Backyard Farming Forum
Bringing food production home

Hi, Iam a new member to forum from a suburb south of Adelaide in S.A.

I have an interest in providing my family of 4 with as much home grown food as possible.

The hardest problem I have is the water restrictions and how to keep plants growing with limited water. I currently have 2 x 5000 litre rainwater tanks, but as I am sure you are all well aware this doesn't go far during the summer months when rain is becoming very rare.

Looking forward to learning as much as I can from more experienced backyard farmers especially efficient water use techniques.

Welcome. I've been thinking of diverting the shower and bath water to the garden. You just have to be carefull what soaps you use. And mulch is great at keeping the water in the soil.

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To think before you act is a wise option. But not as funny.

Yep, Done that.

All the water from the washing machine goes through a system of three beds of gravel and then to the fruit trees.The first bed serves as a mechanical filter only and then the next two are planted with reeds. This then flows down hill to a collection barrel that I use to maintain a little pressure to feed the fruit trees. We use a low phosphate liquid detergent. Have had this going for the past few years and works very well.

Helps to have a sloped back yard, no need for pumps.

This is more for general knowledge than a recommendation to you Adrian.

Most of our block is watered by our biosystem which takes and processes all our blackwater and pumps it out to the garden.

see one type here;
http://www.biosystems2000.com.au/profile.html - though I'd use someone else if I was doing it again

The downside is they cost $12K - we put one in because we needed to move our old septic and leach drain and had nowhere else to put them. This thing has a much smaller footprint.

The upside is we use a lot less water on our block than we otherwise would.

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My Websites: http://www.chillies-down-under.com
http://www.bbq-down-under.com

Last year I only turned my bore on 2-3 times the whole summer, things really suffered though, I hardly had any oranges the next season and a couple of trees almost died.. If I ever build I'd look at a black water system, or composting toilet..

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www.backyardfarming.com.au
Bringing Food Production Home

Hi Adrian,

we know how you feel. We have found that having an aquaponic system has helped in the production of vegetables that perhaps we wouldnt normally have due to the lack of available water. We definitely grow more vege per litre of water than what we can in the ground.

If we ever end up on a larger block than what we currently have, we will be including a biosystem.

I've been looking at a urinal that goes to a duckweed tank outside. Or just a duckweed tank close enough to the back door.

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To think before you act is a wise option. But not as funny.

That's just pee-ponics Duff !

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My Websites: http://www.chillies-down-under.com
http://www.bbq-down-under.com

Basically. Have an over flow to some trees and the duckweed or salvinia you can either use as fish\chook food or mulch.

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To think before you act is a wise option. But not as funny.

Would love to have a blackwater system, however we are in the suburbs. Even if we commited the money the council would probably reject the idea and the backyard already has too much done to it to dig it up and start again. If we were to ever have an acre or two it would be on top of the list.

Hi to the hopefulls.
Nice to see there are others from Adelaide on the forum. I too have thought of trying aquaponics. I have kept tropical aquariums for years and have often thought of setting up a small grow bed on the top of the 4ft in the longe room. I think it would be an ideal place to grow small lettuces of the pick and grow leaf variety. We have large glass windows in the lounge so I think the light would be adequate.

Yeah, well the council were certianly a pain in the ass, at least the little inspector guy was - no concpet of how it works, just some little bullet-pointed rules he had printed out and wasn't going to deviate from, despite seeing that what we wanted to do made sense.

But we persevered and got through it.

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My Websites: http://www.chillies-down-under.com
http://www.bbq-down-under.com

You know, I just wonder why it is that councils and governments are just not getting the message?

There are plenty of us that want to do the right thing, but it can be very hard when they are not on our side.

That said, it is good to know that there are plenty of like minded people trying to do their bit despite the obsticles.

P.S Chillidude - love the chilli website, I have just subscribed to your newsletter, very interesting.

New thing that council are doing is auditing towns. Picture from above and then going over anything they where not notified about. Its just another way to make money.

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To think before you act is a wise option. But not as funny.

oops

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contentment

hmmm one shed may need to become a lovely modern chook house i think........