If your yard is tiny, or even just a balcony, Jordan Karambelas has a suggestion for growing food organically: a good-looking aquaponics system that uses recycled water enriched by fish poop to irrigate vegetables planted above.
Karambelas, a junior at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, is a longtime Girl Scout who was looking for a Gold Award project, the organization’s culminating achievement. She started a Permaculture Club at the school this year to make her fellow students more aware of ways to grow food “in harmony with nature” and chose the aquaponics project as a way to promote that message.
Her work was inspired by Mike Garcia, a South Bay landscape contractor and “certified permaculturist” with Enviroscape LA, who has spent decades working on water conservation and recycling methods.
With Garcia’s help, they completed the project in a weekend, building a handsome two-tiered, 4-by-8-foot redwood structure in one of the school’s courtyards that would easily fit in a front yard, patio, or even a balcony. “Most people don’t have that much land to recycle water using storage tanks, but something like this can be put together in a relatively short amount of time,” Garcia said.
Read the complete article at www.latimes.com.