Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Elsewhere we've got passion fruit, peaches, pears, plums, apples, nectarines, citrus and all sorts of veg in the raised garden beds: Carrot, Leek, Spring and normal onion, beetroot, snow peas, red and green cabbage, basil, tomatoes, strawberries, Capsicum, eggplant, fennel, herbs.



The Passionfruit is loving being planted next to and growing over the chook house, its going absolutely boonta and loaded with fruit!


Have 2 different sorts of peaches planted, both a normal fuzzy round peach, and a flat peach, this is the developing flat peach fruit (var. China Flat)



Loving the weather at the moment, just wish it was a little more stable in regards to water temperature.

Have got contacts with a local barra hatchery, so going to be sourcing replacement stock for summer in the next couple of weeks once the water temp is steady above 20C

Your yard is packed with goodness graf. Well done.
Brian

So the time finally came to harvest my first seasons trout. The weather warmed up yesterday and overnight the water didn't drop below 24C with a forecast is 37C today!

From the Dozen starting at the beginning of the season (went in on 27th May, 7 months + a couple of days) I had 100% survival, only 11 in the pics as smoked one a couple of weeks back as a trial.

Size/weight ranged from 24cm/180g to 30cm/350g cleaned/gutted. average weight was 270g (just shy of 3kg of cleaned fish using 5kg of pellets over the time).


Very happy with the outcome! now its time to put in some Barramundi fingerlings and see how they go over summer. will be looking at ways to keep the water warm at the end of the season, perhaps finding a second hand solar pool heater system might be the go.

Glad I pulled the fish out when I did, Thursday morning dawn water temp was 24C, and evening water was 29C. Daytime Air Temp max was 39-40C and forecast for today isn't much cooler.

Spoke to local Barra hatchery, they have no fingerlings available till 2nd week in Jan and even then they will only be ~50mm by the sounds. so I'm weighing up options of over summer feeding system with Charlie Carp.

Any suggestions?

That is some very nice looking fish.

The Dolores river is very well known for its fly fishing. But you can not find trout for sale in any of our grocery stores.

Thanks gnoib, they are so very tasty also. I got a smallish freestanding smoker as a Christmas present, cold smoked with alder wood chips 4 of them on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas) when we had family fly in, so sweet and moist!

I'm running the AP on Charlie Carp now as no Barra fingerlings till mid Jan, I won't be able to keep water warm enough for grow out before the weather turns so I'll keep feeding with CC and then put in trout as the water cools down.

Everything is growing great guns in both the AP and dirt, here are some pics from a couple of days ago.

Soil beds and fruit trees are doing well, apricots all ripened and eaten, as are the early peaches and cherries. Nectarines and flat peaches are yet to ripen. Been thinning the carrots, pulling baby beets, picking strawberries, watching the cabbages heart up, eggplants and capsicums and tomatoes grow, fennel and coriander bolt to seed and spring onion seedlings fail All in all things are going well.

Here's the basil, across the whole wicking bed, Tomato in the foreground and behind. As a point of reference the standpipe is 75mm (3") diam.


A nice sized AP grown Brandywine (Beefsteak type) tomato, easily 100mm (4") across, these guys can grow to be around 500-700g each (1-1.5lb)!

Got back today from a family week away to find the garden devastated by the record heat (35C/95F, 38C/100F, 46C/115F), tomatoes literally fried even the aquaponics ones got burnt bad, as was the passionfruit, one of the plum trees. 2 of the Zucchini plants were literally ashed!

We also lost 6 of our 7 chooks to the heat, neighbors were looking after them but the heat just got too much

shoit thats bad. What can one say......its been a crappy couple of days but to come home to that ....oh joy, oh jay, oh jubilat... SHIT THE F UP

That's not good bl@@dy heat

If your trees lose all their leaves paint the bark with white water based outdoors paint it will protect them from getting bad bark sunburn (fatal)

New shoots will come through the paint

We have lost a few of the newer natives and a 2 metre banksia

Brutal. We are experiencing record colds while you are getting friend from high temps.

Thanks for the tip Terra, hopefully they'll pull through. Sorry to hear about your plant losses also.

Time to restock the AP system, the weather is turning cooler and i'm running out of Charlie Carp!. Tooperang has fingerling trout available ~7" @$1.50 so I'll be picking up a couple Doz next weekend, this weekend is too warm I think, and the Caravan & Camping show is on...looking for a replacement campertrailer setup!

Have had a battle with a local fruit rat recently. He finally met his maker last night after dodging traps for a couple of weeks whilst demolishing 2 cabbages, and all ripening tomatoes that survived the furnace a couple weeks ago. Hopefully that's the only one, time will tell I guess.

On a side note, does anyone know of a source for Skretting floating pellets in Adelaide? Used the Lauke pellets last season which worked OK, but would like to try floating ones this season.

Time to start thinking about autumn/winter veg to go in i guess, GB's are lightly planted as the nutrient load is very light but that will change once the fish go in again!

On a side note, the fruit trees have started to spring back, the plum I thought we might lose has got new growth, as have the pears. Might have lost the lowest espalier branch of one of the pears, its looking very shriveled, will give it till spring and see if it reshoots, i'll bud graft in a replacement bud as a backup anyway.

Have you tried "Mark Lee fish farm" for feed

Ask Tooperang

I get my feed from where I buy my fish (Skretting feed)

Ive just put "All seasons cauliflower seeds in my starter set up " going to try earlier this time (still learning what to grow here and when) , here I recon brassicas need to be finished by end of august.

I don't grow many Caulis in AP as they take up a lot of room for a long time .

Ive also put in some Kang Kong in here and there to keep the beds full

Ive got one bed full of broccoli seedlings.

Last two cold seasons ive used peas to keep on top of nutrient they grow great but must trellis them or they turn into a jungle mess.

Hope your trees come good it takes long enough to establish them without set backs.

I would love some trout but be too early here (possible heat waves)

Need to keep water temp records so I can get an idea of when I could get some , I have an insulated room with aircon on the end of my shed so could run a little RAS in there for awhile . The aircon would help on the occasional hot day through march, (I have 10Kw solar)