Wednesday, April 1, 2015

One day..

One day.. this is the small voice inside the head of each expat in the Gulf region. This day may come for some unexpectedly, when only their dead bodies reach their homeland.  A few others make this day come sooner by their meticulous planning, but for the majority this day remains in the head only, until certain circumstances force them to meet that day in their homeland. It might come as a job loss or the urgent requirement of a loved one back home or old age itself.

Our son too will soon fly the nest since his board exam is about to get over the coming week.  This makes me think about that “one day” pretty often.  I was never a good planner and always had to take life as it came. So guess even this “one day” if ever it comes and whenever it comes may end up the same way! Yet, why should I not dream? So this post is only to poke my conscious later and hope that it may nudge me to action.

It is not a lofty dream either..not at all. It is only to grow a vegetable garden and maybe have a few hens, fish? and maybe a cow and a few ducks…. Hah! Not sure why on Facebook I always land up on such pages so as to get all such ridiculous ideas! This is surely not for the lazy ones and for those who would prefer to sit in front of the idiot box instead. I may end up as such a person too, so let me just jot down to jolt me later.

Imagine growing a lemon tree indoors? Read it here 

I do have a very very small collection of plants out here but the issue is that once we leave for our summer vacation it needs to be shifted to some place where it can be looked after during our absence.



Other than normal gardening, I stumbled upon Hydroponics and Aquaponics systems. Tried the latter at home but am yet to succeed. Aquaponics interests me more since you can have fishes too in the bargain. My colleague told me about a friend of his who returned to Kerala and is now successfully managing it in only a cent of land! He dug a small pond, spread a tarpaulin sheet which extended a feet or two around the pond. Then he spread broken rocks on this extended space to plant vegetables. The pond was used to grow fish and the water was brought out  at fixed times with the aid of a pump to flow through these rocks back into the pond. The nutrients in this water was enough for the vegetables to grow and there was not much loss in water too. One only need to feed the fish. 

Hydroponics is a subset of hydroculture and is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil. Terrestrialplants may be grown with their roots in the mineral nutrient solution only or in an inert medium,such as perlite or gravel.
Aquaponics is a food production system that combines conventional aquaculture (raising aquatic animals such as snails,fish, crayfish or prawns in tanks) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment. In normal aquaculture, excretionsfrom the animals being raised can accumulate in the water, increasing toxicity. In an aquaponic system, water from an aquaculture system is fed to a hydroponic system where the by-products are broken down by nitrification bacteria into nitrates and nitrites, which are utilized by the plants as nutrients. The water is then recirculated back to the aquaculture system.


The following video shows a successful Aquaponics system in Kerala https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=636542556468002

9 comments:

  1. Hmm pretty informative.
    BTW are you planning to engage in all these work once kids have moved out ?

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  2. Not possible in the present place of residence :).. only if I land on my 2 feet in Kerala in the future. And for sure not all this is going to happen too.. but can I not dream?

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  3. There is no ban on dreaming, so dream on. At least you have an idea about what you want to do once you come back to India. So many of us who are already here have no idea what we want to do at all :( The whole idea of hydroponics and aquaponics is so fascinating. Here is to wishing that your dream comes true and you have that garden and fish and maybe those ducks and cow too :)

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    Replies
    1. Thank you :).. grew up surrounded with all that I mentioned and hence this dream..

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  4. And oh, is that the Happy Kitten? :)

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  5. surprsingly, even I dream to live like that..not hydroponics and all..just wanted to grow vegetables and keep a buffalo for milk:)

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  6. Maybe there is a farmer alive in all of us or it is the urge to nurture.. :) but gardening/farming can be very comforting..

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  7. everyone dreams about garden own farming but not possible for all
    informative post

    ReplyDelete

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