Hey everyone, sorry I haven’t posted anything in a while. I lost steam as my schedule changed.

So my co-worker Chris keeps asking how the aquaponics garden is doing, well, I figure I should update everyone.  The Aquaponics is finally coming to life.  There have been some hiccups here and there, but the garden is finally growing some lettuce.

I had read that it can take a few months for the system to really be ready for you to grow things with it.  I had planted some lettuce seed about a month ago, it sprouted within 3-4 days, but never grew much more than an inch or two.  Now it is finally growing.  This can be because of the heat, or just that I didn’t let my system fully charge up and get filled with enough bacteria.  I did plant some cauliflower, but grasshoppers ate the first leaves off, so they died pretty quick.

Another draw back I’ve had is my water disappears quickly.  I’ve noticed that where my water exits the pipe into the grow bed, I’ve got a pool.  Algae is really growing in this spot, and holds the water back.  This is brining lots of birds and bugs to the pool to drink.  I have 2 big spiders who’ve made their home next to the garden, which helps keep the bugs away.  I like looking at those spiders, they are larger than a quarter.

To fix the problem with the algae and the pooling water, I set the system on a timer.  I had read before hand that most systems run for 15 minutes each hour.  Timers cost about $6-7 dollars at wally world, and luckily I had one on hand already.  This should help the algae to die back, and save me some water from birds and bugs.

My kids like to feed the goldfish, but they over feed them.  This has caused a build up of sludge on the bottom of the pond.  This is fine, cause it helps create more ammonia, but it just looks nasty.  So my son and I caught a few crawfish to eat all this bottom waste.  They’ll help promote the same ammonia and everything, but they’ll help keep the pond clean.

Next plans are to try making my own fish food.  Recipes seem easy enough, use a blender and use cat food, peas, wheat germ and a few other things, then dehydrate it, or use gelatin to make little globs of it.

Now I want to build the greenhouse in the next few weeks.  Not hard to do, but power is the problem.  I don’t want to run power chords all over the yard and driveway, so I’m looking into wind power.  I have absolutely no clue about this stuff, so well see how it all goes, lol.   Anyone in the local area of Augusta want to help me, show me how its done, I’ll take the help.

Well, that’s a quick update.  I’ll try to post more on some of the things I got going on around here.  Like getting the gardens ready for next year and everything else.

Until then Happy Gardening,

Josh

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