Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Not sure if "normal" really exists. But production is up and we are busy.

To you also

Merry Christmas and Happy New year TC. I'm very grateful for all you have shared here and on your blog over the years. Your wisdom has been extremely helpful.

Quick update. We are still growing! Been Busy.
Having to re-build some parts of system that haven't stood up to the heat, sun, or settling into the Florida sand.

Still have media beds, Towers and Raft beds as well as the flood and drain tables doing microgreens and wheatgrass and also the aquaponically fed Rain Gutter grow system with tomatoes and nasturtiums.

Will see how far into summer we are able to keep the salad going this year. Las year the amount we were producing had dwindled so we were probably only selling about 2# of lettuce mix a week when the hurricane hit and after that we didn't have lettuce again till Mid October. Rainy season seems to be starting early this year, Good that we get to fill the rain tanks, perhaps not good in that we may have trouble with the cool weather crops sooner.

Thanks for the update TCL, I've been missing the wise Ol' AP gurus updates, glad to hear all's well.
Looking forward to the pic's...

Hey TC... Good to see you alive and still growing....

GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR NEW VENTURE

Not that new, Been at the farm for 6 years now. Gave up my "day job" if you could call it that about 4 1/2 years ago to have a baby and decided then that I needed to try to make a go of farming for a living. Been slow going but step by step we are improving.

Hi TC, just caught up on your updates from the Hurricane to now. Good to hear you're still going strong.
Martin.

Well this time of year it is more like limping along through the heat.

Well I'm stuck in the rain in winter.
I grew up in Durban South Africa which is similar to Florida - stinking hot with high humidity. I loved it because I was on the beach all the time as a teenager but if I were trying to grow plants I probably would have been less pleased!
Martin.

I think South Africa may be just slightly more temperate than where I am here (as in maybe a little more chill hours in winter) but probably just as miserable in summer. But that is based only on my reading some aquaponic threads of people in South Africa and I really know not WHERE they were in South Africa.

That said, a 1 to 2 hour drive from my place in Florida puts one in a different zone. And I've learned much about micro climates of different locations since I started farming. Heck, last September, Hurricane Irma took out half a dozen Big Oak trees on our property and I think that may have had a big effect on the amount of damage this past winters freezes did to us.

I wish we tended to get a little bit more rain through our winter/spring here, it tends to be our dry season. And then summer/fall are Hot and rainy but the transpiration rate tends to be high enough that the amount of rain often only just keeps up with the plants though this summer has been an overly wet one. Many people will be flooded out if we were to get a tropical system going through right now. My property is actually pretty high and dry with only one corner tending to hold water (all the water off the roads at the front corner.) Would be a good location to dig a pond I guess.

I think my dad said they got 29 inches of rain in July in Lakeland... 8 inches higher than average...

sounds about right. I know my location tends to be dry compared to much of Florida but we have been getting way more rain that normal.

If it is to wet, just send over to the 4 corners area. I take everything.