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Comment by Jon Parr on August 22, 2012 at 12:39pm

Bob, happy to help. For fall/winter, I grow chard, spinach, beets, peas, cabbage family (Chinese broccoli does killer, and is a staple in stir fry), lettuce, carrots, potatoes, onions, and others. Trout and sturgeon (this winter all outdoor water will be sturgeon and Kokanee for me) continue to feed all thru winter.

Swapping heavy rocks for light rocks sounds like work, to me. Why not just add beds with pumice, and leave the rock alone?

Comment by Bob Campbell on August 22, 2012 at 11:59am

@Chris George - Yeah, I live in Chico.  The heat is finally breaking so I'm looking forward to starting new and clean with a Fall garden. 

I want to replace the heavy gravel with pumice, and be more mindful of training the plants upward.   My tomatoes are sprawled over the sides and all over the ground.  That makes it kind of hard to reach in and pick the fruit.  It also over grew and smothered everything else I planted.

The first 6 months were for learning and experimenting. I hope I can start to focus more on productivity now.  It will be my first attempt  at aquaponics outdoors during the cold season,  so I may still stumble around outside, but I'm going to focus on lettuce and spinach indoors.  I'm also thinking about adding a second grow bed for plants I can feed to my fish.  Space is limited, but I have some ideas.

Do you have any advice for outdoor aquaponics during the Fall and Winter?

* I transferred this out of the Water Hyacinth discussion.
Chris George said:

@Bob...I think the UofA in Tucson (that's where you used to live, right?) was involved with Azolla experimentation, so, Dave Story (from the group) should know source info and general information.  There must be some issues with heat because I haven't heard of anyone here in the Valley growing any with success, but in Tucson I believe there was success.  I can never remember where you are in CA...are you up north around Sacramento, the point is, are you hot and dry like the Phoenix area, or higher elevation like Tucson, and are you Desert at all?  My oldest son used to live in Smartville and it was hot and dry.

Comment by Bob Campbell on August 22, 2012 at 11:33am

@John Malone - Thanks for the detailed description John.

I'm looking forward to starting new and clean with a Fall garden! 

I've got too many tomatoes.  Now I know why that tomato throwing festival started.

I want to replace all that heavy gravel.  Sorry you AZ folks have had such a hard time finding pumice.  I guess we all have certain products that are available and others that are not.

I'm also feeling very positive about my new seed starts after all the other advice I've gotten from Vlad Jovanovic, Jon Parr and Paul Holowko.

Thanks everyone!

Comment by John Malone on August 22, 2012 at 10:39am

Squash Plants / Bean Success

The squash beetles won the battle and I pulled two of my squash plants this morning.  I'm not too sad about it.  They weren't fruiting and I was keeping them for the sole purpose of eating nutrients, of which my system has an abundance.

I did go on a little rampage against the squash bugs that I found running around though.  It turns out that they make excellent fish food, particularly the young ones.  Drop them in a tank of unfed tilapia and WHAM!, they're gone in an instant.  The adult ones will be pecked at for a while by the fish and don't seem to be eaten on the spot, but they're never there the next time I look in the tank.  Now, where did they go?   Hmmmm.....   Happy little fish!

On the positive side of the ledger, I am finally having good success with growing beans.  Here are the critical things I've discovered after my fourth attempt at growing beans from seed.  

1. You can't germinate beans in 100F+ temps.  Don't try. It doesn't work!
2. Germinate at approx 80F inside, wrapped in damp kitchen paper, inside a zip-lock bag.   Works every time.  Almost 100% germination in 3 days.  
3. Don't wait too long after germination to plant out or the seeds will go moldy.
4. Place sprouting seeds deep enough in the media bed so that the media they're sitting on is damp.  It doesn't have to be at the water line, just where the media is damp.
5. Cover lightly with media.  I'm using lava rock and only cover with 1 layer of smaller rock.  2" deep will kill the plants.  They just don't have the strength to push through.  It doesn't seem to matter if the seed is slightly exposed.

When the plants are a little bigger I will back fill the media so that I'm not losing water to evaporation, but until then I'll live with having the surface of the media around the seedlings being damp and evaporating.  It's only for a week or so.

Comment by Dr. George B. Brooks, Jr. on August 22, 2012 at 9:11am

Wind, and 1 inch of rain. Minor damage. However, all the vine plants seemed to grow 3 feet!!!! Ok maybe 3 inches but still noticeable growth. Don't know if they are responding to the rain, lower temperatures, higher humidities, less direct sun or the iron I added. (they really liked the iron. Greened right up).

Comment by Jeremy K on August 22, 2012 at 1:19am

I can't wait to wake up in the morning and see how my gardens handled all the rain and winds

Comment by Dr. George B. Brooks, Jr. on August 21, 2012 at 3:59pm

@Larry. Nice

Comment by Larry in Casa Grande on August 21, 2012 at 3:54pm

My Nitrates are at 80 PPM. I have some things growing in my grow beds that I planted from seed a month or two ago. I am not a gardener, so I did not consider correct season or any thing like that. I just wanted to see if stuff would grow, so I just popped some seeds in to see what they would do. The spinach seedlings tanked in the heat, Lettuce is so-so, Carrots are doing well, and these tall plants, ( they are Cucumber and Cantalope) are doing spectacular, along with some flowers, and various other vegatables.

Comment by Dr. George B. Brooks, Jr. on August 21, 2012 at 3:42pm

Today's aquaponic sweet basil harvest. Used about 80% of the foliage, 1.3 pounds. the rest I put back to grow back.

http://bit.ly/PUeLRU

Comment by Dr. George B. Brooks, Jr. on August 21, 2012 at 1:18pm

Thanks for the Nitrate comments. Much appreciated. Scott, I agree with what the others are saying, they look like midges to me as well. 

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