Thanks for giving the site a look!

We are in Northern California (Zone 9). We only need to be mindful of the water temp for the fish; tilapia are more of a warm water fish. Other than that, we run as any normal garden. We have videos on our systems in greenhouses, indoors, and outdoor barrelponics.

If costs of keeping the water warm are an issue, a different variety of fish could be used. Email anytime or hit the forums.

Most of all, enjoy!

If you really want to get creative with the accounting, maybe the time spent on gardening is actually a gain in $ (avoid spending on something else that would take the time).

Started cold-hardy things (peas, cilantro, parsley, mizuma & bok choi) in planters mid-April, as soon as I could scrape off the snow & add dirt for the seeds, and they are THRIVING – the bok choi already bolted, but we’re having mizuma potato salad tomorrow. Been eating pea green thinnings occasionally for about 3 weeks.

I spent a ton of money last year on strawberry plants, and they are doing great, flowers all over and a few little green berries started.

This year I dropped $10 on a rhubarb plant myself, gave it one of the front-yard stack planters that used to be for greens. Then today I hacked through a huge stand of snakeroot and found the poor, sad, little rhubarb plant a friend’s mom gave me several years ago – I may replant it to the front where it can get some sun.

Other things are less successful – my son really wanted to plant watermelon and corn and they are both failing badly. But he’s been bringing home plants from the school garden (mint, dill, and marigold) and those are all thriving, so he’s not too sad.

My husband got me a stainless steel kitchen rack, put it in the garage with inexpensive grow lights and warming mats (<$70 total set up).

I use the little peat pellets from Jiffy and buy the replacements at Home Depot or online, about 10¢ each. Seedpackets are between 1.79-2.99 here and I use seeds for more than one year pretty successfully by keeping them in a plastic shoebox in the fridge.

I have had no pest problems this year with my raised bed (about 24" high) and it looks great in the garden.

We're fortunate to live in Zone 15 (Sunset) so we can garden almost year round (except today apparently

My plants are doing pretty well this year. I’m growing sweetcorn in my new bed along with sunflowers (this year I got a taste for sunflower seeds!), carrots with salad crops, hopefully leeks (not many have survives to my dismay) and some butternut squash which I need to get round to planting out.

It’s difficult to me because all the gardening I do is 30km away at my parent’s house, while I’m in the concrete jungle of central London. I keep meaning to hook up with some guerilla gardeners and keep forgetting. Boo.

Setbacks this year- the driest English spring since records began. We had to drain one of our water butts because it was leaning against the shed and making it warp. The other two are still pretty full though and I don’t do much watering so I should be fine.

In our “country” garden in SW Virgina we are experimenting this year with Shiitake mushrooms, parsnips, peanuts (likely fail), okra, cucumbers and sweet potatoes, in addition to the usual suspects of corn, tomatoes, squash, and garlic, leeks and onions. Harvesting snow peas and the tail end of Swiss chard from the zone 7 garden this week.

We’ve been doing aquaponics. Building inexpensive systems at home and growing our own produce. I have to say, we save quite a bit. We’re in Northern California, so the climate isn’t too different from Oregon. We’ve had great success and love growing! If you get some time, check out our progress!