Aquaponics

April 26, 2013

2013-04-25T09:35:00.002-07:00

Zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, and 2 type eggplant doing great.

What can I say green beans are growing like weeds. Taste great right off the bush.

2nd planting of kale is ready for harvest. Read yesterday that kale is the best vegetable you can eat. I strip a few leaves and chow down every time I go in the garden.

I decided to see if the kale will come back after the harvest

as you can see it will. Hope to keep harvesting form the same plants all year. Kale makes a great pesto.

2nd batch of lettuce is just now coming up, ready for harvest in 3 weeks.

April 16,2013

2013-04-16T14:29:00.004-07:00

Yellow squash, Egg plant, zucchini

All doing awesome

Several yellow squash doing well should have a harvest

next week.

Egg plant just starting out but i'm sure will grow fast.

Kale and beans doing very good. Already eating beans and every day there are so many more

I think I will have to try and pickle some as well as freezing

these guys grow almost over night its crazy how fast they grow

March 27th 2013

2013-03-27T11:31:00.001-07:00

Beans, lettuce, and Kale are doing great. The beans already have buds will be eating some beans next week. The lettuce is ready and the kale we have been eating for a few weeks. Found we like the Kale pesto better than the Basil. Maybe it was just something different. Those are white radishes coming up around the beans

Zucchini just getting started

Egg plants has a few blossoms. Hope to be eating egg plants in the coming weeks.First time growing them in the aquaponics system.

Cucumber and radishes doing very well.

Kale

2013-02-18T10:26:00.001-08:00

Kale has been coming along great

now I just have to figure the best way to eat it. I have had kale chips and they are great but would like to try something new.

The fish had a tough time of it when the weather was very cold for

a week straight, but came up with a great inexpensive way to heat the water and they survived just fine.

Cantaloupe and Beans

2012-11-08T07:18:00.001-08:00

Cantaloupe are doing very well. May be time to close the greenhouse doors.
Its going to be down in the 40's at night

I think I have 10-15 cantaloupe among the hundreds of blossoms.

Green beans are ready for harvest. Just have to find them among the
cantaloupe.

Beans mingled with the melons

First zucchini of the fall season.

There are 20 or more tomatoes on the left bush.
I hope they turn green before it gets to cold. I am thinking of
extending the PVC pipe and wrapping both grow beds with plastic.
Mini greenhouses. I will have to harvest some fish this weekend as well.

October 27th

2012-11-02T13:53:00.002-07:00

This was taken on the 27th of October. The cantaloupe have over taken the beans on the right
grow bed. No worries I can still find the beans among the leaves and blossoms.

You can see the cantaloupe starting. This was about a week ago and since has
grown to the size of a plum.

Tomatoes are starting to take off, to to harvest before the first frost.

THe zuccini are in full swing and hope to start harvesting in two weeks.

30 Days later

2012-10-18T09:18:00.000-07:00

The cantaloupe are doing great and will soon take over the greenhouse. From seed to this in 30 days. Not sure if cantaloupe will do well in the greenhouse this fall, but still learning what I can and can not do.

The egg plant got a slow start but seems like it's coming along nicely now. I'm sure it will do well in the green house. Just hope there is enough room LOL

The green beans are doing great and are starting to bud, Should have green beans in the next 2-3 weeks.

2012-09-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

Planted the beans 3 days later this is what I had, very cool

The beans one week later.

Some radishes after 2 days

One week later. Note the cucumber coming up on the lower left.

Verdolaga found this growing next to the house and replanted it in the grow bed. This grows very fast and is great in a salad or cooked as greens. Looking forward to trying it.

New system in greenhouse

2012-07-16T07:53:00.000-07:00

This is the new system I started in the greenhouse. I hope to have it cycling by the fall planting season. I hope to move the other two grow beds in here soon.

I got away from the small river rock and invested in the expanded clay. I did use river rock on the bottom to stabilize the automatic siphon system.

Very happy with the way it turned out.

