Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yet again

you'll be sore, huh?

minor flesh wound eh VB!!

My first tom plant broke off with one fibre holding it together. It regrasfted and didn't even wilt. Lots water= happy plants

thing I like about the tommy- after the fruit has finished you can chop all but the 2 last green shoots off and will regrow a late flush (some species) and to finish put a clear plastic shelter over to reap harvest and go thru and turn into an EB forest for the next year.
...if you lucky

did a bit of a prune and got more, but i wanted to free up bedspace for some winter veggies.

Have been doing a bit of a cleanup of the grow-bed over the last couple of weeks. Finally pulled out the Chickory which I have been growing for months just as a nitrate remover. The stuff was foul tasting - though the fish did like it. I have also removed all but one of the basil bushes (more like trees though) and have pruner the final one quite heavilly (branches were breaking all over the place).

A couple of weeks ago I also removed the oats that I had planted as a temporary quick nitrate remover. This made way for some lettuce - transplanted from elsewhere in the bed where I had grown them from seed. The lettuce is now just taking off - I have a picture of it below.

In the spaces that have been formed by the cleanup - I have planted some more lettuce (again from the ones that have come up in the bed), some tomatoes (from bought seedlings) and an eggplant (seedling).

My chillis are growing really well - I have a Jalapeno (which I bought a while back as a seedling) and several bell chilli plants (which I transplanted from self sown in the dirt garden).

Paw Paw is getting huge - I have included a picture below. No Dash Hounds handy for size reference, but the bucket you can see is a 10 litre chlorine bucket. The Paw Paw has a few buds on it now - so will be interesting to see what eventuates. It really is not ideal having it in this bed - but I will leave it and see.

I have quite a lot of loose leaf lettuce plants in the bed that came up from seeds that I sprinkled around from a plant that had gone to seed in my dirt garden. They took a while to get going - but are now doing great and my wife has been harvesting from them every night for salads.

I pulled my asian greens out because they were riddled with catterpillers. Was going to Dipel them - but got to them too late in the end. I had eaten quite a bit of Mizuna which I definitelly intend to plant again.

Other plants that are doing well in the bed include:

- cucumbers starting to take off, climbing trellis nicely. Have some male and female flowers, but not sure fruit will take until the plant gets a little bigger. These are the plants with the split stems - but doesn't seem to be affecting them too much.
- Tumeric has quite a bit of new growth. Took it a bit to get going, but I think it will be a success.
- Sugar cane. Just have a small plant in there for a bit of fun. Is doing very well.
- Parsley is good.
- New basil plants self seeded from the big trees. I will leave a couple of these which will give me an ability to rip out the 1 remaining big basil tree, whose roots are bound to become an issue if left.
- Spring onion plants. Have had them in for some time. Took a while to get going - but they are doing well now.
- Sunflowers. Put them in to help with nitrate removal and they are doing really well. Have planted them in a dense group and they will flower soon I expect. Will look pretty nice - bring a bit of class to the affair.

Things not doing so well are:

- coriander has not taken well at this stage. Transplanted a couple of seedlings which had come up in dirt garden. Will leave them for a bit longer to see if they take.
- rocket. Transplanted from dirt garden. Have pulled out cause was doing crap. Will try and plant to grow-bed directly in future and see if does any better.

That's about all I can think of.

Only other update is that I added some more CaCO3 because the PH was starting to drop I found when testing tonight.

Also - I had a look at the fish tonight under halogen light. This is about the only time I get to see them properly because the glare off water, coupled with the colour of the fish against the green algae background of the tanks, makes it very hard to see them properly in the day. They fish are looking very, very healthy and they are getting big. The biggest couple look really big - over 500gms I suspect.

Anyway - enjoy the pics.

That paw paw is a winner, its gotta stay as a permanent resident now!

I will definitelly leave it - though if I had another place for it right now I probably could move it because I planted it in a pretty big net pot full of perlite. I'm sure pulling the pot out of the grow-bed would result in some serious transplant shock - but I reckon it would survive. All the same - I'll leave it where it is. My main concern is that the wind will blow it over once it is a meter or so taller. By then it will be over 3 meters off the ground.

VB, have you tried grown tomatos planted this late before?

Wondering if they will set fruit without being (1) in greenhouse, (2) hand pollinated....

Rup - don't have a greenhouse as yet. My bed is out in the open and in full sun. I think I will get fruit. Eventhough it gets really cold here in winter - provided frost doesn't get them (which it won't in the AP) then toms still seem to get fruit leadin up to winter. I think the temp of the water in the AP system will have relevance to these things also.

You get frosts in Brisbane

omfg. simply inspirational vb. fingers crossed that pawpaw fruits for you.

You win the prize for the most variety in the one bed VB... The sunflowers look great, I had no idea they would do well in a system, I always figured they liked a fairly dry environment.. Nice work..

Great stuff VB.