Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Broke here too! We were well over 40degC and apparently the hottest city on earth Christmas day, back in the 20's now.

The day was so nice today that I potted up some late seedlings - crossing my fingers for a late winter seen as spring dragged on a bit

Also crossing my fingers that we have a goldilocks winter as I'm trying to grow both "chill" plants (berries, stone fruits, grapes) as well as don't you dare chill me plants (bannana and mango)

One way or the other something is going to be ok and something wont...

Tomorrow's supposed to be all sun all the time, so we're predicted to head straight back into the low 30s (and stinkin' humid again as all the water we got turns into a sauna, whee), but the rain expected for Sunday should knock it down again. I really need a couple of days where I can work outside without either burning to a crisp or falling over like a limp noodle! (40+, ow, I hope you have air conditioning?!)

Hopefully most of your plants will manage to be happy! Better prepare to coddle the banana etc a bit with frost covers just in case...

Happy New Year everyone, it's update time!

The fishies are happy! They're back on full rations now that the bacterial colony has recovered from my HSM and are not cooperating with photos at all. One of the yabbies did, though:



The spaghetti squash have gotten around to putting out female flowers - and not only that, they're actually producing squash! Yay! I'm working on correcting their potassium deficiency symptoms by adding seaweed powder and they seem to be responding nicely.




The tomatoes are extremely happy, and are probably the reason why the squash are showing worse potassium deficiency than anything else, because they're in the same growbed and I would be willing to bet that the tomatoes are grabbing all the potassium out of the water before it gets to them. Greedy things. They're putting on lots of green fruit and tons more flowers, and my experiments with an electric toothbrush seem to be producing pretty close to a 100% pollination rate sooooo we're going to have a lot to eat and share!



Here's a bit of a general view: you can see a lot of flowers on the spaghetti squash (all male today), the yummy rainbow silverbeet doing quite well (must pick more), the curly scarlet kale looking very attractive (my husband still loves eating it, I still don't!), and then the great mass of leaves which is several Romanesco broccoli.



Most of the broccoli is just puttering along getting sturdier, but one decided that the purple broccoli was a good role model and bolted to seed. After taking this picture I lopped it off; hopefully the others will learn from its fate and produce proper heads.



This teeny-tiny yellow horn capsicum that has been in here almost since day 1, soldiering on through the days of zero nitrates and cold water, is fruiting. Just like the Little Jalapeno That Could from my teeny test system, I plan to save seeds and see if I can grow its offspring. (You can see the messy side of the silverbeet behind it, complete with bugs that aren't doing any damage and are therefore allowed to stay.)



Speaking of the Little Jalapeno That Could and its offspring... they're flowering!



The potatoes in the big root pouch are having a wonderful time (this pic is from a couple of days ago and they're already visibly bigger



My bigger mousemelon vine has nearly reached its trellis:



The finger lime and its attendant four o'clocks are doing well:



And finally, the blueberries on my teeny-tiny bush are starting to colour up!

Great job and Happy New aquaponic Year

Inviato dal mio ALE-L02 utilizzando Tapatalk

So good looking there Mel! I didn't know about the tomatoes and potassium, thank you for sharing all of the incredible growth in your new system and happy new year.

Thank you for the kind words guys, I hope everyone's getting a good start to 2017! I have plans for all sorts of things I want to do in the garden, mostly involving getting the second row of aquaponics growbeds operational, but they're all going to have to wait until my right hip is cooperating again - a couple of days ago it sternly informed me that it was definitely time for another cortisone shot or it just wasn't going to play nice. (Bursitis and tendinopathy, whee! ) I was able to get into my GP for a referral the next day, and book the shot for the day after that (today), which is awesome! but unfortunately the thing with cortisone shots is that they hurt like billy-o for a minute, and then the local anaesthetic that goes in with the cortisone kicks in and you feel great for a couple of hours, and then the local wears off and your sore spot wakes up to the fact that it has had extra stuff injected into an already inflamed/swollen place and it hurts like billy-o with extra jalapeno sauce for days. And then that settles down and if you're lucky it's actually done the job and you feel fine for months.

I'm pretty sure this one is going to work nicely. For one thing, my stoopid hip generally responds well to these; for another thing, as the doctor was injecting the cortisone I was feeling twangy pains alllll down the outside of my right leg, which a) confirms that the pains I've been getting along there are in fact referred pain from the hip, and b) means he was injecting right into the place that is causing those referred pains, so c) he's put the cortisone exactly where I need it. Aaaand because he's put the cortisone exactly where I need it, all that temporary extra inflammation is happening riiiiight where all the Ow is concentrated, so the billy-o with extra jalapeno sauce is really kicking in now. (I was already feeling it before the local wore off, which tells you how much I'm feeling it now that it has worn off.) So I am being coddled by my husband, and there is not going to be much progress made on my plans over the next few days.

