Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

All those little things on the leaves are bugs and eggs of bugs. I bought a pack of three kinds of bugs to get rid of them. It contained Live Lady Bugs, Green Lacewings and Praying Mantis Egg Cases.
The Live Lady Bugs were deployed right away and they looked like they would do a great job by themselves but in the next couple of days they were gone from the green house and scattered all over the place. Plants got worse.
Next I had the green Lacewings hatching and they ate a few and changed to adults and flew off also.
The Praying mantis are coming out at a slow rate and seem to do a better job but they are not plentiful. I got three egg cases and still I only see a few but they do eat lots. I dont get to see many of them. They really hide well. They move very quickly also.

What kind of plants have you got in there now, Don ? I have 3 or 4 tomatos, a pepper, a broccoli (I have enjoyed it a lot, my first time) and some onions. I planted a radish and ate some of its leaves in salads, along with some broccoli leaves. I ahd a bunch of lettuce, but its all toast now. Its been getting to 90°F here lately. I am now getting about 5 or so grape tomatoes each day.


I also had about 5.5" of rain one day a few weeks ago. I filled 2 42gallon blue drums, my 210 gallon tank, and two kiddie pools + assorted buckets. It hasn't rained since. I have used most of the water. Unfortuantely, I had a wad of algea clog up some piping and had an overflow which wasted all fo the water in my 210 !! 20% chance of rain 2 days in the next week.

You could probably place a small piece of plywood or something over each gutter to cover them up rather than changing to pipe to impede the algea growth.

I have trouble with my cats getting in everything and knocking stuff over all the time so it must be secured or it will just get messed up. I have both cherry toms and big ones growing. Cherries are producing now. still have some cabbage and cauliflower but is at its end. one barrel of mint overflowing. garlics doing bad.
I just started some celery its doing good. I could not start from seed. My wife just cut off a bottom from a store bought one and I put it in and it works wonderfully. So cut off about an inch off a celery and put it in. There was no roots or leaves or anything but it grew. Now we are eating celery.

Hows everything going Don?

Things are poking along slowly. I have been working on the house more than the garden so most of the stuff needs to be taken out and replaced with summer stuff. I have put in some tomatoes and some other stuff but not enough. just too busy. We have eaten 13 channel cats so far from the new big pond. They sure did taste good too. I have pics of some cleaned on a plate but have not fixed the pic yet so can not post yet.

I dont know how well all those bugs I bought worked. I have been over run with spiders which capture and kill everything in sight including my Praying Mantis. I started spraying vinegar around the outside of the beds and frames and plastic cover to drive off the spiders. Hope it does not send off everything else also.

NOw I am haveing trouble with grass hoppers in the Green house. They eat part of the fruits and the stems on the plants. They put big holes in the some of the leaves. My corn grew about 4 foot high and just tasseled out and now the grass hoppers are cutting off the tassels.No ears of corn tho.

I better get my own thread updated before I complain. Here are some pics of the tasty morsels out of my big pond. I put in 130 Channel Cats that I took out of my Ap Tank when I was releveling the tank after it floated and the bottom caved in under the tank and made it crooked. I still have 85 Blue Gills in the Ap and 2 huge cats.

#176 This was the first 3 fish we caught to eat out of the pond. Sure were tasty too. It sure was gratifing to finally get to eat one of the fish I grew in my own pond and Ap garden. My daughter came over to help eat the bounty.

#177 Wife and I caught this pair for dinner one day when we were wishing for something different from what was in the frige. Sorry no scale and no ruler available. Dinner was in a rush.

#178 My sister and her husband were here and our friend from town was here. We were five people in the last picture. All had fun catching a fish for dinner out of the big pond.

Love ya work Don

Kewl....

I have had a bout with the grass hoppers in my dirt garden. They are chewing up the plants I put in and are leaving the weeds alone. It is just not fair. They should eat the weeds so I don't have to deal with them. They eat my green beans leaves off and leave the beans alone. Won't get many that way. They eat the funny looking cantaloupe melons but leave the leaves alone on them. They eat the top of the ears of corn and chew off the tassel on top of a lot of the corn stalks. We got a good bunch of ears of corn for the cupboard this year anyway. However when I started digging up the corn plants the bugs I was trying to kill in the soil with the beneficial insects are no longer living in my garden so they did the job well. Did not find a single one this time. They should also kill the grass hopper larva as they are deposited in the soil.

PLUG HERE FOR BENEFICIAL INSECTS!!!

My Ap garden is not producing well and I think it is because of the high iron content of the water from my well, and high temps. I am about to change the supply to the outlet side of the sand filter for my house and hope the reduced iron content will help the plants do better. I think it also causes the PH to stay high like 7.8 to 8.2. The water stays very clear now.

I have found out that some seeds I have a real hard time starting, like celery, is easily done by getting some from the grocery, cut off about an inch off the end of the bundle, and put it in the bed just covered by the water when the bed is filled. A day or two later you have leaves and a bit later roots too. It makes a new plant really quick. But I thought I saw a problem with the fish so I salted the tank to 3ppt and the celery taste like it has been salted already. I had wondered where the salt went when it goes away, now I am sure it goes into the plants. No guess work anymore.

