Growing taro has been exciting for me, but Spring always results in a few losses. It’s a pretty big stress on these plants to go dormant when they’re used to continuous growth. My new barrelponics system will solve that by keeping the water warm thru a solar water-heater. But this Spring still needs to be dealt with.
There is a truck that comes thru here from Dunn’s - and it’ll be here in town tomorrow morning early 7-8am - but I just found out about it tonight, which means I haven’t had a chance to rush temporary quarters together for the catfish. Sigh. But… it’ll be back thru in 6-8 weeks and I’m now on their mailing list - next time I’ll be ready and will get those fingerlings. At .45 each, I’ll only spend $25 or so for 50 of them which should get me started. I can get more next year and soforth to stagger the harvest and keep lotsa cats in the tank until they start breeding. I do have several large containers to put the cats in temporarily - but would much rather put them in their final tank so I’m happy that I missed the truck this time around.
My fascination with taro lends very easily to a predisposition to aquaculture. I think the combination of land and water has no parallel and think the old lo’i dug by the ancient Hawaiians and now being restored by dedicated enthusiasts are absolutely lovely to behold, especially once the taro is in full growth. On a practical side, with the uncertainty that is involved in our food system here stateside, especially when it comes to fish, much of which comes from overseas where we simply have no control over environmental practices, and even those stateside that use bulk feed with low nutritional value - homegrown fish are of a very significant value.
Welcome to Taroandti.com. Growing Taro goes side-by-side with rearing fish. After all, what better way to feed a taro lo’i than with fish water? This site will document my development of a bucket-lo’i system inspired heavily from Barrelponics. I have started off with a few test cases with Gambusia fish in non-circulating systems, and will migrate from that to a circulating system where water from a large catfish tank will be pumped thru taro containers and then circulated back to the catfish. For the catfish, that’s akin to a biofilter. For the taro, that’s perfect plant food. Win win. Stay tuned - lotsa excitement is sure to follow.