Have fish will grow..

This is one post I am very happy to be able to do as I think we are finely there… It has taken us a while but I am now happy with the way the Aquaponic system is going… The last 2 grow beds have finely been plumbed into place after being used first as de chlorinating trays then being invaded by tadpoles… Although it was great to see 2 different species of frogs use them to grow into fully functioning members of the amphibian community it is great to see them used for their intended purpose…To begin with we were tossing up with the idea of using gravel in the grow beds but as We already had 3/4 of a bed worth so it & had been very frugal in other parts of the budget we decided on splurging on Aqua Clay for these 2 beds…  The pipe work was another part of the system that I had been undecided on… Initially I wanted to stay away from ridged pipes but found them the best way to plumb up the system.. The clip bellow brings you up to where we are up to at the moment…

Something I didn’t mention in the clip is that the Ammonia & Nitrites are only showing trace readings at best & the Nitrates are not really showing up at all.. The pH has been stable at 6.5 so that's also good.. Fairly happy about that as it means all the nutrients are being used up by the plants.. It will be something I shall be monitoring over the next week though with the added grow medium..
The first thing that was planted into the new beds was some purple Vienna kohlrabi & some rainbow chard seedlings… The first bed had some of the strawberries thinned out & moved over with all but 1 green onions also being transplanted as well..  I must say that I had no idea how many strawberry runners had taken hold I the original bed.. There are now over 25 from the original 5 or 6 that were planted in there originally.. All the smaller spring onions got a trim then were planted out into Bed #1.. All but 1 of the larger ones got a trim & were planted into a new Grow bed..  The one that was left is being  used as a guinea pig for a detergent based aphid spray along with the bulls horn Capsicum & the Chinese red shallots we got from a You tuber on the Sunshine Coast.. I think the Strawberries shall be pulled soon & added to a grow tube or 3 to make room for more greens in the beds in the future..
The only part left of the system that really should have been completed is the backup air system for the fish tank just in case of a power failure.. We have the pump & the Relay used to allow power from the car battery to run the pump... All that we need is the battery itself & a small 9v adaptor to run the Relay..  We have the sparky lined up to set up a permanent power supply to the patch & a utility light for night time viewing as well as attracting fresh insect food for the Jade perch.. The only thing stopping the power being laid is my motivation & a few extra coins in the jobbies jar to pay the sparky..

That's about it for now... Shall try to post at least once a month for anyone who is still following..
Have a great one....

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Aquaponics, Jade perch & a bit of a roundup.....

Aquaponic update…
We finally have some table fish in the Aquaponic system… We ordered 25 Jade Perch from ANFE & picked them up on Thursday the 12th of April… Just held off posting to made certain I didn't "loose" any ;)»

Aquaponic mishaps...

Spent the past few days playing around with the pipe work for the system after having a few HSM's (HOLY SHIT/SUGAR/SHIVA moment's) with the FT (fish tank) overflowing due to clogged ports.. The fish are eating the algal growth & the stray bits are causing blockages in the drilled out end caps of the SLO's (Solids Lifting Overflow) that feed the GB (grow bed) & empty back into the sump.. I added an "emergency overflow" port that runs directly into the sump as an extra precaution..   I was looking at increasing the size of the holes in the end caps of the SLO's but received a comment on the clip from a most helpful viewer that recommended  making slits in the pipes instead of holes & run them vertically down the uptake pipe so did them first thing this morning.. Thanks "youronnit" 
A make shift cover was made up to help keep sunlight out so that will hopefully slow the growth of the algae..


 New grow beds & pipe work..

Have picked up the extra pipe needed for the grow beds but ran out of time this weekend.. I already have the bell siphons & enough 1" pipe to make the returns to the sump so hopefully some progress will be made this week.. Once I'm happy with the set up the GB's will be lined with black plastic on the outside (to stop algae growth)  then set in place.. Would like to fill the GB's with clay balls but due to a change in state government, B will be bumped down a few pay levels **zips lips so as not to rant then kicks soap box away** so it may mean a change from clay balls to rock for one of the GB's.. Might bring them on line 1 at a time as I think there are enough clay balls leftover from the old barrelponic system for 1 GB so we shall just see how we go..

