Hallo from Idaho..

[MountainWard]

I have been studying aquaculture the last few years wanting to try growing a garden on my ponds via floating rafts. Finding it a bit tough to find an active aquaculture forum. Trying this one out to see if I can get more ideas and direction. Really hoping to find someone else that has done type of gardening and run my plans by them.

I have trouble growing gardens many years as it is quite cold here and my gardens commonly get frozen in June or even in July some years and it has been frustrating to plant a garden twice in some years and lose everything on both plantings. Then I ran across raft gardening on ponds I got to thinking that would protect my plants from severe cold and frosts much better. It would also keep everything from instantly bolting the first time we hit 80 degrees and then drop back down to overnight freezing... lol.. It also solves a lot of watering issues and might improve the water quality for my catfish and large mouth bass. I have 3/4 acres of total area between my 4 ponds so I could potentially grow a fair amount if I can get into this and have even reasonable success at it.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

I can understand it being quite hard to find people doing this, as not many have access to this much water on their properties. I'm not sure if this forum is much different. But in saying that we are most happy to help you find information and give suggestions along the way. We love learning alongside one another and it's truly inspiring.
I think aquaculture is mostly found in Asian cultures, so perhaps that's where you might find struggles, as many in those countries do not speak English fluently.

I would definitely recommend looking up Bangladesh's floating gardens as I think that might be the style you're going for [Click Here].
If you are thinking of more "modern" ways like in Rotterdam's (the Netherlands) [Click Here].

What kind of style are you looking for?
If it's something small, possibly attached by ropes to land that you can pull towards you whenever you want [Check this Video].
If you want to see someone build a large floating bed out of bamboo and what I think is water hyacint [Check this Video].

Personally, I love the simplicity of this video I will post below. Simply because it's a good trial-run to see how things go. And you might choose plants that are there to benefit the lake and your fish, rather than being for something edible.

 

[MountainWard]

It was the videos of the Bangladesh floating gardens that got me into this idea. I have watched everyone of them I can find as well as some archaeological videos on the floating gardens in Mexico and south America. I have found lots of 1 time videos but almost none that show repeat videos of how things worked out and whatnot. I have pretty much run through every video on Youtube over the last 4 years and read hundreds of blogs and articles on the subject, but very little of it centers on ponds which are enough of a different media that it causes some questions on how much I can effectively use from what I have studied as most of that is designed around flood fill setups, greenhouses and very controlled environments.

My environment is basically the opposite of that.. lol... I do not feed my fish, I have wild geese and ducks to contend with, voracious muskrats, moose, deer and elk etc.. My experience is going to be a world away from most of what I have seen and read about. But there should be a lot of basic ideas and tenants that hold true in spite of the differences.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

It appears that uting something to float pots in seems to be one of the most popular growing methods. I'd say this is because it'd be one of the lowest-maintenance, long lasting designs. "Real" floating gardens do probably decompose quite fast, and it also allows for easier removal for winter-time to avoid frost damage [another floating example here].

It seems most popular in warm climates. I'm guessing this is because you will likely need to get wet to access them, or because they might not be viable in winter.
You could build a dock and/or have a little boat for dry access.
I do wonder how the freezing water might affect a floating wetland and if the ice could damage it's integrity. Of course, potential damage could be avoided by building easy-to-remove floating docks with water pots inside them

 

[MountainWard]

I will be using a small flat bottom row boat to access the rafts and pull them back to shore to work on them. My wife is paraplegic and it wouldn't be safe to take her out on the water as I swim "quite literally" like a rock. She enjoys being a part of all that and our 1 year old grand daughter will as well. As for plastic removable materials yes, my ponds are generally frozen for 6 to 7 months out of the year sometimes a bit longer. That tends to tear stuff up if left in the water. That and I have about 4,000 feet of white plastic fence panels 2 inches thick 6 inches wide and 16 feet long. It is far easier than anything else available to me at the moment. I will tie the rafts on either side of the pond t keep them out away from shore to deter moose, deer and elk from messing with them. Our sons two dogs are pretty obnoxious to the geese so they shouldn't be a big issue and the ducks really don't seem to do too much damage. The turtles could potentially be a problem with roots but I don't know. If I have 1, 2 or 3 thousand square feet of roots hanging down I doubt they could do enough damage to be a real issue. I also have a lot of edible plant material that they are used to eating and in a 25,000 square foot pond that is a whole lot of food available.

