Aquaponics is Fun

A bit has happened since my last post...
 We have had a bit of rain, lost our Bunny pup to what the vet thought was a snake bite, had a bit more rain, & then a rather serious flood event... We have had to put the garden & some other things on the back burner for a while & have only started to get back into the swing of things now with the kids starting back on their schooling...


 The Ferals in the patch....
 The Kent pumpkin that sprouted in Bed #2 is the only 1 of 2 Pumpkins left the other being at the end of Bed #1... It has had about 6 flowers fertilised, grow to the size of a tennis ball, turn yellow & drop off... I think I might just trim some of the longer runners off & try again with some of the newer ones as it is getting rather large... It now wraps around Bed #1 as well as growing over it & the also down the fence line towards the bottom of the yard... Very impressive looking but not much good if it doesnt set fruit...

Left : A Sweet Basil that I delicately mow & snip around... Right : Ginger that sprouted in the tomato bed.. Must of been a bit left in the soil when we recycled the old spice bed... The tomatoes were pulled due to disease & fly strike.. Cucumbers will be going in after the soil gets fed & a turn... 

 All the other tomatoes were removed from Bed #2 as well... Think we may just plant them near the house where it will be easier to control the fruit fly... We pulled the Fly traps down after 2 weeks as we caught less than 50 in all yet still had by far the majority of the Tomatoes being struck...
Right : The orange Chillies & Capsicums are still popping up everywhere... Happy about this as I think we may need to retire the original Chilli plant soon...

 Too much Rain...


 We lost about 50% of the Kohlrabi due to them rotting in the ground... It was mainly the imiture ones that we lost & like the die back in the Beetroot, we think it has to do with the amount of rain over the last few months... The beetroot do look like they are recovering by themselves & we are picking the larger ones as they look ready... Is a bit of a toss up as the bed could have something more productive go in...



 One benefit of the rain is that we are now seeing little "Rocket" Frogs turn up in the patch... Found a few in amongst the Bush Beans feasting on the small grasshoppers infesting the patch... We keep spraying with Neem but the rain keeps washing it off...  The beans have started to pick up as well... They always tend to after threatening them with being dug back into the bed... A lot of the soil looks really bad & compacted at the moment... This is mainly due to poor selection, as we chose the closest supplier rather than the best, but also due to the rain compacting it as well I think... Most of the beds have had a fork over & a good feed of worm wee (thanks to the new productive Worm Kingdom) & the plants are loving it... I am also getting a quote on some composted Horse manure mixed with worm castings from a supplier at the Gold Coast that will be used to help condition the beds...

Bits going well...
The Egg plants are all going well enough for us to be giving the excess away regularly... The Green Thai have come on well as have the Early Long Purples... We have also been told that what we thought were Lebanese Eggplant (Right) are actually Pingtung Long from Asia...
Left :These are some Shallots I bought marked down drastically at Woolworths...Cheap & already productive... : )»
Right : The Cape Gooseberries keep getting attacked by a leaf munching beetle that feeds exclusively on them... There are also some grubs that squash very easily eating the underside of the leaves... The Darwin lettuce popped up from an earlier sowing that produced nothing...
 The red Cabbages are coming on slowly.. Has been a battle to keep them free of Cabbage Butterfly grubs due to not being able to spray with the rain... I have been spending some time on them every morning squishing grubs & it looks as if we will not loose any... **Knocks on wood**  

One Dragon Carrot has surprised us by going to seed early so we are keeping an eye on it daily ready to collect the seed... The other Carrots are going well as are the spring onions in the bed with them...We have picked a few baby ones & munched on them already...



The Cucumbers are on their last set of fruit I think & we should have some Marketmore Seeds going in this week... The Spice Barrels (Right) are powering along & we are very happy with the way they are progressing...



The Lemon tree is laden with fruit... Unfortunately it has a leaf disease/infestation, like the Kaffir & Tahitian Limes, that must be looked into this week as well...



On the whole I cant complain about the state of the patch... We were not directly affected by the flood as the water didnt enter our property like it did in 1974... The water covered 75% of our back neighbours land (Right) yet they were lucky as their shed/tools were spared & only had their Laundry flooded out under the house... We went & helped a couple clean out their Mothers property on the Friday afterwards but by the Saturday, we were turned away from helping locally so went around offering the use of our washing Machine as a way of helping out others...



Well, thats about it for now so have a great one all...
Hopefully I will post more often now that we are getting back into the swing of things...
: )»