Growing Green

Growing Green is an oganization that specializes in growing healthy food and plants, using organic methods. These methods include Aquaponics, Hydroponics, and Traditional Organic Gardening. Our goal is to use a sustainable model to provide our local community with affordable fruits and vegetables. And also to teach the community how they can grow this food for themselves. We are located in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Figure 1: This Basil is a clone/ cutting, from a bigger Basil plant that was also grown with our indoor aquaponics system.

Aquaponics uses 90% less water then traditional farming. This is because Aquaponics is a closed loop water system. You only lose water to uptake in plants and minimal evaporation.

How Aquaponics works:

You have fish, fish produce waste, this waste consists mostly of ammonia.
The ammonia rich water gets pumped up into the grow bed, where it attracts bacteria.
That bacteria eats the ammonia and changes it into nitrite.
The nitrite attracts another type of bacteria.
This new bacteria eats the nitrite and turns it into nitrate.
The nitrate is natural plant fertilizer.
The plants takeup the nitrate, cleaning the water.
The water then returns to the fish tank, providing clean water for the fish.