But! I have already Done Stuff this year, and here's some photos!

I have planted out another giant root pouch! This one has two Moon & Stars watermelon seedlings, a nasturtium, several celeriac seedlings, and a few dwarf bean seeds shoved into gaps. The beans started coming up today, but are still invisible underneath the mulch unless I go digging for them:



The potatoes in the root pouch next to them are still growing and look reeeeeally happy!



The carrots in my carrots-and-radish wicking barrel have been quietly getting on with growing actual proper carrots underneath all the greenery:



On to the aquaponics, where another yabby was feeling extra photogenic! They really like the 'crab cuisine' food that's specially formulated to keep their shells healthy, and I can practically guarantee seeing 2-4 of them any time I feed them that stuff:



This little seedling is the Mystery Cucurbit. It might be a pumpkin, might be a cucumber, might be a zucchini! We don't know! It sprouted in the compost tumbler and I am a sucker and didn't want to doom it to die in the darkness, so I transplanted it (and another one that didn't like the move and died) into the aquaponics (right on the edge so I can hopefully convince it to trail down over the side). We'll eventually find out what it is if it grows and fruits.



This little seedling is neither a mystery or a cucurbit - it is a Cape Gooseberry, which I am seriously excited about because I loved them when I was little and you cannot find the darn things in shops, as either fruit or plants. I got seeds, I have several starting to grow, and this one gets to test out life in the aquaponics.



And this is not a mystery, but it is a cucurbit; it is Spaghetti Squash #2, and it is misbehaving. No, squash, you may not use the baby beetroot for traction as you set off across uncharted territory! Do I have to tie you to the railing again?! (Yes. Yes, I did have to tie it to the railing again. )

All my cucubrits are mysteries because I planted them after a few tinnies and promptly forgot what went where!

I grabbed some cape goosberries at Bunnings just before Christmas. Nice big plants with fruit already on them for about $6 each

They were in amongst the "pick and eat" with the pepinos and raspberries and stuff

Mel Redcap

"Speaking of the Little Jalapeno That Could and its offspring... they're flowering!"

Mel, this is a good time to train them to get a bumper crop of peppers. Pinch the growing tips off, this will force the plant to branch, thus giving you more flowers resulting in a bumper crop.

You can see the results from this in one of the plants, 2nd from the right, looks to be the second row from the top of the picture. Something happened to the growing tip, thus forcing the plant to sidebranch into 3 growing tips.

I'll try that, thank you!

Nice one.

Unlike me, well I planted my 2.5mx5m block with then transplanted plants, re done the retic and then dug it up when a tank became free . 1/2 the plants didn't quite make it and my wife was thinking wtf for a few days haha ..... I wish I worked to a plan like you ..... hahaha

Pfff I make a lot more plans than I stick with

Old Prospector, interesting thing about the jalapenos - I went out this afternoon and had a look at them, and all but one have got 2-3 growing tips already! (The one that doesn't is the smallest and hasn't started flowering yet - when it gets a bit bigger I'll pinch the tip unless it does the same thing.)

funny about your jalapenos - IMO I think they go better in self watering pots as do chillis.
(or half blue barrel wicking pots)

I have them in 40L decor ones and get heaps and heaps very quickly.
the jalapeno I had went beserk. At present got heaps of Cayenne Chillis of good size after I hit them with the epsom salts.
still water with AP water.

some things dirt is simply better.

But keep pinching the tips. Best to pinch when there is 2 growing joints below the tip.

Other veggies that you can do is eggplants, okra, basil, and other herbs. One grower I know cuts the tips of his okra, using a sickle bar set off the ground at certain heights. The last cutting of the summer, the bar is set off the ground at 6', but at that time the plants have a canopy over 6-8' diameter.

When I grew transplants in 4" pots, I would use a hedge trimmer. they may look ugley doing it this way, and set back the selling date a few weeks, but I would get top dollar for those plants from my customers.

Yup, the jalapenos are in a wicking tub (built using one of the tubs I had as growbeds in my test system - recycling, whee!). I was planning to put a couple of them in the aquaponics, but as usual I had more plants and plans than I had growbed space.

Lost a fish today - looks like something bacterial, it had a pale patch and popeyes. All the others seem to be swimming fine etc but they're not getting fed until I'm sure it was a one-off, and I'm upping the salt.

what does this do please?