Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Your build is coming along nicely Rob. I like the new caterpillar tunnel grow beds. If you have the plastic raised and it rains water can collect in the folds. If you roll the plastic toward the inside you can avoid this but my summers are very dry so I usually don't bother. Sometime the plastic can slip, you can use small plastic spring clamps (from Harbor Freight) to hold the plastic up if friction alone isn't getting the job done (or you can adjust the rope tension so friction does work).

Thanks Scotty, this first bed that I am testing it on will be our tomato and pepper bed this year, they are already too big and need to be planted so I'll be planting them this weekend, so the caterpillar tunnel will just ensure if we get frosty nights the plants will be OK... it looks like our lows are moving up so it's lows in the mid 40's now and going up from there, so hopefully they will be OK, but we still have at least a couple of weeks before it really gets past the threat of frosty nights.

I need to go back and look at how you attached the ends of the plastic, I think you just tied the ends tight right? For now I have a board screwed on holding the ends, but then it makes it difficult to roll them up since the ends don't move. I was able to roll them up enough last night to be able to get in and add screws to hold string and have squared off the bed to try and organize my plantings... my wife thinks that since I'll be watering the beds with the high nutrient fish water that the tomato and pepper plants will be OK if we do square foot planting (actually 12" x 18" when I split the bed in half lengthwise), but it was kind of a pain having it there, so it would probably be nice to just tie the ends off so I could push it all the way to one side or the other depending on what side of the bed I'm working on...

I will probably remove the plastic some time in June because I plan to put a trellis over top of the bed for the tomato and pepper plants to trellis them up, I'm sure they will be taller than what the plastic will allow for so I'll have to remove it for summer... this is the other reason my wife figured square foot planting would be OK is we plan to trellis them fairly high so they grow up rather than out.

The other beds will probably get planted this weekend too because they will be more cold tolerant stuff (beans,peas in one bed, radish/beets in the other bed), then all we have to plant directly in the ground will be added closer to June when we normally plant.

I finished putting all of my trout in the freezer. Now I am slowly moving more and more tilapia out to the greenhouse. I ended up putting one of my heaters in the water to try and help warm it up because the water temps are still dropping nightly seems how our air temps are still down in the 40's and 50's at night.

I built three more raised beds in the garden, this is an old pic after I built them I didn't take one after this past weekend when I filled two of them up, have to finish filling the last one when I get time. I added a 4ft tall welded wire fence around the garden to help deter the deer, rabbits, and raccoons. I still need to pick up two 4x4 posts to mount my gate on, and will cover the gate in welded wire too because I just bought the cheapest tube gate I could (about $60). The garden area I fenced off is 44ft x 46ft, we most likely won't use all of it this year because we will do most of our planting in the raised beds, the only things that won't be in raised beds are gourds and other spreading vine crops (cucumbers/pickles) I think with 6 raised beds (12ft x 3ft for each bed) we should have enough space to plant everything else.



We already have tomatoes and peppers in the low tunnel raised bed, then we planted one raised bed with almost all beets for my wife but then some turnips too, the third raised bed we have carrots, onions, radish and garlic planted in. Then we have 3 beds left to plant.

Normally we go to my family's cabin over Memorial weekend, but I think we are staying home this year because my wife has something going on Friday night, then it sounds like they are having water problems at the cabin right now, replaced the well pump but still unable to get water in the cabin so think we are just going to stay home and get some projects further along this weekend. I need to butcher my chickens this weekend because they are all 8 weeks old now and will start dying if they get much bigger, so my weekend will be bloody. Hopefully I can get some work done on some other projects over the long weekend too.

Sorry I didn't see your question earlier Rob. Yes I use a rope and tie the ends but I'm using rebar so I tie it to the center two rebar and tuck in the end. Doesn't look like you have this option but it is normal for the plastic to not raise as high near the end of the caterpillar tunnel the way I have it. The clips help with this since they counter the tendency of the plastic to slide down. The plastic will stretch a bit over time and you may need to re-tighten it.

I finished filling the last grow bed that I have built yesterday. We still have a LOT of dirt left so I am thinking I might build one more to move our strawberries into to make a walkway from the greenhouse to the garden without having to walk around, plus I think it would help protect them from the critters who like to steal them (assuming raccoons) and I also thought about digging up all of the asparagus we planted on the far side of the barn and putting it in a raised bed too where we don't need to fight weeds.

I knocked one small project out yesterday, we had bought a few small fence boards to replace a nasty old lattice guard that was around our a/c so I got that off my list yesterday, and I butchered a few chickens.

Today's projects will be getting the gate hung for the garden and more chickens and then whatever else I feel like doing.

We normally go to the cabin Memorial Day weekend but staying home to work on projects this year.

Sounds like a productive weekend over there. Halfway into the weekend finds us in the same boat. Feels like a lot of little projects until night comes and we're beat. In between writing and posting here and on Fishlore his morning I decided I'd better make a list for today... OMG, haha. More coffee.