Week in the dirt patch...

On Thursday we had whole house water filter system installed.. As chlorine & chloramines (found in most town water supplies around Australia) both indiscriminately kill good & bad bacteria/fungi we are concerned about using tap water that smells like its come straight from a pool on the garden beds... The system contains 2 coconut carbon filters as well as a pre filter that will remove the larger particles giving the carbon's longer life spans.. The main aim is to remove as much chlorine & chloramines from the water in case we need it for emergency top up water for the aquaponics.. It will also mean that we won't be killing off any of the beneficial mycorrhizal fungi we have been adding into the beds over the past few weeks when we have been sowing seed..

Made the decision to order some Veggie netting from Net Pro on Friday & it arrived 1st thing Monday morning (today) so will need to knock some frames up this week.. White cabbage butterfly eggs & a few small caterpillars have already been removed from some of the kale & cauliflowers in the patch.. Will also be used as a 20% shade cloth during summer which is another bonus as we have been looking for a lower % shade cloth..

Sunday saw us planting out a few seeds & 9 broccoli into the beds.. (Full list in Planting Diary)

Friday also saw this little feller finely emerge from a chrysalis...

Not sure of the variety as of yet but have set the task to our eldest as part of her studies for Monday..

 


Until next time, have a good one...
: )»

Back to basics with mulch...

“Back to Eden” Documentary & Timer mulching..

Have been getting stuck back into a few jobbies in the patch the past few weeks as Winter is creeping up on us.. One job that we neglected to do for a few of the beds during summer was mulching.. We normally buy sugar cane mulch & top the beds with.. This is then turned into the beds before planting out the following crop.. Was reading on line (a Simple Savings thread from memory) where someone mentioned that sugar cane mulch tend to use up nitrogen when dug through the soil as added organic matter.. This is far from desirable when trying to build up fertile soils..  It wont be turned into the beds from now on & the plan is to make up our own mulch for future use from local resources.. 
One method of mulching we have become interested in is the “Back to Eden” method that some You Tube gardeners we follow have been using.. This documentary was a great mini refresher course in the ways of mulch that have helped us to rethink our mulching ways.. 
The core theme of the film is the use of semi composted tree trimmings/wood chips as a thick mulch that can help you to garden on undesirable soil types.. Other ways wood chips/timber mulch can be of great benefit to the health of all soil types are,

• Beneficial fungus, worms & bacteria will break the chips/mulch down from underneath working the nutrients into the soil improving soil structure so no tilling is required..
• Suppresses the weeds from growing & the ones that germinate on the surface are easy to pull due to the loose nature of the mulch layer..
• Insulates the soil from the extremes of cold & heat.
• It can be used in many styles of farming/gardening.. Orchards, veggie plots, pots on a deck or veranda could all benefit from a layer of mulch..
• Fertilisers such as composted manures & garden waste can still be added as a top dress.. 
• Liquid fertilisers like seaweed, worm cast tea & fish emulsion are a great to use as not only do they add nutrients but the action of the liquid will move nutrients from the decomposing top layer into the soil below..
• The wood chips hold water & release it when the ground around it dries out..

Our mulching progress..
We have been slowly processing a ½ rotten mango from our neighbours yard in the electric mulcher with some of this mulch already being added to bed #’s 5 & 9.. There is still more to mulch & we might play around with it in a few different mulch blends yet..
 The mango tree in the chook yard & some Chinese elms have been pruned then mulched up to run a few experiments.. The aim of all is to find which will breakdown the best into a usable wood mulch.. 2 barrels were set up with a mix of the different mulch, some lawn clippings, a large bag of off spinach leaves from a store & a bag of well composted horse manure that had a few worms inhabiting it.. Some castings full of worms were then added straight from a worm farm into 1 barrel to see how the 2 compare..
On Good Friday morning we purchased a Tumbleweed Composter from Gumtree then set about mulching the rest of the elms.. The mulch was used in 3 different tests to try some other methods of composting.. A barrel was set up with a mix of dried & fresh Chinese elm mulch with about 500g of  Dynamic Lifter to add some extra nutrients to see how it will go..  The Tumbleweed was also filled with the same mix as the barrel.. The last batch of mulch was left in a pile to decompose naturally with no additives & exposed to the weather on the spot of last year’s Good Bug Mix garden..These will all be left until mid May when a comparison of all batches will be made.. Hopefully we will get some nice nutrient rich blends to use in the patch.. We shall continue to use sugar cane trash while we build up our stores of tree mulch.. (We will swap to Lucerne hay once the S/Cane runs out)
 Since mentioning it on the Brisbane local Food site a fellow member (thanks Even) pointed me in the direction of Jean Pain & his Brush wood composting methods.. Jean goes a few steps further using the heat from the composting mass to heat water as well as collecting gas to run vehicles & cooking equipment.. These other bi products from the composting process  have interested me greatly but I fear Bianca will not agree with modifying the car to run on methane from compost just yet..
The clip bellow runs through our progress with the different set ups & some of the results so far..

