How to grow food in strange places – by the experts

Seeds sprouting on an old mop

You don’t need a garden to grow your own fruit and veg

Helen Babbs
The Ecologist
29th September 2010

Excerpt:

Rowena and Philip Mansfield farm fruit, herbs and fish in Anglesey, North Wales. I was drawn to this Welsh couple, who have swapped urban life for something very rural, because they’ve been growing strawberries in a drainpipe.

From sections of humble pipe, and employing less humble hydroponics, they’ve harvested 75lb of berries. They’re dismissive of my delight.

‘Nothing original about drainpipes,’ says Philip. ‘We look at all pipes and see them sprouting food. Just pass water along the tube and let the plant roots touch the liquid – they’ll take up whatever nutrients they need.’

The couple have branched out into aquaponics and now sell rainbow trout and carp to a small but committed circle of customers. Aquaponics is an integrated system that centres around the natural life cycle of a fish. Philip explains: ‘Fish produce ammonia in their normal breathing, the ammonia is converted by bacteria in growbeds to produce nitrates that feed the plants. The returned water has been cleansed ready for the fish to utilise it again.

‘I think we should all be aware of the need to grow food by whatever means. There are thousands of empty buildings that could be used to grow food to feed the local community.’

I ask them whether it would be fair to call their way of life idyllic. ‘Absolutely. The hours are long, the money scarce, but there’s no travelling, no crowds on buses or Tube. You learn to live alongside nature and it rewards you generously. We breathe the growing grass.’

Read the complete article here.