The dirtbag solution

Alrighty we all remember this character from the last post right..

Well... this mad man tore a hole in the earth with the the fury of the fist of an angry god.

 Once the dust settled there were bags multiplying everywhere..

 The walls were built up to hold back any of the sand from wash out and cave in.

 They just kept going and going.. just look at them in the background they keep showing up..

There is a layer across the bottom as well to block from roots on any nearby trees or burrowing creatures..my god look at that pile of sandbags in the back there..

There is a deep corner at ~3' and it staggers up by 5 inches every 12-18".
The entire pond area is ~6' x ~6'  inner dimensions, 12-18" ledge and 8'x8' external framing.
Upon stretching the liner a little and filling with some water, the kiddo and I took the opportunity to have a water gun fight and a dip in the water to cool off after school.

Size comparison, my kiddo is ~44" tall.
To the left side of this picture we cut in a skimmer channel to a 55 gallon barrel that was sunk in the ground next to the pond. This provided me with a semi filtered sump area to use as a base to start my plumbing.

The skimmer channel acts as a spillway into the sump barrel.

With the sump installed and the pond liner stretched, cut, and sandwiched between a couple 2x6's, I started filling up the pond to let nature take it's course. Before too long the bugs and frogs started hanging out providing us with a nighttime serenade.

At this point I had set my sights back on mounting beds and plumbing which is what I will cover next.

Framing the Beds

I left off last time heading to the store.
Let me tell ya, Lowes loves it when I walk in the door.

It was not a pretty sight.. the weight alone I had to make 2 trips. I picked up enough materials to frame the pond, 10 beds, and decking material to cover that central walkway. I grabbed an EPDM liner and a bunch of sandbags.

Ah that youthful labor...

All kidding aside, my nephew did a great job digging out the hole and filling sand bags. He built the walls of the pond and did a generally good job in helping out throughout this project so far, but more on that in the pond post.

On to the framing...

I decided to frame it out with 2x6's in order to cover half of the barrel height but also to provide some anchoring for the barrels, and support so they don't bow with weight in the heat. I saw a neighbor who just used half barrels on top of concrete blocks with no support, a few of them look like Pringles how bowed out they have become in the heat.

In any case, since we have 5 beds per side and they average around 21 inches give or take for the barrel width a 10 foot run with 2x6 inserts to put between barrels would fit just nicely.

mmm.. look at that soy..

I used pressure treated 2x6's and galvanized 16p nails. With 5 beds there were 4 inserts and 2 end caps which I cut all at 3' a piece and the barrels *almost* slid right in.. however.. there is this ring at the top that is normally used with a barrel clamp on a traditional metal 55 gallon drum. This ring is 24" across making the barrel not seat correctly inside the spot where it is supposed to rest. A quick trim to remove that ring doesn't compromise the barrel and makes the width fall in line with the 21" average expected.

Now I also discussed this with my better half and we agreed that bending over to garden in low beds is not ideal if we could have them at waist high it would give better access to the plumbing and so on. To accomplish this we got the post hole digger out and sunk some 4x4 PT posts. 6 per 5 beds to create a sturdy base to rest the bottom of the beds upon.

When seating the barrels I added some cross bracing on the bottom with galvanized 3/8" x 8" bolts, then rested 2 - 2x6's to create rails to set the barrels on to support the weight of the rocks and water.

Pay no mind to the plumbing, big pile of sand bags, and partially finished pond. I stopped progress on the beds to work on the pond and some of the plumbing so that when I did seat the beds they would be ready for drains and rock.


Side note: If you stop to think about it, just 5 beds is 25 cubic feet of rock to fill in at a 7" flood depth and 10" bed depth (the 3" top layer that tends to stay dry and give a minimum air level). That is 0.5 cubic feet per 40lb pound bag.. now doing the math here.. 80lbs per cubic foot * the 25 cubic feet mentioned previously.. 2000lbs. With ebb and flow water this is like parking a Chevy S-10 on the rack to repeatedly fill up the bed and drain it over and over.. kind of mind blowing when you get down to it.


While I was framing and scheming I was also supervising the young lad mentioned above in his sand bagging endeavors.. which brings us to the pond.

Back at it..

Apologies for the sparse updates, there have been many things going on personally that I have been neglecting many of my pursuits. That is not to say that I haven't been working on this particular project, more that I haven't made the free time to document it. I have had some sad times with a family member passing, I have had some busy times, and then some relaxation and lazy times. All in all life is pretty damn good but that is another topic..

TL;DR; Procrastination is a helluva drug..

So, back to documentation.. since we left off with why we are here and what the problem was that we faced: crappy soil, too much money and time wasted annually, Aquaponics!!! 

