When you look outside the box, there are many things that are possible

Sometimes life really sucks and it is your perception of what is going on that can make all the difference.

I’m going to share a story, and I want you to see how the attitude shifts. How my mindset about how things happened has shifted and how I now see the gifts that this horrid experience left me with.

Many years ago, my partner and I were in a bad space. Both of us had experienced severe trauma, and neither of us cared for much outside our pain.

To the world, it seemed that we did, but we both wore masks. Sadly, she is no longer here having decided that the pain was too much for her…. So I will tell my story.

Back then….

We were both broke, living off savings and part time work. But we had a dream. Healthy food. It was the only thing we cared about, and we both had our reasons.

For 5 years we had moved houses every year, built veggie gardens in old ratty houses that were often pulled down after we left. We were sick of spending money on others property, and we were sick of the taste and feel of the veggies we bought.

Actually, I was always getting sick, foggy headed and worried about the food that I was eating.

I’d think about pesticides and gag. I swear I could taste them; and I didn’t want to eat (So much so, I developed an eating disorder).

Maybe that’s why I avoided vegetables and turned to fast food? I didn’t think of the chemicals then.

What is worse, and so humiliating is that I had developed severe IBS.

Do you know what it is like not being able to make it to the toilet on time? Embarrassing. At work, on the road, in the car, at a local store, and people didn’t want you to use their toilets.

This was not a pleasant time, and the panic and anxiety about when I would lose control of my bowels was intense.

My logic was to not eat food, as food made me sick. But then…. There was the dream.

We had the dream of self-sufficiency, even the hard work, and doing it cheap didn’t scare us.

But the chemicals on my food scared me.

The saddest part

Yep, that’s the saddest part. That which is designed to nourish, replenish and is an essential part of living, scared me.

I have been overweight all my life, not because I over ate, but because I didn’t eat much. I starved myself (that and being dairy and gluten intolerant).

We couldn’t afford organic food, we could only afford food that had stuff that kills you on it. Food that even the pests wont eat because of the toxins.

That’s the saddest part.

But then

Given an article to read, it talked about growing fish and veggies together in a setup that didn’t use chemicals.

As an animal lover and someone who loves aquariums, as well as the desperation for healthy food, I was curious.

I know how sensitive fish are to chemicals, so I knew it had to be healthy for the fish to live.

But how does this new way of gardening work?

What is the catch?

The concept was to use fish water as the fertiliser for the veggies, and the veggies filter the dirty water and make it clean for the fish.

Something that happens in nature, and has been done for the last 4000 years, into something more organised and compact.

I had to think about this…. Dirty Water is actually high nutrient fertiliser for plants, just like when I made fertiliser out of chicken poop.

It was a huge mindset shift for me. I was used to cleaning aquariums and saying, ‘dirty water’, but in reality, I learned that the ‘dirty water’, was simply nutrient rich water that could be used as fertiliser for the veggies. It made sense, but I couldn’t picture it.

When I researched more, I saw the fish tanks and beds filled with vibrant, healthy vegetables, with the water cycling through. I swear, my stomach begged me to go further and learn more. I had to have healthy food.

I could build this with recycled or new materials, and I could do it while renting and take it with me. This was the best news (aside from chemical free food), was that I can take it with me when we moved, not waste money… and I could continue to be environmentally conscious.

It was incredible: Everything grew faster

The more I researched, I saw that with constant water and nutrients in a closed loop system, the veggies grew faster than they did in the soil.

But I didn’t want to eat the fish. My partner was an ethical vegan and said that ‘as long as the fish were cared for, it was ok to keep them’. So, my fish became ‘friends, not food’.

Trading time for products, I built this system following directions. We were broke. But we found a way when we agreed that we were investing in our health.

Back then things in the industry were still trial and error, and mistakes certainly happened when people didn’t have a good understanding of the basics.

In truth, my first aquaponics system totally tanked. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. In fact, most here in Australia were just getting into aquaponics and there was much unknown about it.

When I lost those few fish, I decided to study aquaculture. I wanted to know aquatic husbandry, and know how to keep fish healthy ~ and I wanted to understand more about how to look after aquaponics on a larger and smaller scale.

I learned them and never looked back.

We had healthy food. Lots of it, wherever we moved.

The key to an aquaponics system:

The key that I learned about this system, was that it’s an ecosystem. It might be man-made, but still an ecosystem, and that means that you have to ‘cater’ for all elements as you design your ecosystem, and then it can run smoothly.

It’s called aquaponics and it changed my life completely.

Being able to take this ecosystem and build it in any shape, size and location was truly a blessing.

Back then in 2008 I was teaching those who lived locally about aquaponics and how it worked, but more importantly why it was the future of gardening and food security for us.

It was showing that this ecosystem is all interconnected, as are we all, and by watching how it worked together, we could learn a great deal about ourselves and our health.

Guess what???

With being about to grow my own chemical free food in aquaponics, I don’t have IBS anymore. In fact, I love eating what I grow.

It tastes real.

Full of flavour.

And there is no ‘fishy’ smell with the freshwater ecosystem.

Just healthy, organic food.

I love walking past my aquaponics systems (yes, I have more than one), and smelly what the herb, fruit or veg actually smells like.

No more putting sauces on food to cover up the smell or taste of the chemicals, I actually like the taste of real food.

No more starving, worrying about how it is going to react to my GUT ~ rather I know that it is healthy and clean. Like my inner self.

It can be so easy

I’ll be honest, my second ecosystem after we moved left me spending 5 minutes per day on feeding and checks and it ran smoothly. I felt annoyed. Except for the monthly additional checks, with the design I built, it ran itself. I felt like I should have been putting more work it, but it truly ran itself.

Ever since, I have always had fresh, healthy food outside, and inside when I set up plant growing on my aquariums.

No more IBS. No more wanting not to eat my veggies. No more worrying about food.

It’s all just right there, fast growing and healthy.

Every aquaponics ecosystem has had my gratitude for giving me not just food security, but healthy, tasty, nutritious food no matter if I’m broke or not.

And now…

That is the end of this short introduction to me and aquaponics. Can you see the change?

The feeling of helplessness ~ and there was so much more with it, has been changed to promise and opportunity.

Health is not just physical or mental, but an interconnection of them. We need to interconnect both to have a healthy life.

Out of this post, take this one thing away ~ I changed my mindset about 1 thing.

‘Dirty water’.

That ‘dirty water’ is what provides all my healthy food now ~ I am simply using a different type of fertiliser than I had in the past. And this one gives me loads of joy as well as the healthy food.

To learn more about aquaponics, I have a free mini course available on my website that teaches how aquaponics works, and the 5 must haves that you need for aquaponics https://offers.theaquaponicslady.com/web-training