Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

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Today's harvest! Some kale for my husband, and a bunch more rainbow silverbeet, because holy cow that stuff is delicious.



A little bit of the kale found its way into the silverbeet and onto my plate and it... wasn't entirely horrible, so that's something. Gozer and Greeblet (the non-aquaponic pet yabbies) got kale stems for dinner and seem to share his opinion of its awesomeness.

(Yes. Yes, I did buy a pretty wicker basket to use when I harvest stuff out of the aquaponics, because it's useful okay and yeah it looks good in the photos.)

That's some nice harvest

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And it gives the remaining bugs somewhere to go and hide while their old home gets processed

Pete.

Pfffft! NO.

Fourth growbed is full and running, woo! (Ow, my back...)



and the very first teeny-tiny cherry tomato was eaten by my husband today! He pronounced it "Good, but too small " (There were snow peas too, yummmmm.)

Are you finding the tomato roots are growing through the seam at the base of the bag?

I had a lemongrass in one and it all but destroyed the bag

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I haven't looked! If I can pull one up and check without disturbing anything else I'll have a look tomorrow.

I can now report that the gudgeons are still in the sump and seem happy! I was moving the pipe bits to check something and pretty well every one that didn't have a yabby in it had a gudgeon lurking in there.

>> I can now report that the gudgeons are still in the sump and seem happy! I was moving the pipe bits to check something and pretty well every one that didn't have a yabby in it had a gudgeon lurking in there.

interesting the yabby comment. When I have had yabbies and or managed to get babies out to another tank I always find that no matter how many go in only 1 or 2 ever seem to be left after a period of time.

do the gudgeons get through the system via eggs / pipe travellers or are these the originals you put in ?

guess they get eaten if they get near the main FT ?

Yabbies do tend to self-limit their numbers, yeah. I'm hoping that with lots of hiding places and plenty of food, they'll be willing to let eachother live!

The gudgeons are the originals; I'll be delighted if they breed in there! The adults are too big to go through the pumps, and they stick their eggs to surfaces (possibly what they're doing in the pipes!) and guard them, but hatchlings might end up in the fish tank. They'd definitely get eaten if the goldfish spotted them, even if the silvers left them alone.

Nice grow bed . post pic of yabbies

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Good tat your husband liked the tomato. so u get approval for extension .. good for you . waiting to see some more pics .

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The yabbies aren't cooperating with photo attempts, so no pics of them just yet. The plants are staying still and posing nicely, so here's an update!

The spaghetti squash in the aquaponics have put on a serious growth spurt in the last week or so:


The pattypan squash aren't nearly as happy - there's three of them, none of which have grown much at all since they went in, but this one is determined to get something accomplished and has put out its first male flower:


Here's the beetroot in the new growbed! I bought one of those little punnets that's supposed to give you eight plants. You, uh, might notice that there's more than eight plants here. That's because they did that thing where they put several seeds into each spot to make sure at least one comes up, and at least two came up in each place! A couple had five. Soooo there's a total of 28 little beetroot plants there, all of which seem to be doing OK:


Sweet basil and coriander on the other side of the new growbed! These came from little pots of fresh herbs sold in the supermarket, not punnets intended to be planted out, and as you can see they didn't like being separated. Most of the basil is recovering, but the coriander (which I couldn't even separate at all!) is deeply unhappy:


Teeny-tiny dark opal basil seedlings (which are much happier about their new home, several are already measurably bigger):


Away from the aquaponics and into the dirt garden, the second cherry tree is finally in the ground:


As is my quince tree:


And the water plants in the second pond are flowering happily! (There's one blue spike on the tall plant in front of all the little pink spikes on the floofy one):


Finally, out in the front garden... It's very nice to know that we have lacewings around. It's awesome to see lacewing eggs and know that the little predatory larvae are going to be munching their way through various garden pests.

It's rather odd to see a bunch of lacewing eggs carefully placed on the side of my car.

>> That's because they did that thing where they put several seeds into each spot to make sure at least one comes up, and at least two came up in each place! A couple had five. Soooo there's a total of 28 little beetroot plants there, all of which seem to be doing OK:

that is what I like about Bunnings when a new load of seedlings comes in from the bulk nursery...
similar with lettuce, spinach and tomatoes.

obviously too hard/costly to thin them out and still provide them at a cheap price.

last one with 5 sounds like the work experience kid was on the job

I think that work experience kid is doing a fine job and should be hired full time.

And for a general update...

The sulking coriander did indeed die, and has been replaced with some dill that is much happier about its new place in the world:


I sowed mustard spinach seeds into the growbed around the long-suffering eggplant, and they're sprouting nicely:


The beneficial insect brigade is on the march! I've seen a few lacewing larvae, and the ladybugs are moving in:



The pattypan squash are putting up more male flowers, and one of the spaghetti squash is joining in:



(That spaghetti squash is now tethered to the front rail of the growbed to stop it climbing up the tomatoes! The tomatoes are putting on some serious growth, to the point where I've started training them up strings, so the squash might have the right idea...)

More delicious rainbow silverbeet was part of dinner on Wednesday, and the sweet basil plants have recovered from transplant enough to contribute a handful of leaves (one or two from each) to the lemon butter barramundi. Yum!


In the dirt garden, the cherries on teeny tree #1 are blushing red, so it's got its own little net tent to hide in until they're done! A peewee and a mynah were stalking around the base of the tent inspecting it after I finished, so we had fun watching them from the kitchen and narrating "Curses! Foiled again!" type dialogue. >:D


That's bird netting, not insect netting, so if this is one of the years the Queensland fruit fly make it down this far south it won't be much more than a psychological barrier... but they don't manage it often, so fingers crossed.

And finally... the five adult white cloud minnows in our second pond have been doing an excellent job of populating it.