To resolve this situation we looked into Aquaponics and I watched many many You Tube videos and read many many blogs.. too many to count or even track I will give some shouts to Bigelow Brook and AquaVerde as inspiration to get out there and give it a go, learning as you go, and plan with common sense in mind.

As previously mentioned we started with soil/raised beds and given the yard has no trees for shade, we put up the framing to make a covered garden area 20' x 24' on the south side of our home.

I had a base area and framing to work with so I started doing the research on the most versatile way of growing and the prominent method that provides good results for a large variety and as it turns out that is a flood and drain media system.

So the plan was to originally make long rows with an individual 4' cube IBC tote at each end. The goal being to balance 1:1 bed cubic feet with fish tank cubic feet.. and given that 275 gallons in a tote was 5 - 55 gallon barrels cut in half to make 10 - ~27.5 gallon.. It seemed like the perfect match and proportional formula.

After looking around on Craigslist I got discouraged at the pricing on the totes. Everyone wanted a $100+ for them and I had to drive almost 2 hours with a truck to get them.. not ideal. At this point I focused my efforts on locating the bed space barrels and and upon seeing the barrels the first comment my wife made was "can they be painted?" so I immediately knew that further designs had to consider aesthetics.

I purchased and re-purposed a bunch of 55 gallon food grade barrels.

 Vinegar and Soy.. boy did it stink when I was cutting these open.. my wife didn't know I was cutting them and she came out to pick tomatoes, she commented "Smells like someone is cooking something really good".. she loves to use soy in her recipes so I got a chuckle out of it.

I started designing and I looked for inspiration only to find Bigelow Brook and loved the geodesic dome project. I must have gone through every upload in a few days and then started processing what I had learned. The way he built the beds with wood framing made it look warm... a place you want to just take a stroll and take in the life growing around you. That is what I wanted to shoot for.. some place to go hang out, meditate, enjoy the sound of the water, be amidst the growing veggies and fish a calm place in the otherwise hectic nature of our lives.

I decided to frame the beds out of wood so that they can be stained or painted. This would serve a dual purpose of aesthetics and support for the sidewalls of the barrel material. The underside would be covered in a lattice to hide the plumbing and barrels that are not covered by the framing.

I did the measurements and since there is a 20' x 24' area I figured I can split that to 20' x 20' with a 4' section down the middle and that should give a nice covered walk area between the two sides to run plumbing down which would be decked over. The beds would be as long as the barrels are tall which comes to about 3'... which means 2 rows makes 6' and a 4' walkway between rows..it was like it was coming together by itself.. now that center row section I was originally planning on using for the IBC totes but it occurred to me that I have an abundance of youthful cheap labor (read: nephew in college out of work) to dig a pond for me so why not go that route and add a little waterfall for the return?

I checked the pricing on liners and learned about EPDM vs. PVC and the fun of fish ponds. I shopped at Lowes to find they sell a 10' x 15' EPDM liner for $189. This would be cheaper to purchase than 2 totes at ~$200-$250 (+ gas) and would give me an in-ground solution to keep water cool in summer, as well as, the ability to easily cover and insulate in the winter to not need any heaters for the fish.

Then I thought about the sand and washouts, the pond walls caving in with such a small area.. so I thought why not use the material you are removing to fill sandbags to build a wall around the edge of the pond to reinforce the whole deal...

With an idea, some luck, and a new truck.. I went shopping for supplies..

Why are we here..

I live in Florida. North Central Florida to be a little more precise. We have sand. Lots.of.sand. Whenever one decides to plant a garden, you almost need to act as if this is a desert region rather than subtropical at times.

When you cultivate the "sand" here, you end up dumping more time, energy, and nutrients into the ground just to find out that the sun bakes the earth and the rains wash it all away most often before your plants have any sort of chance at retaining them to grow. This was a serious point of frustration in our gardening endeavors that spurred me to visit my good friend the internet.

Can you grow plants without soil?

Well the answers were startling.. yes.. yes you can grow plants without any bit of soil whatsoever..
You have a couple options actually:

• Hydroponics
• Aquaponics 
• Aeroponics 

After weighing those options I found that Aero and Hydro both had similar drawbacks to the soil that you had to pump a bunch of money into buying the nutrients to add. While with aqua-ponics you buy or grow fish food and they provide nutrients to the bacteria, then to other bacteria, and then to the plant. By maintaining "balance" in a state of equilibrium, our planned zen garden will exemplify the harmony of natural systems living in balance.

Now, there are a ton of blogs and other resources out there that will get into far greater details about the topic, not to mention all the you tube videos that you may find on the subject. I don't intend to go into too many more details writing something that is already written elsewhere and can be linked to. My intentions are to catalog our particular build, and the system as an example to add to those resources for others to maybe learn from.

This should be a fun project so lets get to it..