Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Good morning!

Here is a starter list of "fast foods."

*Basil
* Cress
* Green Onions / Chives
* Lettuce
* Mustard greens
* Oriental greens
* Radish
* Scallions
* Spinach
*Swiss Chard 4-6 weeks, last all season tollerate light freezes.
* Turnip
*Water spinach/kangkong.

Sounds like a good start. I will be ordering some seeds tomorrow, so I know what to look for. I never heard of water spinach. Does it have a specific name?
Got to run to my first meeting. Catch you later.
Joyce

Dan, need more hot weather crops in that list. Basil and water spinach don't make a good list since the water spinach is big time illegal here in FL and just how much basil can one really eat?
Down here in summer lettuce doesn't grow. Ya still want to grow things that will be used by the people you are trying to feed. It might be worth planting sweet potatoes in those half barrels for the summer since they are good food for people and the tilapia will happily eat the leaves too. (People can eat the young leaves and vine tips too, good summer green here where it's too hot for lettuce.)

Kank Gong is one name for water spinach it has several names, but I think its like water cress in that its declared a noxious weed in the states. I may be wrong.

I have never grown sweet potato ,but plan to give it a try. If you can start eating the leaves within 30 days then it could qualify for fast food. Selecting plants that work in your climate is important.

If you got the space for them in AP, Summer squash and zucchini make good fast crops. Many of them can be producing in 40-50 days.

True once it gets going squash seem to be heavy producers. I currently having trouble with bugs killing mine.

Do you have a fast food thread going yet Dan? Perhaps we should take this discussion to such a thread.

Sweet potato vines can come up pretty quick and vine cuttings can root pretty quick in AP. If you go eating all the leaves though, you probably won't get very big sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are a pretty easy one though, you can eat the roots whenever they are big enough for you to bother cooking. They will be better if you can cure them for several days at 80-90% humidity at 80-90 degrees F and then store them for several weeks so the sugars can convert. Best baked in their skin for a fairly long time for the sweetest/healthiest to eat sweet potatoes.

Good Idea, I will start a thread for this in the plants section.

I need some help in finding a solution to a problem. First I had tomato worms bigger than I ever thought they grew. Now I have spider mites that have distroyed the whole crop of water cress and are moving to other plants. What is good to kill them and safe for the fish
Also, the squash has grown great leaves, had lots of flowers, but the fruit is drying up and falling off after getting only 1" long, and also turning purple and rotting.

Hum, perhaps you need more potassium to help the fruiting?

I'm not sure on the spider mites.

Perhaps sticky traps and/or chilli and garlic spray at least to deter them.

Hi TC, what is the best way to add potassium.

Potassium BiCarbonate Jessy... from wine making/suppliers... being a "bicarbonate" it will buffer your pH, quite strongly...

Or Maxicrop... seaweed emulsion...

You could use muriate of potash as well...

Or bury ripened, peeled bananas in your growbeds...

Maxicrop is good if you can find it. Sea water might also be a good addition for some trace elements.

However, if you can't find the maxicrop or potassium Bicarbonate, stop by Ace Hardware and get a bag of Murate Of Potash (potassium chloride) It is in those red and yellow bags along by the blood mean, bone meal and other basic gardening stuff. They have lately switched to plastic re-sealable bags instead of the old paper ones. A bag should last you ages and is probably only about $5.

I'd be interested to know if garlic spray or hot pepper spray has any effect on the mites.

good Luck