Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My brew is only kits and bits and all malts and bits. The lager has a great fine head with citrisy undertones and a clean crisp finish. My amber ale has a great long lasting fine head on the pour that lasts all the way to the last drop. a very full bodied beer with the choc malts I steeped really coming through. similar to an irish ale and bloody nice! I can't wait until I can use my own AP hops in my brew!

In its own half barrel should be good. Will be interesting to see how they grow in the AP system

Come to think of it, I might try one myself. I have a half blue barrel sitting in the shed

G'day mate, thanks for the hospitality the other day, have you gone and bought one of them smokers yet?
And that homebew is awesome too! Should be even better after it's full bewing time!

Hops might even be something that would prefer a whole upright barrel like many trees or other large plants.

Quachy- I think I like you. Beets and hops I'm a fan of both. . . Hops are going to be one of my next projects, I'll have to keep tuning in to see how yours grow. Good to know about the root systems. . . I'll maybe give them a growbed all to themselves. . .

Will be getting the hops tomorrow and putting them in hopefully during the week. As for today, time for a cook up. Sourdough and sandwich loaf proofing, should be ready to bake by mid-afternoon. For lunch, homemade chicken nuggets!

Using free-range organic chicken breast and a homemade crumb recipe, the boys hoe into them like nothing else!

For the crumbs, I use rice cumbs and crushed corn flakes, seasoned with mixed herbs and salt. Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces, dip in a whisked egg mix (I used duck eggs), coat with crumbs and shallow fry (or deep fry) until golden brown. Drain then eat. Yummo!

Made these and then sliced nuggets in half and sat them on top of an AP salad washed down with homebrew. Ahhhhh life is good sometimes

Yummo....lunch at your hose from now on

Too far for me.

Thanks people! We got some wicking beds online over theweekend, some old apple crates for free (pretty damn good nick though), lined with black builders plastic, bottom half filled with straw, drainage slits cut out halfway up the crate, filled with dirt, sprinkle of blood and bone and pelletised manure, mix in well and water in. The dirt I put into the beds came from our dirt vegie garden. We have had a fair amount of rain over the past month and everywhere else bar the vegie garden is soaked right through. The reason....our neighbours damn pnie trees! The dirt has feeder roots riddled through it and the dirt is pretty much bone dry and no doubt void of much nutrients because of the trees. Some have said to ring bar the trees or dig a trench and cut the roots out, tempting let me tell you, but they are new neighbours and don't want to get on their bad side!

In anycase, we love the beds, they were in effect for free (except the builders plastic which is cheap as) and hopefully they will work well as wicking beds. The other ones I made from the redgum sleepers are doing very well. Haven't needed to water them at all over teh autumn and winter period - yes it has rained, I know and the real test will be this summer!

don't know what happened to the rest of my post?

Anyway, so now we have thre crates, one lined old water tank and 2 red gum beds. Hope to get another 6-10 crates soon to finish off the back dirt vegie patch. As many of you have said before (FF and others) wicking beds are a great compliment to our AP system and I have to agree!

Got a fair few people at work getting really interested in AP. The school is putting up a sustainability centre (which I am part of the commitee to set the sylabus up) and I am thinking an AP system might go well there!

Noice wicking beds and for getting other folks involved. I am trying but not getting much response. My new system should be more impressive when its finished and matured.

Thanks Richard. I am working with a guy who taught up in Horsham a few years back, (surname Currie). It's taken a little while up at work, but now with things moving the way they are with the new buildings, people are asking questions about what I do in my private time. This is good but I hope they want to teach from it and not use it as a show pony thing. Even if it is a show pony thing, at least some people will jump on board (I hope). Here's to trying!

Nice blog by the way

Hops!!!!!!!

Fuggles - Ales
Chinook - Stout
Hersbrucker - German Lagers

I have put 1 fuggles and 1 chinook into the ap system. I got one of each of them extra so I will put those into the dirt garden as well as the Hersbrucker. I figure they should grow fine in the dirt garden but the AP is a bit of an unknown. If they go well, the I will split the rhyzome of the hersbrucker to put one in the AP system as well nexy year. Very exciting!!!!!!!