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.
[Homestead] Chinampas de Oro,
WILLIAM JONES, 06/20/2012