Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I am only 41. I keep telling my wife I am in my prime but she does not look convinced.

I took my youngest down to the beach yesterday afternoon, and there were a few (old) windsurfers down there. I got chatting to them, and we reflected how we hung up our gear whilst kids took over our lives. We all had a 13 year period where the action stopped. Works out we all started sailing back in the early 80's and have sailed boards for 20 of the years in between.

Boards and sails look a bit different now compared to when I hung my gear up. Hopefully the mice haven't eaten too much of the sails, and time hasn't wrecked all my gear.

Will be looking after the kids during the holidays whilst the wife works, and will take the opportunity to get them on a board over the break when the winds are light, and then I can have a go when the sea breeze picks up.

Nice. I only had a chance to try windsurfing once when I was a teenager and I spent the entire time lifting the sail out the water and falling in. Got going a little but didn't get the chance to have a proper go. It looks like a really nice sport though - lots of fun and a good workout too. With the winds going on here if you tried it you would end up in the Bermuda Triangle I am sure.

The large gap between us and the next land mass, your old haunt, is the reason I don't sail on an land breeze. I have had equipment failure in middle of lakes, but at least you can paddle/swim/walk home, but its a bit harder out in that big Indian Ocean lake.

Lol. That is true.

My system is back in constant flood mode. Not because the siphons or bad growth, but because of those damn tomato roots!

I came out to check on my system and the bed looked very low in water, but the drain was still running. A quick check by removing the bell found roots all the way through the gravel guard. I gave it a twist to break loose some of the roots, but the mass is all the way around the guard. So instead of getting shitty, I have left the bell off and now I am running CF until the toms stop producing. Happy to let it run as it is, although I will probably lose my ginger plant to rot now?

Oh yeah, got over 3kgs of toms off my two plants this week. One day I picked over 800gms. Almost got enough to cook me up some sauce.

Did the pizza thing again last night, making bases from scratch. Made the dough after lunch, then let it sit for a few hours while I rearranged the shed, and then got the kids to stretch out the dough, and then put toppings on. Used chilli flavoured oil in the bases, Came out a treat. Last time I cooked the bases first, then put the toppings on later, just before eating, but the bases were a bit crispy. Alot better cooking them with the toppings on this time. Oven on full blast, took about 5 minutes to cook. Hopefully the big fella with the beard brings me a stone later this week, and I can have a crack on the kettle BBQ outside.

Overgrown Tomato plants surronded by gang buster chives.

Now that looks scrumptious!

Tell us if you get your stone, I just bought the OH a kettle BBQ for Christmas (hope he's not lurking - oops) because he likes the woodsmoke flavour, and I'm keen to see how pizzas go in there. I have a stone living in my oven that's due a replacement soon but perhaps I'll give it a go in the BBQ first I wasn't sure they'd get hot enough?

Sorry KM, The big guy didn't bring me a stone, so will have to go and get one myself. He did bring a raised garden bed for my little guy. Top of his xmas wish list was a raised garden bed, and Santa obliged. We have a crop of carrots in and he has a bucket load of seeds of other species planted.

In the AP I have continued getting loads of toms off my two plants, They look like death warmed up, but are producing a healthy crop of fruit. Xmas day I pulled off 2.8kgs and then yesterday another 1.5kgs. Have been making up tomato sauce with roast capsicum, and roast garlic.

Had to pull out two of the chive shrubs. I couldn't find my thyme plants. They are just too big and we don't eat that much. I have cut back to just one plant and it has freed up a lot of space. The root balls were massive, so I have put them aside to dry out so I can get my gravel back.

My mullberry tree is fruiting again???

Cleaned up my bed from the mess it had developed into. One tomato bush was knackered, so out it acam, and the other got cleaned up. Pulled out all the clumps of chives, pruned one and split up the root ball. The clumps are coming back to life after one week of recovery.

Ginger did not recover from the flooded bed. My system is back to flood and drain on a siphon.

The bed looks empty now, but I have cast a packet of lettuce seeds and a pack of snow peas, so hopefully I will have a sea of green shortly.

Got myself a pizza stone and fired up the kettle BBQ. Just filled her up with (clean) wood (I get that for free) and fired her up. After half an hour the flames died down and had heaps of coals. Chucked on the freshly made pizza, didn't pre bake the crust, just all on in one go, and had a lovely dinner.

The best pizza was my sons, a simple salami, anchovy and fresh tomato with mozzarella cheese. Mine had too much on it, salami, olives, sun-dried tom, capsicum, anchovy and cheese.

Yum Sounds delicious! I've just cleaned OH's BBQ for him yesterday and threw my oven stone in there before I put the cover on. Hoping it will be a not-so-subtle hint when he gets home

If he is anything like a typical male, you will need to have all the ingredients laid out in front of him, maybe some dough resting in a glass bowl, so he can see it and smell it proving.

My batch yesterday 3 cups of plain flour, 250mls of luke warm water, 1tsp of sugar, a pkt of yeast, 1tbs of olive oil grew to a football and made 4 great family sized pizzas.

Yeah, might need to place him in front of the counter where the stuff is too. He's not likely to move there on his own .

Sometimes, even that's not enough. Mrs Bee put the ironing board in front of my seat last night, and I still didn't get the hint.

I ask my self each week, Why was I so pedantic when I was in the Navy, needing my pants ironed perfectly. One tram line and she has never ironed a pair of pants for me in 20 years.