The aquaponics system still needs some tweaking. Right now it's just a floating garden on top of the water. I still need to water the plants as their roots do not currently extend down into the water. I noticed that the egg carton in the fridge is made of styrofoam (which floats)... so as soon as we finish the eggs, I'm going to poke holes in the bottom and see if it makes a better aquaponics plant holder than the current system.
I think the last broccoli plant is officially dead now. I'll start fresh outdoors when the weather warms up. Same with the cucumbers. I've lost over half of them, so we'll be planting more outside than originally planned to make up the difference. The aquaponics system still needs some tweaking. Right now it's just a floating garden on top of the water. I still need to water the plants as their roots do not currently extend down into the water. I noticed that the egg carton in the fridge is made of styrofoam (which floats)... so as soon as we finish the eggs, I'm going to poke holes in the bottom and see if it makes a better aquaponics plant holder than the current system. Today I planted garlic. I have several more to plant, but I'm running out of containers again (and space to put them all). I had thought about planting garlic, but put it to the back of my mind in favor of tomatoes and other vegetables. Yesterday my mom was going to throw out two bunches of garlic because they'd started to sprout, and I took the opportunity to "rescue" them. The other sprouting bits are in a box waiting for their turn to be planted in soil. I may put one in the indoor garden since most of the cucumbers died. The mango is still sprouting. It's very slow progress, but it's definitely growing! I assume that it's much slower to grow because it's a tree rather than an annual plant (it has a lot longer to grow than a pepper or a cucumber). I've moved it to the grow light area, so maybe it will grow faster. Yesterday I trudged through thigh-deep snow in the dark to try to get some apple tree cuttings from one of my parents' trees (with permission of course). It was dark, so I couldn't see what I was doing, but I tried to pick good branches. I think two that I selected are probably too old and won't work, but I'm hopeful anyway. The third branch looks viable, but frost-bitten (if a tree can be frost-bitten). Anyway, I dipped each branch in rooting hormone (something new to me) and put two in water and one in the dirt in the indoor garden. We'll see if anything happens. It would be pretty neat to start our own orchard using nothing but cuttings from other trees! In the photo below you can see our garden gnome. I haven't come up with a name for him yet, but for now he's going to tend the apple branch. As for the rest of the container gardening, the bell peppers under the grow light look fantastic (photo below). The peas seem to do great no matter where they are (in the south window, the north window, or the aquaponics system). The cucumbers have proven difficult. The ones in #2's bedroom (south window) seem to be thriving. The cucumbers in the indoor garden have mostly died out (there are 3 left alive and they are flopped over). Only one cucumber remains in the aquaponic set up and it's alone in it's own container. All but one have died under the grow light.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Amanda's BlogAmanda's blog about everything, important and trivial. Archives
March 2024
Categories
All
|