I should make a list too. So far I got the posts set and gate hung for the garden. I thought I had some fencing staples left but I can't find them so I need to pick up a few more to finish attaching the fence, then I need to put a piece of fence on the gate to help close it off to keep the small critters out.

-garden fencing
-Greenhouse siding
-build another raised bed/move more dirt to fill it
-put down landscaping fabric in garden
-rototil garden for spreading plants that won't be in raised beds
-butcher chickens
-move tilapia to greenhouse
-clean fish tanks/fish room
-sand drywall

Hmm that's all I can think of right now... I'm on break because the kid was out with us while we were working on the garden and got really fussy so we came in and had lunch and got him to take a nap, so I'm on the sideline listening for him to wake up while my wife tries to get some flowers planted, finish planting the raised beds, and roundup weeds because it's supposed to start raining in a couple hours so she was hoping to get it done before it rains.

Funny you should mention lists this morning... We're doing the same here:
Nell and I are working on a to do list for today.
1: Electrical - adding another circuit to the house addition. This one is in the new walls built yesterday around the vanity in the Powder room.
2: adding GFI power outlets for exterior lighting.
toilet area vent with timer.
3: Wiring five new overhead lights and corresponding switches in addition.
4: Wire five new power outlets in addition. Kind of a pain because they'll be run from the attic. I'll need Nell's help to tell me if I have the wire long enough to reach each outlet so I don't need to keep coming down to check every length. (Can't overdo her workload either.)
We're already tired and aching working on that concrete floor in there. We did shop with Don Price at his carpet store and see some spectacular carpets with super thick piles which will dampen the impact of our new rooms.
Might be able to accomplish some of this and maintain some energy levels between us.

Hmm four dead trees that I need to cut down need added to my list.

At least my list sounds more fun than yours Brian. Yours sounds like work, mine at least has a little fun involved in it. It looks like the thunderstorms stayed south of us, not looking like we will get rain now, so now I'll have to haul the hose back out to the garden.

absolutely yours sounds like more fun. Attic work sucks. I already need to make a run to the hardware store for more boxes as I keep finding a few more places I need power. At least they are cheap and this will give a needed break.

Yeah I don't mind electrical work but no fun crawling in attics. We have been in our house almost three years and I've only gone up in our attic once. The next time I go up there I need to run electric up there to add lights, the bad part is the only access is through our master bedroom closet, so I have to take all of our clothes out then take the shelves down I added, then crawl up in the attic. The one time I went up there was to change the vent fan in one bathroom, I need to change the vent fan in the other bathroom but as much fun as the first one was I don't want to do the second one... Maybe I can sneak up and change it when we have the roofers out to replace our roof.

It's tough because the whole center of our attic is claimed by the solar heater pump and plumbing so I have to crawl alongside it and can't even sit up because it's too short where I have to crawl. Then the vent fans for the bathroom are out towards the outside of the house, I changed the one closest to the center, the other cant have much room at all to get at it another four feet over towards the outside of the house.

I didn't get much more completed today by the time the kid woke up, I did cut the boards for one more raised bed, but didn't have time to assemble it. So that is on the list for tomorrow. My wife did manage to get the other raised beds planted. And she planted all of the flowers she had started in the greenhouse so now I have a little more room to move around in the greenhouse.

What the heck is wrong with a builder who'd put the attic access in the closet? Dopes must have never had to try and use one like that. Well I am not far off from that.I forgot to remove the temporary door from the old section of attic to the new. The piece of wood from the door almost went through the newly installed drywall in the new bathroom when I hit it with a big hammer, doh! More taping and bedding for me.

I don't quite know Brian... I think my house was built in 1971, I wasn't born until 1985, something about probably four decades between us (assuming the builder was in their 30's, maybe more if they were older when they built my house) that makes it difficult to understand what they were thinking

In between working on our addition we're watching Property brothers. It always fascinating to see and hear how awfully constructed many remodels were done. Somehow it ought to get a bigger rise out of us as we don't finish anything because of budget and time constraints, but it doesn't. I am doing better with each construction project after doing this work over a period of decades all the while living in the house. Goals today, never hide electrical junctions and think like a drywaller and remember all the friggin' nailers! hehe. Oh yeah try and have fun while working so the reveal gets more than raised eyebrows.

The thing that bugs me about shows like Property brothers is they are so ridiculously high priced on everything. How about making a show that real people might be able to budget for some of the things you show... yeah we're looking for a two bedroom house in the hood with a 10 ft by 10 ft yard and 50 houses within a quarter mile, but we can only spend $650,000 on it so that means we're going to have to buy this total dump for $300,000 and then remodel it to stay under budget. Now we're going to buy this toilet that costs $4,000 because it uses half as much water as the other toilet does, oh crap we have to replace the wood under the toilet? There goes our budget! That'll cost us another $15,000!