stories from the veggie patch

[Green rv]

well i can call this job 90% finished now.
lets see how long it takes to do the last 10%

pics from last weekend  and this weekend


Adam

[Steffo1]

Looking good. The last 10% is always 100% necessary!
Steve

[Steffo1]

Another episode of  "The Healthy Possums"
Paw paw, passionfruit & navel orange diet.
Steve

[Steffo1]

hey that looks alright
might make something like that too
we quite often see blue banded bees in the patch

the ones i trying to get now are stingless native bees. will be a painful 10 weeks to see if they take up residents in the new hive.


Adam

Hey Adam, how are your bees going?
Steve

[Green rv]

i haven't had a look inside for a few months
but there not doing as the instructs said they should.

the bees were building a nest in a crack in the wall.
instead of building their new nest in the box they have decided to build in the tube
so i will leave it and see if the nest becomes big enough to also move into the box.
see what happens i spose.

besides the possums, your fruit trees are looking good


Adam

[Steffo1]

Looks like a good season for squash this year. (Here anyway!)
Steve

[MDS69]

After some help/advice.
My sweet corn planted from seedlings took off till it got to about 2ft tall and seems to have stopped. The head grew a few kernels and it looked to have a corn grow out from down low but it has stopped as well.

Snow peas are going nuts but no fruit yet
Strawberries appear to be a failure but the tomatoes have heaps of golf ball size or bigger fruit but waiting to ripen

[Steffo1]

After some help/advice.
My sweet corn planted from seedlings took off till it got to about 2ft tall and seems to have stopped. The head grew a few kernels and it looked to have a corn grow out from down low but it has stopped as well.

Snow peas are going nuts but no fruit yet
Strawberries appear to be a failure but the tomatoes have heaps of golf ball size or bigger fruit but waiting to ripen

A bit hard to say with not knowing your weather but I can say that, with regard to the corn, we would be thinking of planting/sowing now.
Good luck with it.
Steve

[MDS69]

Yes should have mentioned weather.
No frosts yet. The days have been unbelievably warm for this time of the year ie low to mid 20's. Nights are only in the last week or so starting to get cool but not single digits yet when I leave for work in the morning at 5.00-5.30 it is anywhere from 13 to 17 degrees.. No rain but they are being watered.

[WilSurf]

It's a sad few days.
We have lost almost 50% of our fish so far.
7 on Saturday, 7 on Monday and 4 this morning.
All of a sudden they are slow reacting and turn over. They look healthy without any defects.
We have started to run the pump 24/7, increased the flow rate of the aerator and stopped feeding as there was food on the bottom of the tank.
We also have replaced 20-25% of water on Saturday and yesterday.
My wife will buy ammonia and nitrite test kit and test the water for those.
The PH was 6.8-7.2.

[Burnsy]

It's a sad few days.
We have lost almost 50% of our fish so far.
7 on Saturday, 7 on Monday and 4 this morning.
All of a sudden they are slow reacting and turn over. They look healthy without any defects.
We have started to run the pump 24/7, increased the flow rate of the aerator and stopped feeding as there was food on the bottom of the tank.
We also have replaced 20-25% of water on Saturday and yesterday.
My wife will buy ammonia and nitrite test kit and test the water for those.
The PH was 6.8-7.2.

Where is your water coming from Wilco? Hopefully not from a galvanised rainwater tank or off a galvanised roof, if you have it is probably zinc poisoning.

That pH is fine, just need to check your ammonia levels, how many fish in how many litres and what volume of grow beds? Best advice is usually, keep up aeration/pumping, leave the water alone and stop feeding. Every time you do a partial water change it causes more stress so don't do it unless you have too (high ammonia).

[WilSurf]

Water is from the tap Mike.
We had 38 fish in 1500 liter water tank and 2 growbeds of 500 liter each.

[Green rv]

have you or the neighbours sprayed any chemicals close by that may have poisoned them

i use to use an algaecide in my pond to control string algae and gave them a overdose by accident and killed a few fish

besides algae problems i never had an issue with water quality

is high ammonia caused by high nutrients.. ie are too much nutrients coming back through the grow beds ?


Adam

[WilSurf]

My wife tested the water: Ammonia .25ppm, Nitrate 10ppm, PH was 7.2, temp 13 C.

[Burnsy]

Silver Perch pretty much stop eating over winter. Stop feeding all together until water warms again in late spring, otherwise I am at a loss sorry.

[WilSurf]

Yeah we got the help from Cheidys Aquaponics where we bought the system from.
Nitrites: 0 ppm,
Nitrates: 10 ppm,
Ammonia: 0.25 ppm,
Ph: 7.3
Water temperature: 14.5.

So it seems that all values are fine.

[WilSurf]

Final results so far:
Left: 4 koi and 7 silver perches.
Dead: 25 silver perches.

[Steffo1]

A long time but this is from our latest chilli crop.
Sorry about the photo quality.
Steve

[WilSurf]

Sambal, yummie.
We have a second system up and running after a colleague gave away 6 koi.
They were too big (the largest over 50 cm) to join the silver perches so a new system was ordered and delivered.

[WilSurf]

The koi are slowly getting used to us, they are coming to the surface for their food.

The lemon tree is overloaded with fruit, so I have started to make my own lemon marmalade. It is not bad at all.

[Steffo1]

Mmmm. Marmalade!!

I may have come up with a way to stop our fruit being eaten!

[DrewXT]

Silenced .22 and night score works wonders as well, I'm told

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[Steffo1]

If you haven't seen these before give them a go. They're "Daikon" and will break up heavy soil. They're also delish.
Steve