Category Archives: Aquaponics

Tomatoes, quail and dragon fruit galore!

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February has been busy and productive at McCarthyPark 2! Our quail hatching last month wasn’t great, with only 10 hatching, so we bought some tiny day old quail chicks and added those to the brooder box, and transferred the older ones to a cage outside that is set up with a heater (but fortunately isn’t as stinky as it is outside!). They are all doing very well, and growing so quickly!

We have also had great success with our dragon fruit again this year, with a total of 24 flowers turning to fruit. It is particularly good that the flowering has been a bit better spaced out, so we are able to pick and eat some while the others ripen. We hand pollinated again just to be sure as some of the flowers are under the pergola roof.

And tomatoes….. oh my goodness we have had such an abundance, just from four plants in the aquaponics- a Roma, yellow pear, and two different cherry tomatoes.

This is just one, that produces the most beautiful large cherry tomatoes!

Every weekend has been spent preserving, as well as eating fresh and giving away heaps! So far this summer we have canned cherry tomatoes and crushed tomatoes….

The cherry tomatoes siphoned a bit, but will be ok for a while.

We have also canned (and eaten!) jars of shakshouka, creole sauce and salsa- we have plenty to last for a while once the tomatoes stop producing (no signs of that as yet though!)

The shakshouka was made by adapting the spices in the Ball Book recipe for spicy creole sauce- yum!

Dragon fruit….again!

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Last year we were very disappointed to loose the few dragon fruit flowers that had grown for the first time, but are really hopeful for this year! After annual setbacks due to frost, we had to move them again from the raised beds and planted them in large pots just on the edge of the verandah, and they are thriving! They have grown so much, and several now have multiple buds…watch this space!

Even if some of them fruit, we will be thrilled! Especially as we have lost a few things towards the end of this hot Perth summer…..

Aquaponics update

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Our aquaponics system has become more and more acidic over time, and we need to add a small amount of potassium bicarbonate most days to maintain the pH close to 7. We know our bore water (which is all we have, not being on the mains water system) has a pH of 6.4, but also feel the amount of gum leaves that land in the system contribute.

The piles of gum leaves that build up on the ground over the course of the week (between blowing, raking and removing), also provided snake hiding spots (see January), something we were keen to reduce. So, we decided to cover the whole system and aquaculture system in the swimming  pool with a patio roof, built by Great Aussie Patios, who were great from start to finish. Although the area was basically just a very large rectangle, there were many different heights and roof lines to link to and they did a great job.

Neat and tidy aquaponics area

It has been the best thing! We designed the roof to allow plenty of light to the grow beds and pots, but also to provide tin ‘walkways’ for blowing the leaves off. The roof has so successfully reduced the amount of leaves! The pool, grow beds and fish tank have remained clean, as has the ground- reducing our work load enormously.

 

Spring 2017 at McCarthy Park

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We have had a very busy spring this year, though we think we say that every year!

Sometimes it is nice to just make the garden look nice! Yes, the mulch will help with water retention as the hot summer comes, but…… it just looks so good!

Here’s a couple of before and after shots:

Of course more than mulch spreading has been happening:

Looks like a good crop of olives this year!

We had a great harvest of perch to stock up the freezer!

And some yabbies too!

And of course now the weather is warming up, the trout are harvested, smoked and vacuum packed for the coming year!

Giant Silver Perch!

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We had a good harvest of silver perch from the swimming pool, using an adapted prawn net. We netted 8 fish, all of which were over a kilo, but the biggest of all was this one- an amazing 2.7 kg! We assume it was one of the original perch we put in 5 years ago, to get to such a size……… either that or it is a real greedy guts!

A whopper!

The most delicious pineapple!

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The waiting was worth it- the pineapple growing in the aquaponics system was finally ready- at the end of July in a Perth winter! Who would believe it? But, all who have tasted it agree it is the most delicious pineapple!

Magnificent pineapple!

Magnificent pineapple!

Juicy and sweet!

Juicy and sweet!

The other pineapple growing in a pot (see the May post), should be ready in a couple of months or so, it will be interesting to see if there is a difference in the taste (aquaponics vs dirt). When this one is finished, the top will be prepared and planted ready to grow another pineapple!

Pineapples!

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We have been growing pineapples from the tops of bought pineapples, and finally have some fruit this year! The plants in the aquaponics system have grown much quicker than those in the garden, interestingly. This beauty is almost ready….

Aquaponics pineapple

Aquaponics pineapple

This is the one growing in a pot near the back of the house, not as big but growing!

Pineapple growing in a pot

Pineapple growing in a pot

Can’t wait for them to ripen!!

Silver perch…

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Now the weather is warming up and the Silver Perch in the swimming pool are more actively eating (they slow down a fair bit over the colder months), they are easy to catch on a fishing line. They like prawns, but their favourite is worms! The tricky part is catching more than one- it seems that once the first good sized one is caught, the others know and avoid the bait. We have our great net system now though, which means we can hop in and catch a few-selecting the ones to harvest and releasing the others. These two beauties were caught for a lunch with guests- the biggest was 1.2kg!

Silver Perch

Silver Perch

Trout season begins!

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As the water temperatures have gone down below 20C now, we took out the perch from the aquaponics fish tank and added them to the swimming pool with the other perch. It is great to be able to have a variety of sizes of fish living together and not eating each other!  We added trout fingerlings to the fish tank for winter, and already they are leaping out of the water to feed! They are so much more exciting than perch, but the perch are certainly tasty and easy to manage. Part of the change over involved a good tidy up of the grow beds, which were looking very sad. Pulling out plants that had finished providing (or were too massacred by caterpillars to keep!), adding some fresh expanded clay and seedlings, and they look so much better.

tidied up and ready to grow!

tidied up and ready to grow!

AP planting 2

It was also time to harvest some yabbies, and it reminded us of how much it hurt our backs to bend over the ibc tanks to clean them out…so, we purchased a grow bed to match the aquaponics system and replaced the ibc tanks with that. Now we have a great yabbie tank that doesn’t involve bending over to clean, and it looks good too as it matches the AP system! Of course, we had to harvest a dozen or so yabbies at the same time!

new yabbie tank

new yabbie tank