My concerns are mainly in starting the plants, transferring them without them dying from cold shock and whether they grow with or without soil. I have seen many examples of each and a lot of failures of each. If I want to grow any root crops I need to have soil, but things like the spinach, leaf lettuce, mustard greens, turnip greens, beet greens arugula, swiss chard, peas, nasturtium etc should be able to grow without any media. I think I am going to try most everything both ways and just see how they compare.

I am thinking of making some heavy duty rafts out of 16 to 20 inch diameter logs 10 to 16 feet long, Space them out a bit and nail some field fence up to the bottom side and drop in some fabric cloth with a little rotten wood then some old rotted hay and top it off with some forest humus. Each 16 foot log would support about 400 pounds of weight , 6 to a raft gives me up to 2,000 pounds of soil and plant weight if wanted. Then I could plant in the middle in a mound and do squash, zucchini, melons, corn, potato, leek, carrot, kohlrabi, daikon etc. I could pull those to the island before winter freezes the pond in mid October.

Hoop all the rafts over and cover them with clear plastic the first couple months and pull the covers when it gets warm. I have wondered about issues with mildew and rotting due to high humidity though. I could see that potentially being a big issue even without covers. Insect issue should be reduced a bit as the fish, birds, turtles, frogs, preying mantis and bats will all be in the same area eating them. Well minus the birds by mid summer as my bass eat them all by then.

I suppose in the end I waste some time and learn something. Compared to planting and losing two soil gardens a year this can't possibly any bigger a waste of time or effort on the worst case. On the best case some of this stuff may grow quite well for me and I will greatly enjoy it.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Please don't be too proud to wear safety precautions like a lifevest. Nothing like having "I was too stubborn and proud" on a headstone (I'm working on updating my grandfather-in-law's family history... there's a few). I'd recommend possibly even having a heat blanket ready nearby. It's better to have it and to never use it, than the other way around.
With all the wildlife in your area, I'd definitely recommend doing a trial run of a cheap floating garden. Way back I've seen someone tie a pool noodle to a planter and it surprisingly worked a charm and lasted a good couple of years. Ducks can do damage to the garden, but it really depends on what is grown and how much food is available to them regardless. We had a small floating platform specially made FOR the ducks, so they had a private island away from hazardous animals. Occasionally they would even build nests on it. And if you are interested in keeping ducks for eggs, that might even be a bonus idea.

Plants can have different root types. Soil roots are completely useless and often rot when placed in water. Sometimes plants can convert their soil roots to water roots, but I don't know the exact science.
I imagine that growing plants in the water would be similar to growing in hydrophonics, so perhaps check out @daveb 's posts. He's a mastermind. You can also grow in mixed media, if they are in pots suspended in water. Some like to use coirpots with their desired medium inside, so the plant has access to it's nutrients whilst it's growing and adapting to it's living situation.

With heavy rafts like that, I don't think them toppling over would be much of a concern. Do make sure that you make them "skinny" enough that you can reach the whole raft. Having a huge inaccessible middle can be wasted space. I think growing the right kind of plant in the right size raft is quite important. A tall plant on a skinny raft might easily topple it if there's a breeze.
Certain wood types decompose faster than others, and some are more water resistant too. Having a look into what wood is accessible to you might change your plan. It's also dependant on in what time-frame you would be willing to replace them. If you wish to go cheap and replace them more often - go for it. But if you prefer a longer lasting eco-system you might have to pay a little more to get what you need. If there are any docks nearby, I'd recommend scouting them out to see what kinds of wood they use, and if they stand the test of time.

