Together we grow: Aquaponics can change the way we grow food in the desert and beyond

Audio Story by Chris Zatarain

Tucson resident Charles Collins’ backyard garden may be unlike any other home garden you’ve ever seen. He’s opted to grow aquaponically rather than in a traditional in-ground garden. 

Aquaponics is a system of growing food in a closed-loop system that integrates live fish, a soilless medium, plants, and mineral-rich water. Charles designed and built his aquaponics system by blending forms of traditional ecological knowledge and modern scientific understanding, as well as low and high technologies to grow an abundance of fresh vegetables and sustainable protein to feed him and his family.  

His work and influence continues to expand across his local community and around the world, with technologies he developed being adapted and used in cutting edge scientific  endeavors at NASA and the World Health Organization (WHO). His main mission, though, is in getting more people interested in growing their own food.  

According to Charles, aquaponics is the answer to growing abundant, nutritious, and sustainably-sourced food in a changing climate for everyday people interested in taking more control of their food security. 

This piece is intended to acquaint you with the warm and wonderful Charles Collins, a man working to change the way that the world grows food.

Full transcript below:

Charles Collins  0:03  
We all come from the sea. Everything comes from the sea. And it's a beautiful journey and it's a beautiful form of expression. Now, even in a desert, especially in a desert, there's proof that we all come from the sea. So when it comes to aquaponics, it's quite natural that in order for us to live in a natural existence, we have to break it down to our natural foundation to where we can vibrate, which is the sea

Chris Zatarain  0:30  
How can we grow with the land instead of in spite of the land?

Charles Collins is a resident of Tucson, Arizona. He's a professional astronomer, a veteran, a husband, a father, and he's also a sustainable gardener looking to change the way that the world grows food. Charles's backyard garden may look a bit different from any other garden you've ever seen. Placed in the corner of a mostly ordinary yard is a lush and verdant forest of massive dark leafy greens, towering spring onions and a carpet of deep red lettuces tightly packed together, spilling out over top of what looks like a set of small tiered garden beds. You can hear the sound of water trickling peacefully from one bed into another pulled by gravity passing gently through chunky red volcanic rocks when suddenly there is a loud splash from the side opposite view as a large fish surfaces, launching a wave of water into the air with its Tailspin from an attached water tank.

Charles is an aquaponic gardener. His approach to growing food is based in an understanding of natural ecological systems.

Charles Collins  1:55  
Just imagine cutting side slice of the Nile River and imagine looking at it from the side you'll see those beautiful crops on top. You see that amazing black soil underneath it. You'll see an incredible mushroom colony. You'll see that happening down there. Above that you'll see the little creatures the little bugs you'll see a natural transfer from what's going on in the land into the water won't be anything abrupt. It'll just be a natural transition. Now that natural transition is what we try to mimic in aquaponics specifically us that's what makes what we do different and what we're trying to teach the world that they can do different. There's nothing wrong with the way that masters do aquaponics there's absolutely nothing wrong with it because it's based on tried and true theories. But I don't think there's any more tried and true practice than nature, trying to mimic exactly what nature is doing. So you say okay, well, you're in the middle of the desert why mimic what's going on with the Nile. I asked you where's the Nile located in the middle of the what? Desert to the left is desert to the right baby. So I set my goal instead of trying to outdo nature. I wanted to show an appreciation from nature of respect of nature. Draw from the sea, we are off from the water. So what better way to do it and to try to mimic exactly what was going on at the Nile River.

Chris Zatarain  3:08  
So how exactly does an aquaponics system work?

Charles Collins  3:12  
Now there are different types of aquaponics systems ours is a basic concept running recirculating system. So our system more closely replicates and duplicates, say that side cut of a river where the water flows into the plant roots the plant roots do what they have to do. There's one pump in one bucket at the bottom of that system all that water that runs through that system goes into that bucket that's where the one pump is. That one pump sends that water through a tube right back into the fish tank. Gravity pulls that water right back up into the receiving tube that runs the water naturally through gravity. It goes through the system roots clean it out, it flows right back through the pipe to the pump right back up into the fish tank again.

Chris Zatarain  3:52  
Using aquaponics technology Charles has developed a sustainable growing system that provides him and his family with abundant nutritious produce year round. In many ways, this aquaponic system has proven more effective and efficient at growing a greater quantity of food in a small space than traditional in ground gardening.

Charles Collins  4:12  
Let's say three cucumber plants whatever it is will be like that in aquaponics that same cucumber plant takes up a four inch radius four inches away from that you can have another cucumber plant four inches away from that you can have another cucumber plant so instead of having three cucumber plants in that same three by three foot area and have 12 of those are cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, three by three foot space. We have 12 cherry tomato plants and a three by three foot space. We had a gardener come and look at those cherry tomato plants and on the naked eye said right now you have over 2000 ripe tomatoes on these plants. It was a three by three foot space.

Chris Zatarain  4:54  
Results like this seem almost unimaginable and I couldn't help but wonder how is this system so prolific.

Charles Collins  5:02  
In aquaponics we teach folks that plants typically for the most part, don't tell the temperature by their leaves. They tell the temperature by their roots. They show the impact of the environment by their leaves. It's too cold. It's too hot. Well but the roots. The roots tell you their health tell you what they like what's going on. Well in aquaponics we can kind of manipulate that growth cycle on a plant because even all the ambient temperature outside especially in the desert, maybe let's say it's 30 degrees right above the rocks and the aquaponics it's not 30 degrees right about the rocks. It's about 64 degrees and right above that but where you get to the roots, the water is actually 70 to 74 degrees. So according to this plant, it's not winter, it's spring, it's time to pour some new growth and it keep going and going and going and going and going and going.

