Food that is The FEAST Center is now producing food in an educational and research capacity. We 88 plants in Hydro Stand number 1. So far, the plants are looking good! There are some deficiencies we are working on remedying with quantity and spot checks and a variety of ways to fend off pests so that the amount of spray is at a minimum. I am not going to lie; it is not the friendliest of smells.

We were also kicking off our Harvest of the Month (HOM) project in June 2021! We will be offering a feature of a locally produced item; by feature, we mean showcasing the nutrients of the food along with recipes of fresh and preserved ways to use the produce and the cost connected to it. We will be using this project to share information and create projects in the schools. We will share this information in our capacity-building newsletter and virtual outreach here in Abaco.

We have our Tilapia fingerlings in our primary tank! We could let nature takes its course, which we have been doing – allowing the nitrites and nitrates to begin to appear naturally. However, we are ready to get into producing more food and have another 280 plants started and ready to move into the aquaponics system! We have brought in some nitrifying bacteria to speed up that process and get our closed-loop system producing vegetables of all kinds and growing those fish.

We also kicked off our Specialist Training Series with Randy & Sue Campbell of Perpetual Foods. The two-day workshop filled up within days with our intimate number of attendees. They have streamlined and created a simple…er approach to aquaponics. We are making it more adaptable for those interested in systems of various scales. With our focus on small shareholders and backyard farmers, we want to help with systems that work within their symbiotic relationship to create truly natural products. We are now working towards facilitating the adoption of our first system, both for backyard community gardens and for our first school adoption here in Marsh Harbor.

We have some exciting plans coming up in the next few months to allow Blue Atlas to have a more immediate and greater impact. We can’t wait to share more details with you.