Nothing is wasted if you've learnt something. Knowing what not to do is just as important as knowing what to do. Sometimes it's more valuable.

 

[KIGardening]

Welcome MountainWard. Looking forward to your garden journey and show off's.

 

[MountainWard]

While I float like a rock I do swim relatively well, just underwater as I am unable to stay on top of the water like everyone else. But yes I have a good selection of lifejackets as all of our children and grandchildren have inherited my families issues with Ulrich congenital muscular dystrophy/collagen VI connective tissue disorder and myotonia (muscles being unable to relax) so they also have the familial issues with sinking like rocks. I drowned when I was 5 and have been very cautious ever since.

As for the wild birds we have Canadian geese that nest on the island in our largest pond usually two nests one on either end of it, the island is about 16 feet wide by 30 or so feet long. We usually get about 4 to 8 mated sets of Canadian geese return each year. Our sons giant Kangal dog is here for the foreseeable future and she hangs on the shoreline barking at the geese so I imagine they will likely move off the neighboring ponds this year. The ducks nest in our sewer pond and then bring the babies up to the pond beside our house each day, but I want to use our large bass pond as it is about 25,000 square feet and doesn't have much of any catfish. The wild wood ducks never travel that far from the sewer pond to feed.

The roots form and adapt to the condition they are in, but swapping from one media to another can be an issue not only from the perspective of fine hair damage but to not being adapted to the new condition. I desire to use soil and allow the roots to grow down into the water, many of the root crops and Brassica's require soil to grow properly. My concern on this is that I wish to sprout the seed in situ and avoid transplanting but the water wicking into the soil could issues with the plants drowning rather than growing, like wayyy overwatering your potted plant. Some plants like celery do very well in a wet soil others will simply drown.

For plants that are unable to deal with wet waterlogged soil and unable to be open rooted in water I was thinking of doing larger more substantial rafts such cutting some 8 to 16 foot logs of white fir that is mildly punky and light. I have several hundred of these logs available and they do not make great firewood so this would be a potential use for them. I could make a 16 foot by 16 foot floating raft that would support a little over 2,000 pounds of weight with this material. I figure they would likely last a couple years before starting to water log. When they start riding lower in the water I can tow them to the shallow end of the large pond where I have a marshy area in summer and about 2 foot water depth in spring and allow them to grow there. Then it would become more hugelkuklture than aquaponics. It would be relatively easy for me to make a few of these and at little to no cost to me. These would allow me to get enough soil depth to avoid waterlogged soil for starting plants in and I would have enough soil depth to grow things like potato, carrot, daikon etc as I have plenty of "un-waterlogged" soil depth for the roots.

There are some more permanent rafting solutions but I would like to avoid any kind of styrafoam as it constantly leaks styrene into the ecosystem. I am also not willing to pay the price the rubber matt floating systems. Wood is easy for me, I have about 200,000+ trees here on our place and I also live next to a vast amount of state forest and the St Joseph National forest. My best friend also owns Rembrandt tree care and I can get a massive quantity of wood from him as well, sometimes I contract with self loaders when he gets removal jobs and they haul all the logs out here to me, cheaper than buying them. With all of that, a sawmill and the fact that I have been logging for nearly 50 years, wood is generally my cheap easy go to solution for most everything.

I experimented with one of my plastic fence panels yesterday, as this fence is absolutely no good for "fencing" I have been slowly removing it and finding other uses for it. I thought the stuff floated but apparently I was wrong. I will have to use some wood to keep it buoyant but that will easy enough to do. I intend to set 6 panels together side by side which will give me 16 foot rats 3 foot wide, it should be easy enough to reach to the center from a boat or from the shore.

