of schedule and were almost needing to slow down to make the most of the two weeks set aside for the job.

and so that it just a taste – i have really enjoyed connecting with the team and getting to know them a little bit and share stories of life and adventure and God – some are leaving this weekend, more are arriving every day and we have local volunteers coming in and helping clean up the block and start prepping the greening of the H street lot across the road – really has been a community event and we look forward to the community benefitting from it for years to come…

and finally there is the closing piece [well of the two week build] of the two week build… ha ha