Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have some tulips that I planted a while back that are doing pretty well. Notice I have a couple aphid volunteers to keep track of their growth.

This one is trying to send up multiple shoots at once, I wonder if it will have multiple blooms? That would be awesome, I love tulips. I have not ever had success growing them in the dirt though, we have too many critters that think they are tasty or they will be coming up well and then we have a snow that wipes them out. So I am excited about these ones.

The avocado is doing well and sending out 2 new shoots.

A cucumber has come up nicely.

I am looking to see if my carnation will root up or not.

And I read somewhere that Aloes will do well in in AP so brought a few that were over growing one pot and put them in to see what they think, so far they seem pretty happy. I think I planted them about 4-5 days ago.

Today, more hydroton washing is on my list of to do items, I have a little washing system set up in the greenhouse so it won't be too cold to do. I found it goes very quickly by filling a half blue tub about 1/2-3/4 full of water, dumping in an entire bag of hydroton, giving it a swish around and let it set a bit. Then using a 5 gallon bucket that has a good number of holes in the bottom to scoop it out of the water and have a small board for it to sit and drain on while I take a larger fish net and scoop up additional to fill the bucket. Then pour it into the beds. I did 10 bags in a couple hours the other day and was changing out some PVC fittings and cutting drilling the stand pipes at the same time.

I did learn I want to do 2 things when I am washing it though.
1. Don't overfill the barrel with water, because hydroton will run over the edges with the water easily.
2. Sweep floor before playing with hydroton to save time picking out debris when picking up hydroton off floor.

My thoghts are you are asking for trouble putting worm castings in the growbeds i would get them out asap
A few worms in the beds is a better idea

Thanks for your suggestion. Is this because the worm casts will hold too much moisture? Or is it another reason? I hope you can please forgive my ignorance.

I have raised red worms for years. I know they breed easily and quickly if there is food for them to eat and more than one of them together. I guess I had jumped to the conclusion that if worms are in the system, they are going to eat, breed and make castings. And from the number of times I have already pulled up the plants to move them in adjusting our system, I am seeing plenty of broken off roots and leaves and such for them to eat, as well as a build up of the fish waste.
I have a fair sized area in each of the experimental beds that has a large quantity of fish waste that I think the worms would really like. So I see no way to keep the castings out of the beds if I put any worms in.

Are you suggesting that I need to clean out my beds frequently in order to keep any worm castings from building up? I really hope you are not since I am getting kind of tired of filling and emptying the beds already and I haven't even been cleaning them out, just moving them from bed to bed.
Thank you for your time to help me understand.

I put some worm castings in my beds to help get them started. Maybe if the amount put in was excessive the beds would clog.

Todd and Beth, I cannot tell you how excited I am to see an existing system in the Portland area. I have been wanting to build my own, have the land, I would love to visit with someone who has a little experience in this and see a working system.
Cheers!

The main reason is putting in castings like that you could get anerobic spots [we dont want that ] also its a spot were grubs bugs ect can congerate yes worms make castings they distribute them all over the bed
Your beds and worms will self regulate

The bed I put them in was one I need to still empty, change plumbing a bit and then refill. From being moved so frequently, I think is what is making the plants so weak to aphid attack. I think I put between 3-4 cups of castings around them up on top of the hydroton.
May I ask how much and how did you apply your castings? And was it in a manner that worked out well for you?
Thanks.

Hi hammajamma!
Well I would love to visit with someone who has a little experience too. I think right now the most we have to share would be what not to do. We would love to help you not make the same mistakes that we have. Right now, everything is a mess, but would welcome a visit in a couple months. Maybe by then we will have had enough warmer weather I could even have broken ground for our trout area. ok, maybe that was just a little bit overly optimistic.
Are you in the Portland area yourself? We are up in the West hills just off Skyline. It would make me laugh if we are neighbors and didn't even know it.
I think sometime this Summer we are going to go back to visit the Aprovecho system again, maybe if we hit it off well we could go together. Last time we went it was AP conversation all the way home from Cottage Grove. Those were the naive days, back when we still believed PVC fittings were only a few cents a piece.

