Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

haha Snags no probs mate if you have a 4WD you could be here in 20 minutes through the national park heheheh maybe stop off for some fishing at wreck rock.... if you did that then a few hours.....

Ok well have been busy just made a ground garden ..... I found that the 350 beautiful sized fish that i killed a while back and stuck in a blue drum to mmmmm ferment...oh my it still had a lovely wafting heart stopping smell hehehehehe.... lucky i have a 15 yr old strong boy to save me getting too close hehehe..... well we poured that into the garden beds with a heap of chook poo sawdust and all the old dried tomato vines ....will be putting some straw through it when i go to town and get some....
So BACK TO APing..... My winter growth has gone ballistic.... tomato's are weeds in aquaponics hehehehe...... In these piccies you will see that its not real pretty as i have been broken for a while so little work was done on it and it was left to its own devices.... I have found quite a bit out still..... My lettuce that i cut most of the centre lettuce heart out of is now growing from shoots onthe sides..... Their are only 3 nasturtium plants 1 celery, some beets and fordhook giant and rainbow silverbeet growing in here and wholey maloney the cream and red flowered nasturtiums have gone STUPID.... Our celery has started growing a trunk again, the leeks have been cut and growing again.... the lemon grass has grown great seeing as i was only given 6 stems to start with about 3 months ago ......Pineapples are growing well but i will be taking them out and putting in the ground as i need more room hehehehehe........ Some of the chillies have died off from the colder water i would presume which i fine as the stronger ones are surviving well..... Garlic I have purple Monaro, silverskins, and Russian... they all have great root systems on them as I cant lift them out without a lot of force .....well as the French onions are booming.....


So here are a few piccies

and more

mmmm & MORE

here are some more winter growth piccies..... I have grown VETCH in the system as the fish arent eating as much so they arent doing their stuff.... The VETCH puts in over 100kg of Nitrogen from the air into the grow area of 1 acre.... I know I know I dont have 1 acre of AP but hey it all helps and is ESPECIALLY great when its free fertilizer hehehehe... I will be growing a few plants in each GB from now on.........

Tomato's are weeds in Our System hehehehe.....they come up everywhere and never stop growing even in the cold....

I am planting edible ground runnng plants and pretty flowers and nice smelling ground creepers to use the whole area efficiently

I dont mind getting caterpillars as they are well feed and the fish love them

Thats a lot of plant growth,.. What fish have you got in your system now DD?

We are Letting the tomatoes run ragged as once they are dead there is a heap of mulch and goodies for our ground garden..... and after all they are only just a filter for the fish

That and we cant eat all the tomato's we make even with 3 families on the farm and giving heaps away....thewormsget some the chhoks get some the pigs.....and so on

OH how many Bees can fit in 1 Nasturtium flower.....???? I counted 15 in this flower plus just as many on the underside

The wife wanted more of these flowers plants and the werent growing or multiplying in the ground well so i transplanted them into the grow bed mind you only had 2 plants in there 5 weeks ago now i have 6 or 7 and i thinkes they are gunna take over but thats alright as we want to grow them then plant them out all over the property

I think we still have about 3-5000 feeder fish they are randy buggers molly's and platy's.....

stil have 150 Jade Perch from our first buy....and another purchase of 750 jades plus somewhere near a heap of Yabbies in the sump tank.... Heap of apple Snails.... always a heap of aquatic snails.... most people dont like the aquatic snails but cause we use bore water mainly for top ups(which is good cause it kepps the ph up a little higher) and the snails use the calcium from the bore water so once they die their shells sit on the bottom and then dissolve all the while keeping the algae down .....Hey Joel I must really thankyou for PLANTING the seed in my head all those years ago even thought it has taken some years to get here...We are having fun and the Kids love going down and picking the fresh celery, shallots (not the chiilies hehe) and it helps when we are down there by ourselves just the wife and I and can relax with the sound of running water

Its not as pretty as it can be but give it a few more years and it will be our little oasis..... Full of goodies....

Baby sun rose flower- is this an edible plant, or did I misunderstand Double decker?

Yes the leaves can go into a salad..... They are very plump ....I have eaten the leaves and they arent bad just different juicey and thick and in a salad you dont really notice they are there when mixed with everything else.... I want to put plants in that us as westerners dont really know about but that can help sustain us if things go wrong....

Looking good DD,.. enjoyed reading ur whole thread.

Well you learn something new every day! We used to have that growing in the last house, the snails loved it. Here we don't have snails, it does make a great ground cover and borders on a succulent, time to give it another go. Thanks for that DD
Anyone local got a cutting they'd like to share?

thereare quite a few plants around that we just think of as weeds like the baby sun rose ... another one being in the purslane family ...Green purslane or golden purslane ....commonly know here in aus as pigweed.... in Rockhampton it grows in the footpaths..when we lived there we always used to pull the plant out andthrow it away hahahah thinkingit was anotherBLOODY WEED .... oh how google has changed us

Well let's headoff on another learning curve.....Water plant ie water chestnuts, Arrowheads and Pickerel Rush.... They by the sounds of it like to be on the waters edge just under the water so THIS is what ive done ....Planted them in 3 different positions to find out which is best ...I mean what else can we do but trial and error.... luckily i bought 25 waterchestnut corms but only 6 arrowheads(ie duck potato) and only 3 pickerel Rush plants mmmm I hope this works hehehehe .... oh well not as bad as killing 500 odd edible size Jades i Guess ... So I have taken some piccies to show everyone so that way they will see a running slide of them as they get bigger