I tried a pineapple also. It seems to be a lot slower.

The garlic I grew seems to rot really fast. When the plants start to die pull them out. Onions did not work at all.

The cherry tomatoes are all staying skinny in the vines and producing smallish toms. I am trying beefsteak types now. They are only a couple of weeks old now.

Started more cucumbers a few days ago. they are starting to climb up the wire already.

Hi Rupe, How did the move go? ARe you set up again yet?

I just read this email and thought it might be interesting to some of you.
Gun-toting granny Ava Estelle, 81, was so ticked-off when
two thugs raped her 18-year-old granddaughter that she tracked the
unsuspecting ex-cons down... And shot off their testicles.
"The old lady spent a week hunting those men down and,
when she found them, she took revenge on them in her own special
way," said Melbourne police
investigator Evan Delp.
Then she took a taxi to the nearest police station, laid the
gun on the sergeant's desk and told him as calm as could be:
"Those bastards will never rape anybody again, by God."
Cops say convicted rapist and robber Davis Furth, 33, lost
both his penis and his testicles when outraged Ava
opened fire with a 9-mm pistol in the hotel room where he and former
prison cell mate Stanley Thomas, 29, were holed up.
The wrinkled avenger also blew Thomas' testicles to kingdom
come, but doctors managed to save his
mangled penis, police said. "The one
guy, Thomas, didn't lose his manhood, but the doctor I talked to said
he won't be using it the way he used to," Detective Delp told
reporters. "Both men are still in pretty bad shape, but I think
they're just happy to be alive after what they've been through."
The Rambo Granny swung into action August 21 after her
granddaughter Debbie was carjacked and raped in broad daylight by two
knife-wielding creeps in a section of town bordering on skid row.
"When I saw the look on my Debbie's face that night in
the hospital, I decided I was
going to go out and get those bastards myself 'cause I figured the Law
would go easy on them,"' recalled the retired library worker.
" And I wasn't scared of them, either - because I've got
me a gun and I've been shootin' all my life. And I
wasn't dumb enough to turn it in when the law changed about owning
one."
So, using a police artist's sketch of the suspects and
Debbie's description of the sickos, tough-as-nails Ava spent seven days
prowling the wino-infested neighborhood where the crime took place till she
spotted the ill-fated rapists entering their flophouse hotel.
"I knew it was them the minute I saw 'em, but I shot a
picture of 'em anyway and took it back to Debbie and she said sure as
hell, it was them," the oldster recalled...
"So I went back to that hotel and found their room and
knocked on the door, and the minute the
big one opened the door, I shot 'em right square between the legs,
right where it would really hurt 'em most, you know. Then I went in and
shot the other one as he backed up pleading to me to spare him.
Then I went down to the police station and turned myself in."
Now, baffled lawmen are trying to figure out exactly how to
deal with the vigilante granny. "What she did was wrong, and she
broke the law, but it is difficult to throw an 81-year-old woman in
prison," Det. Delp said, "especially when 3 million people in
the city want to nominate her for Mayor."
DEPORT HER TO AMERICA - WE NEED HER!
********************************************************************************
Australian Gun Law Update
Here's a thought to warm some of your hearts.....
From: Ed Chenel, A police officer in Australia
Hi Yanks, I thought you all would like to see the real
figures from Down Under.
It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by a new law to
surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by our own
government, a program costing Australia taxpayers
more than $500 million dollars.
The first year results are now in:
Australia-wide, homicides are up 6.2 percent,
Australia-wide, assaults are up 9.6 percent;
Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44
percent)!
In the state of Victoria
alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent. (Note that
while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not
and criminals still possess their guns!)
While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady
decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically
upward in the past 12 months, since the criminals now are guaranteed
that their prey is unarmed.
There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and
assaults of the elderly, while the resident is at home.
Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public
safety has decreased, after such monumental effort and expense was
expended in 'successfully ridding Australian society of guns....' You
won't see this on the American evening news or hear your governor or
members of the State Assembly disseminating this information.
The Australian experience speaks for itself. Guns in the
hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control
laws affect only the law-abiding citizens.
Take note Americans, before it's too late!
Will you be one of the sheeple to turn yours in?
WHY? You will need it.
FORWARD TO EVERYONE ON YOUR EMAIL LIST. [I DID]
DON'T BE A MEMBER OF THE SILENT MAJORITY.
BE ONE OF THE VOCAL MINORITY WHO WON 'T STAND FOR NONSENSE


We can't let Obama remain in the White House or we'll end up with the same laws here.

Sorry Don.... this is another one of those viral emails... which are either a hoax, or urban legend...

In fact it's actually two urban legend viral emails... rolled into one...

The first was first circulated in Feb 2000... without the appended "report" of crime figures attached....and doesn't have a single scintilar of truth....

Likewise... the so called "crime figures" attached... are completely false.... or at least.. completely misleading...

It's just a nonsense designed to prop up a particular position...

do you have a source that is true for the change
since the Gun Control took effect.

I guess you know that my definition of gun control is being able to hit what you shoot at.