 

[MountainWard]

Cool, just did a test on some small short logs to see what I could do easily and quickly. This took me about 2 1/2 minutes each and they float to right at the center point of the log. I will nail a board on each end attaching the two together and then cut some plastic fence panels to sit on the boards between the logs and situate them them to where the bottoms of the plastic panel just touch in the water a little bit. Boy these could be made in large quantity with literally about 10 minutes invested in each small raft.

I still need to notch the side of the triangular inserts to allow room for roots to grow down into the water yet but these pics show the basic idea at play here. I will fill the them in with a planting media probably a little rotten hay/straw and some forest humus to start the seeds in and just allow the roots to grow down into the water as they wish. The soil will remain largely waterlogged so I will have to stick plants that do well with direct water exposure with these.

P.S...
It will also be interesting to see how the shelf fungus on the side of one log does out there on the water. I adjusted it to where it will remain above water level.

 

[MountainWard]

I got to thinking about my land garden and the fact that was where I originally started with the idea of incorporating water into garden. I originally built a hog pen below the dam to the pond beside the house as it had very wet soil and a stream of water running through it all summer long seemed a great place for hogs with a wallow etc. They also loved the Devil grass roots that the pen was full of and ate out every last little bit of that nasty stuff for me.

After the hogs I decide to use it as a garden area, but it was far too wet and it didn't do well. The second year I decided that I needed to get the plants up out of that wet soil a bit so I raised the lower end of the garden soil level by about 2 1/2 feet and that helped a lot but I still had a lot of flooded soil issues. So the third year I raise the lower end another foot and dug trenches through the garden, one down the middle and wings out to each side to drain the water off better. Then I mounded each growing area with a water way either side of each mound and then I used plastic fence panels and wood to cover the waterways between each growing mound.

This allowed me to keep the main root systems up out of the wat but also allowed them grow down into the water if they wished. It also has the benefit of melting the snow off earlier and unthawing the ground earlier allowing to get to gardening earlier. These pictures were taken mid March which is very early to be able to start working the ground around here generally.

This garden grows potatoes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, pumpkins and radishes amazingly well and without having to water at all the first half of the summer. It also has a very large population of frogs due to the subterranean waterways below the ground surface between each planting bed and they help to keep the bugs down.

Not exactly aquaculture but it is what got me to looking in that direction and that is when I found the floating raft gardens and started studying the idea.

This is what it looked like the second year of gardening on my first attempt at controlling the water issue..

With the help of my son Ted we managed to turn that mess into a pretty good garden..

 

[daveb]

ive seen the floating garden of bangladesh you mention what they do is cut organic plant matter aka heavy stalked weeds, the most common in their case huge quantities on water hyacinths , reeds and other plants then stack and budle and tie into huge floating rafts. These become rafts of decaying organic plant matter they break down realtively fast on the heat and the soaking and actuall get a bit goopy , they make holes in the decaying mass and plant direct into them so the rafts take the place of soil and are in essence a floating compost pile. they orignally come around from other areas and decades ago from monsoon floods making rice paddy unusable, i hear now with climate change they are becoming more and more widely used across more regions
the hyacinth have a fairly light stem and air chambers that i assume helped the area i saw to floatas the decompose the wsettle deeper in water and the just pole more out top and keep growing util they either break apart ot the mass become otherwsie to far gone to hold up in a storm. i'd say try a combination a partial frame of smaller logs but and use mats of bundled reeds with a fiberous stem. maybe lace in a weave pattern with coco core or some other fiber material that will gradually decay yet open enough core to float

 

[MountainWard]

Yes the rafts are made of water hyacinth. They pile them together and allow them to rot for a year then they plant in them and harvest. Then they are replaced after a 1 year crop cycle. Some I have seen reuse the rotting hyacinth from older rafts and pile it atop new rafts to increase the rate of decay and shorten the time period before they may be used to grow with.