I was concerned that the fish tank would get to low if it worked out that both grow beds filled at the same time, however that was not the case. Plenty of water in the fish tank, guessing at least 2/3 full. I put one tilapia in the tank 12 hours ago and she seems to be doing fine. After 24 hours I will put 3 more in.

Arizona summer heat took it's toll

2012-07-05T09:05:00.000-07:00

Was time to clean a few for the freezer and turns out the one on the left was carrying eggs. Good to know I’ll have a nice supply of Tilapia for the coming year.

To hot to grow in AZ now so I tossed in some reddish seeds and am checking the grow rate of shaded and non shaded. No brainer, but still wanted to know for sure.

Babies are coming along fine.

2012-06-06T14:35:00.002-07:00

Few pic's to show how well the garden is going. Lots of veggies to keep our refrigerator and a couple of others well supplied. My son and his squeeze kept watch over the house and garden while we where on vacation, and is now sold on this Aquaponics gardening system. Last few picks before the summer heat makes its claim.

First Harvest

2012-05-08T13:54:00.001-07:00

Beans are doing very good and should have them ready next week.

Now What?

2012-05-03T10:15:00.003-07:00

I now have more tilapia babies than I know what to do with. I want to get a small pool to accommodate them but it will be a little difficult to convince my wife. LOL oh well I hope to bring some to my wife’s sisters who has a pond with duck weed problem.

Zucchini and beans are doing great.

Proud Daddy

2012-05-01T10:24:00.001-07:00

Started cleaning fish and discovered one with mouth full of tiny fish. She is now in the 60 gallon tank taking care of her babies. She may be transfered to the larger tank this weekend as they seam to be getting along fine.

Awesome

2012-04-27T08:43:00.003-07:00

From this to:

This in 24 days!!

Should be eating zucchinis next week

Taco's

2012-04-19T15:17:00.000-07:00

Thinking fish taco's tonight

Happy so far. Like growing weeds, can't stop'em

2012-04-19T15:15:00.000-07:00

Coming along great, green beans, zucchini’s, turnip, kale, radishes, lettuce, pepper

Not so great green onions oh well. Bout time to clean some fish

Less than 30 days seed to harvest

2012-04-12T08:01:00.000-07:00

It was less than 30 days from seed to harvest with the lettuce. Everything else is doing great as well. Hope to be having zucchini and beans very soon. Oh and a little tilapia on the side.

Garden doing great

2012-04-03T14:39:00.000-07:00

April 1st, no joke
We will be having salad from the garden 30 days from seed. Tilapia will make a nice main course.

03-11-2012

2012-03-12T15:18:00.000-07:00

Finally both systems are up and running. All the plants seem to be doing very well. Lettuce is growing like a weed and the peppers look healthy. Bean, zucchini and onion are all doing well. Fish seem happy, still unclear how much to feed.

System #2

2012-02-20T08:19:00.000-08:00

Finally finished the second system so I can separate the large tilapia (6-8") from the smaller ones (3-5”). I still have the fry in the house. I plan on using the other half of the blue barrel for the first system.

2012-02-17T09:04:00.000-08:00

Babies are doing fine. Growing everyday. Pictures coming soon
Also should have the 80 gallon tank set up this weekend. Have my 55 gallon drum cut in half ready to go for the grow beds

2012-02-08T09:19:00.000-08:00

Well I managed to save 7 of the babies. My wife said thats fine. 7 will make a nice fish fry. Put mom back with the other fish.

7 little bugers

2012-02-01T06:21:00.000-08:00

Well looks like Sally is going to have 7 babies. They have been out for 24 hours and she looks at me like FEED ME!!. Just a little disappointing but considering everything I did wrong I’m happy with 7. Thanks for all the great advice from: http://aquaponicscommunity.com/group/tilapia-breeding?commentId=4778851%3AComment%3A285231&xg_source=msg_com_group

Fish Whisperer

2012-01-30T07:42:00.000-08:00

Don’t know why, but my grand daughter has a gift for connecting with our female tilapia. We have not seen any activity in 2 days. She comes over and boom mom spits out a dozen babies for her to see, than takes them beck in. Very cool.