• No new news in the aquaponics system. Same ol’ same ol’ goin’ on in there. Which, I’m perfectly fine with. The tomatoes continue to produce, the Mexican sour gherkins continue to grow like crazy and the tilapia are eating, swimming and pooping as they should be.
• The olive egger from early September’s hatch is growing well and making friends with his hatch mate, the cream legbar.
• The deer have no problem coming into the yard munching on leaves and apples we haven’t picked yet.
• We got a blue eyed buckling! My hope is that he will be our herdsire and we will begin a small Nigerian Dwarf Goat breeding program.

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• Still love okra flowers!
• Okra, cherry tomatoes & Mexican sour gherkins are growing in the aquaponics system.
• The water in one of our ponds completely evaporated. So, I took advantage of it and troweled out much of the duck sludge. This was literally a crappy job. But, I’m so glad I did it.
• Basil growing next to an herb barrel.
• The ladies are continuing to lay well, so I’ve been making lots of hard boiled eggs.
• Awhile back I ordered hatching eggs. Things didn’t go as I had planned and only one black copper marans hatched. Not that it’s a few weeks old, I noticed it has a few white feathers. Ugh! This was a damned expensive chicken for it not even to be breeding stock.
• Zucchini has been blanched and frozen.
• The tomatoes have been transformed into sauce. One batch has Italian flavor. The other has Mexican.

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It has been a few months since I last posted about our aquaponics system. I am happy to report there haven’t been any major problems with the system in general. The fish are swimming, the plants are growing.

Grow Bed #1

Back in April we planted bush beans, romaine, and kale in this grow bed. They all grew well and we enjoyed them for a couple months.

The other day, though, I ripped nearly everything out of this grow bed. With a clean slate, I will replant soon.

Grow Bed #2

This bed is primarily out of control tomatoes.

Tomatoes don’t love lots of water, so I don’t recommend growing them in an aquaponics setup. They tend to be mushier than tomatoes grown in good ol’ dirt. We do pick ’em and eat them, though. One day I even picked enough to make a nice batch of marinara.

Eventually we’ll take them out. But they grow well, which is good for the ecology of our set up, so they stay.

Grow Bed #3

This bed has 2 different items growing in it. One of them is an Asian eggplant. It is actually the same plant Farmer John planted last year. It is doing very well. I adore the purple flowers. Many of the eggplant are ripe and ready to be picked.

The other thing in this grow bed are Mexican sour gherkins. They continue to grow like crazy. I’m sure the vines would be happy to take over the entire greenhouse if we let them.

Aquaponics + Mexican sour gherkins = a good combination.

Clean Up

The harvesting is fun. The clean up – not so much.

Having out of control tomato vines next to even more out of control gherkin vines has resulted in a tangled mess. I gave them both a good trim the other day. But, it should be done more often.

This is a root mass growing around the pipes. Not a good situation and a bit difficult to clean up.

Wild Things

Snakes. An entire colony of snakes have decided to make their home in the greenhouse.

I am not a snake enthusiast, but we have an unspoken agreement. They leave me alone, I leave them alone.

They are rude guests who don’t clean up after themselves.

One snake thought it would be fun to explore the pipes. Not a wise decision. He got caught in the pump.

Tilapia

We primarily feed our tilapia pelleted fish food. Sometimes they get duck weed, and occasionally other greens.

Sitting on the bottom of the tank are sections of pvc pipe. The tilapia like to hide in them.

In the next few months we’re talking about changing some things in the system. The ecology seems to be in good productive order, so I don’t want to mess with it too much. But, there are a few things that could be done differently. We will iron out all the details and get to work…

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It’s officially the busy season. The hens are laying eggs like crazy. The garden beds are taking off and we’re beginning to enjoy the harvest. The weeds are growing like mad, which means there is a lot of weed pulling these days.

• I collected calendula flowers. They are set out dry and eventually I will make calendula oil.

• The grow beds in the aquaponics system are going crazy. I had to give them a trim. I probably should have trimmed them even more.

• While trimming the grow beds, I harvested a bunch of tomatoes, Mexican sour gherkins, Thai eggplant, and okra.

• In the regular garden beds the squash are ready. We’ve picked a bunch already and will continue picking.

• A couple months ago, Farmer John planted half of the goat’s field with a grass mix. It’s finally established enough that we’re letting the goats graze on it.

• Last week 15 chicks hatched. When they aren’t eating, drinking, or pooping, they are napping (bottom left). So dang cute!

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• Flowers are blooming.

• Tomatoes in the greenhouse are ripening.

• The lighting on our patio is up and it’s beautiful. We did sparklers already.

• Many snakes have been calling the greenhouse home. I’m assuming they enjoy the warm temperatures. Unfortunately, one didn’t make a good choice in his exploring. The pump on the aquaponics system wasn’t running, which is always a big concern for Farmer John. When he investigated, he found a snake had climbed through the pipes and got caught in the pump. The outcome was not good for the pump or the snake.

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• It might be a tad late, but I finally got our squash and pumpkins planted.

• I love cedar waxwings and they’re here. Woop, woop! Farmer John has a different opinion of them, though. They are eating our raspberries and when he went to shoo them away one pooped on him – and pooped raspberry goo on him.

