Aloe Vera

[Claudio J Tracchia]

I was surprised by a video of Murray Hallam were He shows a aloe vera growing in a gravel bed I tried on my raft system and wasted a few plants I guest the way to go on aloe vera is by  flood & drain. 

A tip for the lady's if you have those little red veins in your ankle ares, rub the gel of aloe vera and in a few days they will be goon. Aloe vera penetrate the skin 5 times deeper than water, Ask my wife.

[TCLynx]

aloe does well for me in gravel beds.

[Claudio J Tracchia]

Yes for what I see gravel is the only safe way to go at this time, I experimented in raft and wasted  my wife aloe vera maybe the system was to young at that time but I can't get near the plant she have left , she looks at me very ugly.

[TCLynx]

Aloe needs lots of aeration to their roots, too much water without enough air and the plants just rot.

[Claudio J Tracchia]

Thanks for your help TC, Aloe vera is the plant to have in every home, we used it for everything mosquito, fire ants bites, skin rashes and others I have a mild psoriasis and wen I get an up brake the only thing I use is aloe vera  the wife used it for varicose veins, and that is what got us into aquaponics really we want to have a set up of medicinal herbs and plants don,t know much about it but we got tons of books for medicinal herbs. the question is adapt them to aquaponic and making mistakes like I did  is painful because this plants are dificult to find and take time to develop. I have talk to many Latin americans aborigens and all the thing they tel me and the knowledge they have is wonderful, See am a industrial service technician a wrench turner if any body want to build a system and make it tick like a Swiss watch am the guy but wen it come to botanic am dead. Taltk to you later.. CJ

[TCLynx]

Well, I got lots of aloe, it seems to grow well for me.  Where I am I find it best to give them at least partial shade when growing outdoors and they seem to do very well in gravel beds and I've even had some do well in a constant flood gravel bed though flood and drain is probably best for them.

 

Another medicinal herb (as well as being edible) is plantain (the lawn weed) I find it really handy to have some leaves washed and frozen in a ziplock in the freezer.  Whenever I get a bad sting I use the nice cold frozen leaves as a poultice on the sting.  that stuff is good for healing and the husks around the seeds are used to make one of the fiber supplements on the market.  They grow well in aquaponics too and they would probably do well in the raft bed, I've grown some in my NFT pipes.