Aquaponics is Fun

The star collard greens

I think it is time for a new update about my indoor gardening endeavor.

Green onion, longer leaves are "broken"

The verti-Ponic system plants seem to be doing quite fine, especially the collard greens and the green onions. The collard greens are putting on new leaves and really is looking bigger than it was a few weeks ago; but the largest leave does not seem to be growing anymore and younger leaves did not catch up with it yet. For the green onions, after loosing all but one in December, I was hesitant putting new one in, but I did anyway, and they have been growing and growing in the last 3 weeks however, 2 of them were found dying yesterday, but it seems that I "planted" them a bit too shallow.
For the parsley, it seems that its been a bit stagnant since I have harvested half of its leaves. I is growing longer leaves, but no new leaves, and a

The parsley

couple that dried off. Maybe half of the leaves was too many, or maybe the plants are too old (they were growing on a little pot for over a year before I transplanted them to the system). So I started a few seeds and I will replace them once the seeds are starting to grow a couple of real leaves. The tomato plant has lost a couple of leaves (they where progressively shrinking since I kind of messed them up 2 or 3 weeks ago), put the newest leaves seem to be doing well, and last night I could see that it seems that the terminal bud is about to put a new leaf out. Finally the Pepper seedling is growing slowly but surely, and has regularly put new leaves out.

The seedlings

 I started other seeds in the same time: kale, chard aragula, letuce and basil. 

On the least bright side, It seems that the green onion leave have tendency to break after they reach a length (maybe 6 inches), and I am wondering what it could be due to, my thinking is: most people how grow aquatically/hydroponically on a medium of some sort, grow in some sort of stones, of clay pellets, and stones or clay are made of some form of silica. So I added a bit of powdered pumice I had in my toolbox (pumice is a volcanic rock that can be used to polish some wood finishes). We will see if it helps with the newer leaves that are not broken. I might go to the store and buy diatomaceous earth which is another source of silicate.

On the nutrient side, It seemed to me in the last 2 weeks that there was some accumulation of nitrate, which made me think that possibly the compost tea was bringing some extra nitrogen in a sort of "slow release", so I stopped adding ammonia to the system to see if the level would be maintained, however, it did not stay up, and now nitrate have lowered to traces, as well as ammonia. On hind sight, I used a plastic milk bottle to "brew" the compost tea, and possibly there was some milk protein that found their way to the compost tea, and where progressively supplying ammonia and then nitrate. I keep increasing the amount of compost I use to make the compost tea, but no nitrate seem to be picking out on the test strips. I think I am going to keep adding some extra source of nitrogen since I will not add fish until the project with he class is over. 

 The worm composting is doing well, I have been adding the coffee grounds of the day in the bucket for the school since I "finished it up". What I mean is that I have drilled holes in the bottom, as well as on the side towards the top - near the lip of the lid, and glued some fine meshy fabric to prevent bugs to fly in, and added another bucket with 4 large holes near the bottom to collect fluids if they build up, and keep the whole thing aerated. The large holes are also covered with the same meshy fabric. The worm crate has now diverted a total on 25 kg of food scraps (over 50 lbs) and 6.5 kg (14 lbs) of dry paper and wood dust. It also produced 4.3 kg (over 9 lbs) of compost. In total, in the 5 months I have started composting in NYC, almost 30 kg (66 lbs) of food scraps and 8 kg (19 lbs) of paper and wood dust did not go to landfills (including the worm bucket for the school). And this for a very modest investment to buy 1/2 lbs of composting worm (11$). Also the last few times I harvested compost from it, it was incredibly nice and crumbly. I am not sure whether it means that the worm population is "mature" or if it has to do with changes in the bedding. In October, I started to add the compressed wood dust pellets that the cat didnt like too much, this is now over, so I will see if there is a change again later on towards a less crumbly texture.

The worm challenge is doing good, so far I have not added more "food" or bedding, since there is only 2 worms, I am sure it is going to take quite a while until I can add more safely. The 2 worms are alive, and i really think that the biggest is mature at this point. I also set u another one, in a sour cream pot (a little smaller that the other one), but this one is a "one worm challenge" where I added only one worm, an adult (so possibly fertilized). I have made this one just as the first one: brown paper bag for bedding, used cafe grounds for food, and some water from the ponic system to bring some beneficial microorganisms. I will set up one last one when possible (when I have an empty container I can use) for another one worm challenge, but with an immature worm in it. According to Bentley the composting guy, some species of composting worm can auto-fertilize. I am actually not exactly sure what kind of worms I have. I am supposed to have E Foetida (sold to me as: red wiggler) and European nightcrawlers (sold to me as: trout worms), but it seems to me that I have 3 types of worms: some are lighter in color and bigger (the Euros) and then some are small and dark red (E Foetida ?), but some also have a yellow tip, and actually, there are some who have their bands very visible (tiger worms ?). Anyway, this is the main reason why I am setting up one with a mature worm (which most likely is already be fertilized) so I can keep track and take a juvenile that for sure will not have been fertilized, and I can keep this other one as a comparison (juvenile VS adult).

The school project will get its own post very soon.