Making Ponds out of Parking Lots

In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, climate change will make cleanup efforts more challenging because, aside from the storm surges and shoreline damage from the rising sea level, runoff will increase with the greater amount of precipitation predicted in the cooler half of the year. Rain barrels can help only so much, due to their limited volume, but a pond could capture much more water, depending on how it is fed and drained.

Most garden ponds aren't designed with stormwater management in mind, but by allowing water to be partially drained in dry spells and filled up by storms, the pond would function much as a rain barrel does in supplying water to other parts of the landscape and saving on the water bill.

I hate to see all the extra free water from above wasted, so I am considering converting part of our overly large, increasingly obsolete driveway to a segmented pond that would provide a cool and sedate point of entry to our home.  It could be fed by rain barrel overflow, a shed roof, and the adjacent sidewalk. Since it is the high point on our property, it could also be used to water other garden areas. A nitrogen-fixing bacteria filter would be a good place to incorporate biochar, as would containerized submerged planting media. It could be integrated with an aquaponics system in the future.

Photo by Bernie Pallek

Thought for Food

If Michael Bloomberg throws his hat into the ring this year, he will get my vote because I love the programs being conducted at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. Bloomberg, a fellow Hopkins alumnus, gave over a Billion $ to the school three years ago, so the research they conduct is likely to have a significant impact, both locally and farther afield.

Let me list the program elements under the CLF that seem to jive with my view and have direct impacts in Maryland:

• The Aquaponics Project - learn about aquaponics and its potential
• Food Policy Council training - to create systemic and meaningful improvements in the food system through collaboration amongst various sectors – community, government, nonprofit, and private. Almost 280 food policy councils now exist throughout the country.
• Maryland Food System Map - op. cit.
• Improving food security and food sovereignty within the greater Baltimore community through education and financing.
• Documentaries about the food system.
• Community Food Assessments using a structured tool to measure needs and progress.
• Meatless Mondays campaign - stepping into healthier, more humane diets.
• Lectures on Food System Sustainability - watch for yourself!

Aquaponyx

Listen to the arguments for vegetarianism and it won't take you long to be convinced that it is a morally superior choice over the typical American diet. I would like to at least stop eating animals raised in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Chickens may be future residents of our homestead, but it may be easier to avoid the complications of homeowner's association rules by setting up an aquaponics operation for obtaining our animal protein. I guess you could call aquaponics a form of CAFO, but I'm not ready yet to concede that fish deserve the same privileges as mammals or birds, especially as Jesus himself was at least an accessory to the consumption of net loads of fish.

+Jonathan Bates, of Paradise Lot fame, gave a presentation at a U.S. Biochar Initiative symposium that I attended explaining how he substituted biochar as the growing medium in his aquaponics system. There, as in a chicken pen, biochar could help grow edible plants and serve as grit for the crops (gizzards) that both fishes' and chickens' digestive systems rely upon.

The first step for us will be a greenhouse, which will require HOA approval, but the aquaponics system inside is not burdened with any regulations, to my knowledge. Bates touts the book, Aquaponic Gardening, in his USBI talk, hoping that the next edition includes information about biochar. In any case, I have biochar in abundance to apply to aquaponics. Bates' talk shows that the bigger chunks are preferred. I will want to charge it first, with fish fertilizer or some other nitrate-dense inoculant, in order to support plant growth.

My guess is that the aquaponics system, i.e. the tank(s), pumps, and connections, will cost less than the chicken farming infrastructure and it will probably yield more food. Sometimes, playing by the rules opens your eyes to better solutions, while keeping you in good stead with the community.