Thanks for reading if you made it this far.. Feel free to leave suggestions if you can see where we could improve in our methods..
Have a great one…

Autumn & Winter plans...

Exclusion bag on Capsicum..

Pests & rain...
Has been quite some time since I last posted... No single reason, the holidays came & went, School started back up for the girls.. I  think I also became complacent about gardening after loosing most fruiting crops to combination of fruit fly, too much rain & a plague of mini grasshoppers... We still have been harvesting a variety of veggies that didn't get targeted my the grasshoppers or fruit fly..  We did manage to save some fruit by covering them with pest exclusion bags so am thankful for that.. I think we have learnt some valuable lessons & are already planing a defensive strategy to deal with them for next summer...

Plants for the coming months...

    We are looking at Autumn & Winter seasons so have put all the pests & deluges behind us.. We sowed a selection of broccoli, cauliflower, as well as some kale, rainbow chard & tatsoi.. The are also a small tray of tansy that will be used to deter  the ants that love colonising the wicking beds & barrels..  Some roma tomatoes have been planted into one of the top IBC beds & we also have a tray of unknown variety of tom's needing to be planted out as well..
Barrels have been selected for this years garlic crop as well as the onions sets we grew last year..
 
 Tadpoles/Froglets & Aquaponics...


We have some movement in the tadpole "ponds" with a few metamorphosing into frogs & disappearing into the garden.. So far we have seen ½ a dozen advanced tadpoles with legs & 2 that are wee small frogs with stumpy tails attached like the little feller to the left..
As much as we love watching them grow & change we would really like the trays free to turn into grow beds for the Aquaponic set up..

The 1 grow bed we have is slowly filling up with strawberry runners which is great as we are looking at trying to build "strawberry wall MKII" in the next month or so.. We still only have the 7 large goldfish & a single Pacific blue eye in the fish tank... We have our name down for 30 Jade perch at one place & have another we still need to check out.. Really want at lest one more grow bed before we put any more fish in just to make sure there is enough medium to filter out the waste...

Below are a couple of the latest clips done of the garden & Tadpoles...

That's about it for now but will be back a lot sooner this time as we have a few little projects on the go...
Just to finish, here is some of the udumalpet, White & Long Asian purple eggplants we have been harvesting over the past few months...

Have a nice Day!!!


: )»

IBC Wicking Beds for renters...

IBC Wicking Beds for renters...
We have some friends who are renting places with no garden space for veggies so it got me thinking how we could help them out... We came up with the idea of using the same food grade IBC containers we are using as Aquaponic beds & tanks as Wicking garden beds... By cutting them in ½ you can get 2 beds that are essentially large pots that you can grow quite a few Veggies & herbs in...

We were lucky enough to get 3 of them for $40 each... The only problem being that they contained "Liquid Boot A" which is a tar like concrete sealing compound that is used to seal concrete drinking water tanks, pipelines & concrete slabs for buildings... We could not remove the compound with a water blaster as it had dried to the tank so had to come up with another way to use them...  We decided on lining them with the 200um plastic to keep the soil from coming in contact with the residue in the IBC's... I think we could find others without the residue for under $100 which makes them cheaper than the colorbond alternatives you can purchase from hardware stores & suitable for renters who are not allowed to dig a garden for a veggie patch...
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