Benes Companies

Hi! Tenay here. I gotta jump on here to share one of my absolute favorite product lines from a company I have just recently discovered: Back to the Roots. They have the most fool-proof herb, plant, and aquaponics kits for your children (and yourself) to learn about how to grow your own food!

I discovered them when I found their aquaponics tank at Goodwill, bought it as a family Christmas gift last year, and the rest is history.

Their aquaponics tank is designed to simulate a small ecosystem. Our lone, male Betta fish lives in the bottom, and we feed him 5-10 fish food pellets per day. He swims amongst his Betta buddy plants and into his little cavern (neither of which are included in the kit). The water circulator draws his tank water up to feed the roots of the plants growing on top. I guess his fish pee has the nutrients they need to grow. On top, we grow wheatgrass and radish microgreens. We LOVE pulling a few out and chewing on them along with a fresh tomato from our food garden. We added two purple grow lights because the tank is in a darker part of the house (which are also not included in the kit).

Admittedly, our first Betta fish died because we didn’t acclimate him to his new environment slowly enough. Lesson learned, so we got all the water testing kits to make sure the environment was good. Then—and here’s why I’m writing this post right now—I reached out to Back to the Roots with a question about the water circulator could have possibly killed the fish. They assuaged my fears with a prompt, clear explanation, then sent me a free restart kit with all new seeds, filter, and fish food so that we could try again.

I did just as their instructions said and the new fish is doing GREAT!

I’m now a customer for life.

That’s why I was so glad to see their products at Target, from where I then got our kid a strawberry plant.

It felt like touch and go in the beginning, but this plant eventually began to thrive and we LOVE watching it grow everyday!

My kid excitedly brings me to the tank or the strawberry plant every week to show me what the plants are doing now! I LOVE using these kits to empower her to grow her own food in the future! In our uber-suburban life, I am so happy to be able to practice some urban homesteading as a family.

Thanks for listening to my joy about this company that helps me improve my environmental health. Which of their kits would YOU like to try?