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["WILLIAM JONES" <billj AT harborside.com>]

I made my first chinampa this year.  It's an Aztec floating garden that sits 
on top of a pond.  We used an old PVC frame that I made to prop up a 
terrarium cover.  It wasn't buoyant enough after all, so now it hangs from 
the poolhouse roof, and I even packed styrofoam waste under it to help buoy 
it up.  Anyway, I placed some (free) apple and plum whips across the frame, 
and laid down a layer of (free) moss, then dumped on some (free) algae from 
the pond, and ended with a bag of old sheep manure compost.  If I had it all 
to over again, I would have made two H-shaped piers and tied them together, 
so that the wood was level with the water.
I then planted it up with the following species:
Red Malabar Spinach
Green Malabar Spinach
Chinese Artichoke
Ong Choy
Bok Choy
Watercress
Celeriac
Japanese Bunching Onion
Rau Ram
Purslane
I have some okra to transplant onto the pier structure once it's built, and 
next year we want to do corn.