Background of My Garden

I live in a modern neighborhood, which means that the builder, in his infinite wisdom, took out every tree on the development and then dug a lake to build up the properties.  The original forest ground is now three to four feet under a mound of hard-as-a-rock, white clay.  The landscaping around the house is only as healthy as the soil that I replace.  Yea!

Two years ago I decided to garden.  I built 4, 6'x2' 10" raised beds.  I trucked in a bedding mix and planted.  I was overly ambitious and tried corn in 2 beds along with 4 different kinds of peppers, tomatoes, and strawberries.

The corn didn't have enough base soil... rookie mistake.  It grew to about 3' to 4' and had 1" x 1" corn.  Nib-letts and weeds.  Lots of weeding. 

The tomatoes (8 plants, 2 varieties known for growing well in Louisiana) began to turn yellow and die.  So did the peppers. I had my soil tested and was told to add lime. After several waterings with Sprite... no I didn't.  I added what the gardening store suggested.  The tomatoes yielded 1 tomato... total. The bell, banana and chili peppers all died.  The cayenne however grew and yielded a gallon size ziplock bag of peppers. 20 strawberries.

The next year I weeded and cleaned up 3 of the boxes and used the 4th to build up the soil in the other 3.  I also added 3 bags of potting mix to each box and mixed in lime, as directed.  Yellow squash, 2 varieties, banana, bell and cayenne peppers and then 4 tomato plants.  Believe it or not the 4 strawberry plants survived and I replanted them in deeper soil and temporarily weed-free.

8 beautiful yellow squash, 40 strawberries and lots of dead plants later, the season ended.

During last summer and through the fall two of my coworkers were talking about a new way of gardening, aquaponics.  I didn't pay much attention until I heard that the yields were great, you use less space and the big part... no weeding.  One of the two has a greenhouse and built a 3-bed, sump and fish tank aquaponics system.  His fall / winter yields have been fantastic.  4 to 5' tomato plants, cucumbers, etc.

I started reading and watching YouTube videos. Wow.