Ahh! Thank you!
I need to empty this bed in a few days, I am in hopes the plants can grab a bit of extra nutrition before the move. In their current state, I don't think they will be strong enough to move again. I was really hoping to have them recover. I feel like it was me who talked Todd into doing AP and I have yet to grow anything this Winter that was actually edible and what I have grow/transferred has been greatly weakened and attacked by aphids.
Hopefully next Winter will be more productive with a seasoned system.
Thanks again for your time to help me understand.

Beth, we do not live in Portland proper but we do live on the broken crater rim that your house also resides upon, just 20 miles North in Warren Oregon. My office in a block from OMSI, so I spend the majority of my day in Portland.

About the same method as you. I just sprinkled some over the tops of the beds, then watered them in, just so they weren't sitting on top of the gravel. Probably about 3-4 cups per 4' x 3' bed. I think I did that twice in the beginning of the system along with a handful of red worms and seaweed extract for each bed. I would not do it now, but I figured my plants needed something to get started with. I agree with F&F, worms will self regulate.

I can't say for sure that it even helped. The only thing I've added where I could see a significant improvement was iron. I saw improvement within the first 24 hours with steady improvements over the next 2 weeks. Yellow leaves went green.

My plants were suffering quite a bit from being transferred about in the beginning. I probably could have avoided so much changing about if I had just stopped and tested the system as I went, it's just so exciting to get the gravel and plants in, who can wait? As a result my fall season harvest wasn't remarkable. I also got started at the wrong time of year, end of summer. I got big plans for this year though!

Learning what not to do is quite valuable. It's one thing to just follow someone's set of directions, not truly understanding why it will work only that way, and entirely another to understand those directions as guidelines through mistakes and hard earned experience. Still nice to have someone around who can help you avoid those (costly) mistakes.

Hehe I wish my wife would talk with me about AP during a road trip... If starting talking about AP, she might just jump out.

I yhink a visit to an operating system is a great help i have had a lot of visiters and i think the most used saying is [oh thats how you do it easy isent it ]

Sorry for the slow reply, my life went a little bonkers for a little bit.
Warren is a really nice area, I pass by every time I go to visit my mom in St. Helens.
I look forward to showing you our system in the future, hopefully we will be able to help you solidify your own ideas.

Oh, thanks! This is really encouraging and helpful to my understanding.
I have now taken the plants and moved them from the bed with the castings and got that cleaned up. Just the short time I had the castings there for them really helped, I think there is maybe 1/4 the amount of aphids or perhaps even less than that now on them.
I have been hesitant to add any worms yet since there has been so much put it together take it apart going on. I think I am finally happy with the beds, but going to give myself a week or so to be sure, then add some worms. I think I may thoroughly stir in a few handfuls down into the beds so there can be no anaerobic areas. I look forward to the system getting more established and better able to care for its own plants.
Some of the bulbs I planted, I think they are mini iris, they are taking off quick. Over an inch of growth in about 4-5 days. I couldn't resist making a seed blend of some of our favorite greens and toss them into a couple of the beds (no straight lines for me), this was about the same time I planted the iris bulbs and I already see some nice little roots on some of them.

I free choice feed ground deep water kelp to my horses, which ends up in part of my worm food then their castings. Do you think this would be something that I could add a small amount of to the beds once I get some worms in there to add some trace minerals?

I tried feeding whole sand shrimp to my sharks (my fantail goldfish) to try to add more trace minerals to their waste, but they didn't seem to have interest in them, so I tossed the shrimp to the worms, but think next time I will simply blend them up and then dry them at low temp and make some fish flakes for them. They still love the worms though and the single koi goes through an amazing amount of duckweed.

I so agree, it is so difficult to not be excited and not rush into things, but for me this is a good thing, because if it wasn't this way I would be completely over thinking it and we would never have an AP system.
Thanks again, I was worried about the castings.