Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My broccolini have taken on and have masses of growth, however, no heads are forming. Could they just be enjoying too many nutrients?

On the other hand, eggplant and curcubits and failed to mature from seedlings, and capsicum are always tiny.

Apart from the broccolini, silverbeet and kale, most growth is rather slow and insipid (Tomatoes, okra, spring onions, chili, capsicum, cucumber, watermelon, parsley, basil and celery)

The kale always attracts white fly which I can't find a solution for, stick tape is not working, and the celery has a white coating, and brown spots on most stems.

Any ideas?

any pics? My suspicion would be lack of potassium.

Should the brassicas be flowering in perth this time of year?

yes, my broccolini is flowering well. Just had some for dinner tonight

but I have no idea what I'm doing right or what the OP is doing wrong. My brocs are quite old , almost 1 year old and I was going to yank them out but decided to just heavily prune them back a few weeks ago. They must have figured I meant business so have been producing well since .

This is the white and black spots that grow on the celery, and has moved onto a chilli as well.

Apologies for the terrible photography!

Potassium

I would say you have thrips. Minute bugs that suvk the sap. Remove as much affected foliage so as not be providing habitat, a speay if seasol solution never hurts and plant things not prone to thrips, like dill and tomatoes in that bed. They are a real pain to get tid of.

Once I solved my potassium deficiency, my bug infestations disappeared.

How did you solve that deficiency?

Dill also attracts good bugs and some of these might help take care of the thrips.

I bought some potassium hydroxide and used that to keep my pH up around 7, instead of adding garden lime, which I had been doing solely. It didn't take long to see the change in growth and the plants resistance to bugs. I am fortunate enough to have access to an analyser which tests potassium and when I measured it, it was undetectable, no wonder my poor plants were sick. From what I learnt from gunnagulla, you need to adjust pH as it drops due to the biological activity. But you need to alternate between a calcium buffer ( he uses hydrated lime, I use ag lime) and a potassium containing buffer. I found potassium hydroxide easy to get and very cheap. Store it wisely tho, one small scoop in a bucket had enough thermal activity to nearly melt the bucket.

It's also called caustic potash. If you have a small system you can get ecofungicide from yr hardware store but it does contain detergents and is quite expensive.

Thanks Colours, that's helpful. I've been using Builders Lime, and shell grit, and have brought my pH up slowly from 6.0 to 7.0. I Might take my shell grit out and when it drops use some ecofungicide next time.