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Harvest Fridays – Where are our fish!?

April 17, 2015 by jessfuel 10 Comments

Hey all. Happy Harvest Friday! I was out of town all week so I have a major back up of veggies. I need to do some serious salad-eating over the next few days. Tomorrow I am going to be talking about one of my gardening heroes, so please check back!!

You know, sometimes I sit down to write this post before actually taking any garden pictures, and I think I don’t have much to talk about. Then I head out to the garden to snap a few photos and realize so much has changed in two weeks. It’s really exciting! So let’s dig in.

Aquaponics Updates

Our aquaponics garden is in full swing now, growing like crazy. Just check out this before and after from about 6 weeks ago. So much greenery is going on!

Six weeks ago:

Aquaponics system for aquaponic gardening

And now:

Aquaponics System

The only thing that’s missing is our tilapia. The last two garden updates promised you tilapia next time, but we still don’t have them. We are having serious problems with the guy we ordered them from. He kept delaying shipping them and finally sent them last weekend (supposedly) but they still haven’t arrived. I don’t know much about fish, but I know they probably don’t survive very well in the mail in 90 degree weather. Ugh. So I’m just waiting for my package of dead fish to show up. If that happens, we’re going to have to rally for a refund and find a new supplier.

In the meantime, we got some extra goldfish (including Captain Blackfin II) to try to up the fish poop in the system. We also bought some worm tea, which is an organic fertilizer, to add nutrients until we get the tilapia. It’s basically just worm castings soaked in water.

Here’s a new-to-us crop:

Growing tomatillos in an aquaponic garden

Tomatillos! We’ve never grown them before, but are hoping they grow as well as tomatoes.

Just look how big the tomatoes have gotten. Hoping they start producing soon. We just learned we need to start tapping the flowers to pollinate them. Each flower has both male and female parts, but needs a little tussle to spread the love around. Usually the bees do this, but since there are no bees in the greenhouse, we need to start doing it by hand.

Growing tomatoes in an aquaponic garden

Traditional Garden Updates

The potatoes are growing like WEEDS! Two weeks ago they were deep in trenches in the garden bed, and now they’re up and over the top of the bed. We’re going to continue piling dirt on top as high as we can. We’re going to have a boatload of potatoes! I took this picture into the sun at dusk and it came out kind of weird, but kind of cool!

Growing potatoes

We also planted some more potatoes in burlap sacks. These sacks were a lot smaller than we thought they were going to be, but hopefully they each get at least a few potatoes. We ordered some larger sacks for our sweet potato shoots and some purple potato seeds we just bought. So many potatoes!

Planting potatoes in burlap sacks

Our onions and garlic, which have been growing since we planted them in the fall, started sending out scapes this week! You are supposed to cut these off so that the plant sends it’s energy to the bulb instead of the scape, which is sort of like it’s flower.

Elephant garlic scape

Elephant Garlic Scape

You can also eat these. I will have to cut them off soon and figure out what to do with them!

Onion scape

Onion Scape

We lost our huge rosemary bush when we pulled up some of our garden beds to build the greenhouse, so I planted a couple new plants. Instead of planting them in the garden, I planted them out in the yard. I’m hoping they turn into bushes like our last one. Edible landscaping!

Planting rosemary

Speaking of edible landscaping, our fruit is off to a good start this year. The Asian pear tree has tons of little pearlings (I may have made up that word) on it, a ton more than last year. We have thinned them a little bit, but will thin them to one pearling per grouping soon.

Asian pear tree

The blueberries are off to a good start, too. Last year we had to fight the birds for them, so we need to get some kind of nets to put over them once they start ripening.

Blueberry bush

The Harvest

Like I said, I was out of town most of this week so I didn’t do a ton of harvesting. Before I left, though, we were making a ton of salads. They all included lettuces, kale, radishes and radish greens, microgreens, chives and parsley. Finished with whatever else I happened to have in the fridge!

Garden fresh salad

Garden fresh salad

Garden fresh salad

I made tacos and topped them with a few crunchy radishes (and the greens!).

Chicken taco with fresh radish

And also harvested our first cucumbers! They’re probably going to go in a salad tonight.

Growing cucumbers in an aquaponic garden

We figured out that this variety of cucumber does need to be pollinated. However, pollinating with a Q-tip clearly works just fine. It’s not the most hands-off method, though, so next time we will try a greenhouse variety of cuke that doesn’t need help with pollination.

Hope you have a great weekend! Just for fun, here’s Blackie (we’re so creative with names) chowing on a kale flower:

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Filed Under: Gardening Tagged With: gardening, vegetables

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Comments

  1. Gayle @ Pumpkin 'N Spice says

    April 17, 2015 at 12:20 pm

    Your garden is really growing, Jess! That’s so exciting. And I hope you get your tilapia soon. And I love that you’re growing tomatillos, how fun! Sounds like you have a lot of fresh veggies and healthy eating ahead of you this weekend!

    Reply
  2. Katie says

    April 17, 2015 at 1:11 pm

    wow what a great garden you have! You really know what you’re talking about {I am 100% clueless about this stuff}. It seems like you are really doing a great job! I’m jealous of all the great fresh food you guys are eating. It looks so good!

    Reply
    • jessfuel says

      April 17, 2015 at 7:18 pm

      Honestly we are mostly clueless too, haha… lots of learning from YouTube videos!

      Reply
  3. [email protected] says

    April 17, 2015 at 7:03 pm

    Your salads look amazing! How awesome to have such a fantastic supply of fresh food to eat right in your yard!

    Reply
    • jessfuel says

      April 17, 2015 at 7:17 pm

      Thanks, Christin!! It definitely is pretty awesome!!

      Reply
  4. Kelly - Life Made Sweeter says

    April 18, 2015 at 2:44 am

    Your garden is so amazing, Jess! Love everything that you’re growing so far! The salads look fantastic!

    Reply
  5. Mariah @ Mariah's Pleasing Plates says

    April 18, 2015 at 8:17 am

    Um I am sooo jealous of your garden!
    I hope your tomatillos grow well! I loveee them and use them in so many dishes!
    Hope you two have a great weekend!

    Reply
    • jessfuel says

      April 21, 2015 at 3:05 pm

      Thanks, Mariah! I hope they grow, too! I have actually only used them once– in a salsa. But it was SO good and I’d love to experiment more with them!

      Reply
  6. Natalie @ Tastes Lovely says

    April 20, 2015 at 8:47 am

    Your aquaponics garden is growing so big! Dislike how hard of a time you’re having to get your tilapia. Love all your garden updates! We just planted this weekend. So excited! Thanks for the tip about pollinating the flowers of the plants. We have 2 different bee hives about 100 ft from our garden. I’m so hoping they find it and help themselves! I planted a ton of dandelions, and got a huge lavender bush to attract them. Fingers crossed!

    Reply
    • jessfuel says

      April 21, 2015 at 3:12 pm

      Oh yeah, you’ll totally be fine with the bees! All of our outdoor gardens don’t need any help (with the exception of zucchini and summer squash, which we usually help to get going with a Q-tip– you can Google how). It’s kind of win-lose with the greenhouse. Plants are much safer from pests and the elements, but they are missing out on bees and other natural helpers!

      Reply

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Jess is home cook, foodie and proud Navy wife. She grew up in Boston and now lives on the West Coast. She loves to blog, travel, read and write. When she's not working or blogging, she can be found running or relaxing with a glass of wine. Read More…

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