We are fast approaching winter and the weather has been damp and cold, but it is nice in the hot house where we have the aquaponics.

The sweet potatoes are going okay with the first ones better than the last ones.  We did have some die off so I have planted some more shoots and I also planted a whole sweet potato with shoots on it. I am looking forward to seeing how they go.  The potato I planted with the shoots hasn’t died back at all.

This is English spinach I think (I didn’t keep the packet – slack I know) and I pick off this about twice a week and it keeps coming back. It is very tasty sauteed with garlic and butter.We have planted some broccoli and cauliflower seeds and below is the broccoli. I planted over half a bed and the good thing about broccoli is that it grows side shoots, so once you’ve picked the main head you get the benefit of those extra bits.  That is why I planted more of these than the cauliflower.
With aquaponics you can’t harvest everything at the same time, you need to stagger harvesting and planting, otherwise it mucks the system up.

The tomato seeds that I planted weeks ago are still coming up.  Some came up and died off but there are about 3 decent looking plants. Here is one below.

I have also planted some more spinach seeds and pat choi seeds in the same bed.

Below are the original capsicum plants that we put in last November. The leaves all drop off and then new shoots appear and then they flower. We haven’t actually gotten any fruit off them but we are still holding out.  The original tomatoes have finally died off and we might actually close this bed until we can get some more fish.
We still have fish in this milk vat and they are growing well, I still can’t get a decent photo, but this shows the water flowing and the air hose making bubbles  Air into the fish tanks is so important, without this air the fish die.No 2 daughter picked the last of our tomatoes and we have laid them on newspaper on top of the sump tank. I have left some red ones amongst them in the hope that they ripen. I go out each day or so and pick out the majority of the red ones and bring them inside to eat.
Well that is the latest on our aquaponics, we now have power installed properly and have decent lights so we can work in there at night.

We are working on getting some more fish, we need at least 100 more and at the moment my husband is thinking of sourcing trout.

Blessings

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