There are also the ancient chinampa's in central and south America dating back to as far as 1250 CE where they built up long islands of rotting vegetative matter in rivers and marshlands and grew on them. Technically not "floating" or rafts but operate on the same basic principles. It is an amazing technology one that I am surprised lost it's popular appeal over time and was largely lost to most of modern civilization.

 

[daveb]

yes and it can get pretty mess a job pole the rotted vegetation back on the new raft . but its becoming more and more prevalent now as climate changes are changing rainfalls

 

[MountainWard]

A basic mock up of my first raft idea... I still need to drill some 1 inch holes through the boards and pound a wooden rod through to secure the boards well and attach the plastic fence panels as well as rout my holes in the plastic panels to place pots into or soil into for direct growing in them. I have many other ideas to try out but this one is certainly quick and easy and should be a decent raft system for a couple years at which point I can move them into the shallows to be supported by the bottom of the pond instead of floating in the water. I am very happy with the simplicity and ease of this design.. Once I realized I could angle cut through the log it became very simple, my original thought was to cut a rectangle out of it leaving the bottom intact which would have been a difficult and time consuming feat.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

I have carefully read and enjoyed every part of your updates. I have been very busy and frankly have slept most of today to recover. I hope to be able to give a more in-depth response at a later date, but I like what you're thinking

If you have that much wood available to you, I'd definitely recommend using it. Especially since plastics do often leech toxins and worsen the situation you are trying to improve upon.
I wonder how the rafts would adapt to a hugelkultur inspired style of building, with twigs and sticks left from harvesting the trees in the bottom layers to keep the soil in place (plus some supports along the bottom). They could help keep the soil in place and add bouyancy until they decompose, theoretically.
I also wonder how the moisture will affect the logs once put in the water, as the inserted pieces can expand with the moisture and possibly split the slit in the log. But then again... all should still hold together even if that were to happen.

I also thought that if you just carve that slit in the log and nail them together, you could create a couple of nice, rectangular planters. I think it'd look pretty cool to have some flowers or the likes in them
And since flowers don't often grow tall they could just be a decorative feature, adding to the wildlife (and beneficial insects) around you.

I truly love seeing a family get together and work on something like this. It's a passion to be shared

 

[MountainWard]

A number of my friends have now seen the logs and they want some as landscape planters for decoration now. As for them splitting that is part of why somewhat punky wood is so useful here, it will crush rather than split when it swells with water. I have intended to use branches in the bottoms of the larger rafts over old 4 inch field wire, I have maybe 1,800 feet of old field fence destroyed by our horse and milk goat herd that would works well to attach and then lay sticks on, then rotting hay and then soil. I also have 9 dumptruck loads of wood slash from when the county put a new county road through our place 2 1/2 years ago alongside our drive down the county road a ways along with many old piles that I have created over the years and the piles that were here when we bought the place 12 years ago.

M buddy owns a tree trimming service and he bought 40 acres 3 miles down the road and he chips all of the small branches, I could have him come over and chip some of this as well which works even better hugelkulture, His dad and I were best friends until he passed away 10 years ago, he and I did horse logging together and we we went into a sawmill together. We did a lot of experimenting with "hugelkulture" though we had never heard the term before or knew of other people doing iy. We just saw trees as the solution to may growing problems. Turning into hugelkulture as they get old and dropping them next to each other in the shallow end of the pond would make a very nice growing area that I could just keep adding wood and material to as it breaks down over time.

Wood is an amazing soil amendment, Mark had areas on his little farm that had rotting wood 8 feet deep, the veggies he could grow in those areas were amazing. I used to haul 30,000 to 40,000 pounds of poplar branches home to my farm from him each year and drop in them great piles at my place. My milk goats would eat the bark all winter long, as they would clear the outer pile of park I would cut the wood up so they could reach the next level of bark in. It was a great feed for them and I just added the wood to my winter firewood supply. Then all the bits and pieces would rot down and improve the soil mixed with prodigious amounts of goat manure.

Wood is an amazing garden resource..

