There are several ways one can grow their own food and prepare their plants. Although mass produced veggies are made available to us almost instantly in stores, we believe this in the long run is still an essential life skills that’s good to have and feel connected to what we grow and the little fishes we take care of. In this blog post, we have looked through and compiled resources for you so that you don’t have to plus some guiding information! Here are 3 ways to prepare & grow plants for your EcoGarden.
- Germinate starting with seeds – Although you can start them in soil in general, if it’s for your EcoGarden we recommend otherwise. With soil, there comes an extra step of removing all the dirt from your plant so that the water in your aquaponic system does not end up muddy. This is the same for you who want to transfer store bought herbs that come in a pot with soil on your EcoGarden. Here are some video guides and hacks we’ve found on starting to grow your plants on clay pebbles (which we recommend as the grow medium to use)
- By propagation – But first, what is propagation? In a nutshell, it’s the process of growing a whole new plant from another plant, isn’t that amazing?! Though there are two types of propagation, one through fertilization involving pollen and egg that eventually leads to the creation of seeds that you germinate and turn into a plant, we will be talking about the other kind, more commonly known as vegetative propagation. This involves using pieces of an existing plant such as the stems, leaves, roots etc. to create and generate a new plant with its own roots (and then repotting them into your EcoGarden grow beds with clay pebbles). Here is an extremely interesting video that uses basil with this technique.
- Sprinkle the seeds directly on your EcoGarden… that’s it. We do suggest this method mostly for microgreens. Typically, microgreens grow and are ready to be harvested with scissors (at around 2-3 inches tall) and consumed, a lot quicker than others after germination. This however is not usually able to regrow after harvesting. After harvesting microgreens on your EcoGarden, make sure to clean your grow beds, removing leftover pieces from the microgreens before starting over.