Chris Zatarain  5:49  
Another thing to think about with aquaponics is water use and water retention. As the name implies, the whole system is dependent on water to function. Charles is growing his garden in the middle of the Sonoran Desert in southeastern Arizona where water is precious and scarce. How does an aquaponic garden use water effectively and efficiently? The answer lies in the design.

Charles Collins  6:14  
Even if the top of the lava rocks get hot in the sun, the bottom of the lava rocks are in water the lava rocks aren't really going to transfer the heat. Lava rocks are pretty cool about that. So you have the root sucking up to that bar you have the lava rocks and unexposed water not being evaporated. The roots are sucking it all up and it's going into the root. This water that we're calling is providing the same amount of food that you would on a 16th to an eighth of an acre of land. We're doing this at four times the growth rate four times the size of produce in the sun is providing all of our power and all of our cooling

Chris Zatarain  6:46  
An abundance of fresh water conscious produce is not the end of the story though. There's still the other half of the aquaponic system. The fish, a small colony of tilapia lives in the water tank attached to the garden. They provide valuable nutrients to the plants and sustainable protein to Charles and his family. Charles has a very special relationship with each of the fish that he raises in his aquaponic garden.

Charles Collins  7:12  
There's no abuse. I could never picture it. I would smile waking up in the morning knowing I was going to see them and I know fists don't smile, but I know they were happy to see me man. I know they were they could hear my footsteps when I originally started aquaponics it was going to be every 6,7,8 months harvest out the fish bring new babies and start the process because this is like a battery. When I realized that I said this can't be that. We're all here for a purpose. We're all here for a reason. I have to respect that. And then it went from a respect to an appreciation to a true love to an adoration of the fish. It was a true ceremony. Because we went through a journey together. We grew together during this process. And when I harvest those fish and my family takes in those fish and the fish provide us nutrition and it makes us smart and it makes us stronger. That cycle continues and that vicious light is is appreciated even down to the bones. Bones are broken down we actually bury them and that's something that the Native Americans used to do and in sub Saharan Africans to try as people did as well because we know it comes back to the plants and trees make the plants roots stronger again I appreciate that fish.

Chris Zatarain  8:22  
What started as a personal passion project for Charles soon exploded when a professor from the University of Amsterdam came across his work one day.

Charles Collins  8:34  
Dr. Light contacts me and he says Charles the world needs your message. He said I've been trying to call you all day Charles I've been trying to call you all day. He says I know you don't know me. I'm Dr. James Lake from the University of Amsterdam. He said said so many things that you're doing are at the precipice of science. Let's show the world this can be taught lets show the world there's no reason for anyone to go hungry. You can change the world you can.

Chris Zatarain  9:00  
Since then, Charles has been on a mission to educate and inspire members of his own community and people around the world to start growing their own food using aquaponics. His outstanding work and contributions to science have even caught the attention of large entities like the US government, the World Health Organization, and even NASA contributing to the improvement of life on Earth as well as the Artemis mission on its journey to the moon.

Charles Collins  9:27  
The World Health Organization accepted it the Environmental Protection Agency accepted it now it can be implemented 

Chris Zatarain  9:34  
All of a sudden his little backyard garden in Tucson Arizona was helping to propose potential solutions to global problems.

Charles Collins  9:43  
And they were asking, Well how could we do this system in Africa? Electricity is sparse. How could we do this? So I said well, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna think of the system that we're having. We're gonna say okay, if this was Africa, how can we do this system, people wouldn't even have time to have the hands on an aquaponics garden. Like I love having hands on even though it's totally automated. I love having hands on because I love that contact with nature. Well, the average person in Africa, if they're working, they're working 16,18 hours a day. They don't have time to have their hands on one thing that you will need was that water pump because we're using active aquaponics that water needs to be pulling through the system. But how would you power that water pump? That's where we bring in a solar panel. That one pump is only 15 Watts, so you don't need a powerful solar panel that can be subsidized. You also don't need to have this water running. Through your system at night. Therefore that eliminates any 24 hour power source. What you need to be able to do is monitor that system. Now although there may be energy shortages all throughout Sub Saharan Africa, the one thing there aren't are cell phone shortages. The vast majority of people have cell phones. If you have a cell phone you can monitor that system. If you can monitor that system. You can go to work, you can work your 14,18 hours a day, because now you can control the few mechanical devices that you have. They're all powered by their solar panel through your phone. It's being able to monitor it. Anything you can do hands on front upon bah, bah, bah. You can do it from your phone. You can monitor the temperature system from your phone, you can do all of this from your phone. If we can do it in a Tucson desert using the same elements using the same materials that they have readily available in Sub Saharan Africa. They can do it in sub Sahara Africa. That's where Dr. James Lake came in again. He said we have to show the world that we're doing this in a Tucson desert. Now there's no excuse and we'd show them all the scientific data and approved concepts of how we're doing this with everything they've asked for. The proof is in the pudding. It's in writing now.

Chris Zatarain  11:39  
Charles is also working to promote the use of aquaponics through his nonprofit business called Together We Grow. There he provides free educational content as well as starter kits and supplies to make getting started easy and accessible. He is also working with the online streaming platform brick TV to produce a documentary series about sustainable gardening around the world. Also called together we grow. Throughout all of his work and sustainable gardening. He's making one thing abundantly clear.

Charles Collins  12:10  
This technology is for everyone. The knowledge is for everyone. The technology is for everyone.

Chris Zatarain  12:17  
You can follow Charles and the important work that he's doing and sustainable gardening. Learn more about aquaponics and watch for updates on the documentary series at togetherwegrowaz.com. Here's to a brighter, greener and more equitable food future for all of us