Now I have it over a barrel!

So I wanted to go outside with my gardening this year and decided to put together a small aquaponic system.

Since we are still renting I wanted it to be modular and easy to move.

I wanted a small footprint, but I wanted to be able to grow some bigger veggies.  

My mom had four blue barrels she had given to me from when my stepfather was planning to do an aquaponics system. One of the barrels was even already cut open on one side so that it would make a nice tank.  My step father had been planning to cut the barrels vertically and make the more traditional clamshell style grow beds, but I didn't want the extra cost and fuss with having to make a rigid frame to keep the sides from bowing out.  I had even been thinking about cutting the ends into shorter tubs and making a vertical garden more like my indoor garden is configured.  But in the end I decided with the extra cost of the much bigger PVC  needed for building towers, and the fact that I really wanted to be able to plant larger plants so I wanted open space above the growing beds.  

So now back to thinking about my design considerations, if I go with the clamshell design I get almost twice as much grow area but then I would still have to build a rigid frame.

If I cut the barrels in half horizontally then I'll only end up with about six square foot growing area using both halves......  unless I used the sides too! 

I had previously seen a few projects where people had cut pockets in the sides of barrels and made Garden Towers or by adding sprinklers inside and making it into a aeroponic system.  By putting in the pockets I am adding an additional 9 square feet to each half of the barrel, giving me a total growing area of 24 square feet, quadrupling my grow area.  

Nice, I think I'm good with that!

And I still have two more barrels I can add in.  

So what do you think?