 

[MountainWard]

P.S...

I would also note that while I do intend to plant in the log cutouts, the actual reason for the cutouts was so that I could add weight to the system easily to adjust the float level. More soil lower in the water etc so that I could adjust the plastic panels down just barely into the water easily. I can control the overall buoyancy easily and simply by the amount of soil I add to the logs, I also figured that would allow me to balance the raft as well so that it sits level rather than deeper on one side or another. It seemed a simple and easy way to accomplish this feat and allowed for more planting on the raft as a secondary benefit.

 

[MountainWard]

Last night I couldn't sleep... well okay most nights I don't sleep but anyway... I was thinking of what plants to go with and the planting order and combinations. I was also thinking of planting pots and whatnot.

I like to reuse things as best I can and got to thinking of the giant pile of old tin cans I have saved up over the last 12 years. It would be a bit more work but I might try and reuse old tin cans for my planting pots. Something most everyone has a good supply of.

I am looking at my 2 next rafts being 16 feet in length and 6 fence panels wide or an overall raft width of about 40 inches including the flotation logs on the sides. This would allow me 36 3 inch holes spaced with 2 inches between hole per panel and a total of 216 - 3 inch holes for pots per raft system. That seems a decent enough amount for a pretty reasonable harvest per raft.

For the first small raft I think I am going to plant it with...

Garlic... carrot greens... leek... peas... onion greens, radish and possibly celery..

All of these can handle very cold temps so I can plant them nice and early. The carrot greens are very easy as I just plant the ends of the carrots left from cooking and they just sprout a new plant, they will grow even in freezing temps and they make a tasty green "imo". Garlic can be sprouted in the house and put out, it will also take freezing temps as well. The onion greens I sprout out from the bottoms of the onions I cut off, I just place them under a little soil and they resprout a new plant out the center, these also have no issue with freezing temps. The leeks are the same, I simply cut off the bottom 2 to 3 inches of the leek and sprout it out, they also will grow even in freezing temps.

The radish and peas will not likely sprout real soon as we are still in 20's at night here, but the days are very warm getting up into the 40's most every day, it won't be too long before they are able to sprout and get started. The celery I have to sprout from the cut off base of the celery I buy at the store, not all of them are successful though I generally do pretty well at that anymore. Celery also grows even in sub freezing temperatures. This is my starter plan to get some things out and going to kick off the experiment. One can also sprout cabbage in the same way from the base of the cabbage bought from the store. Pencil onions as well, just cut off the bottom inch or two of the onion and place in some soil and water, they will sprout new roots in a matter of days.

You can also sprout new plants for greens from turnip roots, beet roots, daikon radish etc. I commonly plant a number of these roots in my house overwinter for a supply of fresh greens through out the winter. Nice thing is that the root already contains all the energy needed so you need little light, nutrient or even soil to grow these and they will sprout and grow even in very cold temps.

 

[MountainWard]

Along the lines of trying to come up with something simpler and easier for most people accomplish as well as dealing with other small issues such as fish eating on roots etc I came up with an idea early this morning.

One could use old branches from trees, bushes shrubs etc and bind them together in bundles. Any source of old branches and most any cheap rope would do. Just throw three boards together in a u shape, drop in rope spaced apart and pack in your branches. Bring your ropes together and cinch them down on your branches and create bound bundles.

For me I could make the bundles 3 feet long and maybe 16 inches diameter. String 12 bundles together for a 16 foot long raft 3 feet wide. Then affix 6 of my plastic fence panels to the tops with some light rope. Adjust the floatation with some river rocks maybe to get the plastic panels to the water surface. Then the plants roots could grow down into the stick bundles largely protected from fish nibbling. A very simple very easy system that could be built with little to no real investment of time or materials and could be used in most any type of pond no matter the fish species or their dietary habits.

 

[KIGardening]

Keep up the good work. Some interesting ideas to take with me if I ever will have a big pond in my garden.