OK, all, I have an idea.
I've converted as much of my little Maryland rowhouse's
yard to
hugelkultur raised beds as I reasonably can. I'm also trying some shallow wick beds on my porch roof, some container
fruit trees and some other supplemental food production strategies.
The big, obvious, difficult part of creating a pretty robust little food system on my property is the sort of protein/fertility benefit that could come from keeping some animals. I'm starting a worm bin for some fertility, but, you know, I don't eat worms.
So I've been thinking of seeing if there's a type of fish out there that would work in a really simple tank setup in my basement. I do not really intend to do a full on recirculating aquaponics type system, but instead something like this: have a couple of tanks/tubs with an edible fish growing out in the basement. I'd use some little independent
solar powered
pond pumps/airstones to keep the tank in good working order.
Through the tubes of said
solar pond pumps, I'd run some small fraction of the fish-water each day out this (existing, currently plugged) small hole in my basement wall to
garden beds, right to the roots of some of my heavy-feeding garden plants. Then, I'd top up the tanks (using
city water or stored rainwater, or whatever source seemed to make the most sense depending on the fish's needs and my availability).
So, questions:
think it would work?
think there will be good benefits to the hugel beds?
Are there any good, hardy, omnivorous fish besides tilapia that tolerate tank growing (I ask because I don't want to take on the electricity investment for tank heating to keep water in the 80s)?
Thanks!
