Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

If you're concerned with Tom varieties - plant them and you might be able to tell some from others i.e. potato leaf vs regular etc early on, otherwise its a waiting game.

Colum suggested ebay, but if you like free seeds, find some seed sharers in your area (hint hint wink wink)

Diggers also sell some interesting varieties not free I know but they are fun!

Yeah I figured I might as well plant some out in some wicking beds or something and see what they are. When I bought them I wanted a range of size and colours so I should be able to pick what variety is what.

I opted for eBay as Colum suggested, I don't want to mooch free seeds until I have something to give back.

Yup, I've got my trusty Diggers membership too.

I like giving away free seed that I've grown and enjoy giving to others.

How did you carrot experiment go?

I was reading that carrots don't like too much nitrogen or it makes them fork.

It's still going. One has forked but is probably the biggest of the three, and the one closest to the water pipe coming into the GB is the smallest. I think that is due to less sunlight and the water not being as clean as it is elsewhere in the GB. I'll take a couple of photos when I go out later to update.

Agggggh PUPPIES!!!! Puppies turn me into a crazy person She is gorgeous Azira!
What is her name?

That reminds me, I must check on the naming status of Stuart's new addition too!

How big will you grow it out to before you harvest?

Ron!!! naughty naughty


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Our girls named her Eska, after one of the characters from The Legend of Korra. My husband also wants her 'full' name to be Eskarina, after the main character from Terry Pratchett's book Equal Rites. That's more for fun though than ever actually being used, much like our dog Mister has a full name of Mister Fumblefoot.


The FCR is too poor, output too high compared to growth, lol.

Finally got around to taking a photo of the carrots.

I thought it was time for a side-by-side comparison, you get a good idea of the difference in growth between them. It's up to about day 81 since they have gone in, growth has been slow to date, although now things are warming up they have taken off a bit. No orange still though!

The top carrot is the one near the distribution pipe, has the least sunlight and least amount of growth.

The middle carrot is the one that has the most sunlight and has the biggest root growth, but is forked.

The bottom carrot gets sunlight but not as much as the middle carrot. No forking but slower growth, and the longest fine root growth (some are over 45cm long) and the most leaf growth.

Can't really say what's going to happen from here on out, but I'll leave them in and ride it out just to see what eventuates.

Gahhh... why do they take so long to grow?! LOL

Considering I go through 5+ pounds of carrots a month I'm really looking forward to your results. The carrots mostly go to the horses for treats if you are wondering why I go through so many.

A small update, although things are just ticking along for the most part.

Trout are still happy, eating and pooping and splashing me in the face when I try to spy on them while they are eating, lol.

As for the vegetables, the Purple Sprouting Broccoli has been a huge success, absolutely delicious, but unfortunately now the warm weather is kicking in it's starting to go to seed, as is the Kale and Brussels Sprouts. Never got a chance to actually try the latter, I guess I got them in too late but not to worry. Still plenty of Silverbeet being produced, and eating in copious volumes by all.

I need to give the beds a good tidy up and make some room for some warm weather planting. I still haven't managed to get any tomatoes in, like Colum Black Byron I got tired waiting and went out and got a few plants. I decided to experiment and use the random plants I bought as rootstock and try to graft my puny seedlings to them. It's only been a few days but they haven't shrivelled up and died yet, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed they take.

I grafted 4 different varieties to each rootstock using a bastardised cleft graft method. No idea if it will work or be a strong graft it it does but I figured I'll learn by doing and see what happens. I've saved the tops of the rootstock and I'll get them rooted to use if my experiment fails miserably.




And one more photo of the new pup, she has grown so much in the last month! She and the old boy are getting along fantastically, the fact that he's letting her sleep on him given how grumpy he usually is is a good sign, lol.

Coolest thing I've seen all day - your dog, the graft, and the fact that everyone else also has silverbeet like me

looks good but it's a shame about the carrots