• This mess in the upper right photo is the mat of roots that get caught in the aquaponics pipes.

• We spotted a baby bird on the ground the other day. Mama bird was busy chirping away.

• The Little’s enjoying feed, oyster shell, and grit

• A colony of ants decided to stake out in the game cam.

• Mexican sour gherkins are going crazy in the greenhouse.

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Nothing has changed in the aquaponics system. The only new additions are a bunch of plants enjoying the greenhouse conditions.

Outside

Grow Bed #1

The first grow bed has left over swiss chard and one pepper plant. They are there mainly because we needed plants growing over the winter and they are doing alright, so they stayed to help out the aquaponics ecosystem.

Bush beans, kale and romaine seedlings are newly planted right in the grow bed.

A few herbs and tomato seedlings in pots are placed on the grow bed simply because I want them in the greenhouse and we don’t have much shelf space. So, they are sitting in the grow bed for a short time.

Grow Bed #2

This grow bed also has leftover plants from last year – kale and tomato.

I’m also using this bed as a shelf to hold herbs and tomato starts in pots.

Grow Bed #3

Bed number 3 only has plants from last year – sour gherkins and eggplant. Both are producing new goodies for us to eat.

Growing in the Greenhouse

Scattered throughout the greenhouse are even more herbs, veggies, tomato, and flower starts.

Tilapia

The tilapia are doing their daily routine of swimmin’, eatin’, and poopin’.

The post Aquaponics Update – April 2016 appeared first on .

• Well, the fodder experiment was a flop.

• Buckwheat Seed: Only a handful of seeds sprouted

• Barley Seed: Virtually none germinated.

• Rye Grass Seed: It sprouted ok. It seemed like much of the seed didn’t sprout, though. And, it took longer than I was expecting to grow.

• I fed it all to the chickens. They loved it.

• We began Fodder Experiment #2

• Many of the flower, herb, veggie and fruit seeds I started are doing well. The ones moved into an aquaponics grow bed seem especially happy.

• The deer are back at munchin’ on the day lilies.

• It’s been a wet, dreary winter. But, finally we have some flowers showing spring color.

• Just like that, in the matter of one week, we are down to one duck. We believe a coyote (and maybe his buddies) are to blame. We saw a coyote one morning, have heard them a couple times, and caught one on the game camera. There hasn’t been evidence of anything else lurking about. It is amazing to me how quickly 11 ducks disappeared. Occasionally a random duck or chicken becomes coyote or bobcat dinner. But, never have we had so many in such a short span of time. The one lone duck to survive is the welsh harlequin who has been hiding and sitting on unfertile eggs. We moved her to a chicken coop and she doesn’t seem to thrilled with her new home.

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The weather was crummy this week, so we didn’t do much outside other than necessities. I’m still focused on getting seedlings started and experimenting with fodder. The wild life news this week is that there is a duck-nabbing critter roaming about.

• Many seeds germinated and were moved to the garage under the metal halide light.

• A few seedlings (bush beans, kale & romaine) were moved into a grow bed in the aquaponics system.

• A few seedlings were potted up.

• And, some we are still waiting to germinate.

• The fodder experiment hasn’t been going as well as I had hoped. The ryegrass is doing ok, but only a handful of the buckwheat seeds sprouted. And, we’re still waiting on the barley.

• The crocus and daffodils are blooming! But, the rain has proven to be too much for some of them.

• Our Welsh Harlequin duck is sitting on eggs. However, they aren’t fertile, so we should put a stop to this behavior.

• Unfortunately 6 of our ducks have gone missing. I also saw a coyote in the yard this morning. Coincidence? I think not.

• We moved the game camera to where the ducks hang out with hopes of catching a peek at what is lurking around and when.

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The majority of this week has been spent tending to germinating seeds and starting fodder.

• We’ve been using our dining room table as a germination station. Trays of soil blocks and peat pots set with seeds sit on the table enjoying the warmer temperatures than the garage or greenhouse.

• After germinating the plant moves out to the garage to sit under a metal halide light. This is a cool white light, stronger in blue than red in the light spectrum. This promotes compact, leafy plants as opposed to long, lanky or flowering plants.

• We haven’t moved any of the seedlings to the next stage, yet. But, we will soon. One of the grow beds in the aquaponics system has been cleaned out and is ready for new plants.

• Fodder has been on my list of things to try. We are finally getting around to giving it a whirl. We started a little over a pound of rye and a little over a pound of buckwheat. A couple days later we also started over 2 pounds of barley. Nothing has really started taking off yet, so we are waiting. I think we will most often use barley for our fodder, but I wanted to give other grains a try.

Seeds started over the past few weeks:

Herbs: Basil, Chamomile, Coriander, Cumin, Lavender, Lemon Balm, Marjoram, Oregano, Rosemary, Sage, Tarragon, Thyme

Fruits/Veggies: Bush Beans, Cucumbers, Kale, Romaine, Sweet Peppers, Tomatoes

Flowers: Alyssum, Impatiens, Lobelia, Nasturtium, Pansy, Petunia, Viola

Fodder: Barley, Buckwheat, Rye

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