Progress and more Progress

http://angrydwarfdairy.com/2014/02/20/progress-and-more-progress/

Here is the latest on “The System.” I really think it should have a name…typing Aquaponics System all the time is getting a bit cumbersome. Maybe Adam, as in Adam Smith? Enlightened self interest driving the progress of the whole community and all. Hmm…I’ll let you know when it has a name. In the mean time, I’ll have a post up about the other gardens and I might just get a book review in if I’m very lucky!

  

 

Garden: Take 53

Yes, that is about how many times I’ve tried this stupid garden thing. Why is this time any different you ask? Well. For one, we got good dirt. Sure it involved my husband guy driving about 15 miles with his mud flaps dragging on the ground because the dirt weighed more than his truck. But it is super good dirt, and if that wasn’t enough I have earth worms in my kitchen doing great and icky things to kitchen scraps so that I can have happy veggies.  Also we will be putting in an irrigation system that does not involve me in any way, in fact it will even have a timer. That’s because I have this bad habit of either drowning my plants, or letting them dry out. Sheesh, picky plants wanting just the right amount of water…gosh. But I can’t wait to give it a go again. Husband man still has his heart set on an aquaponics system, so that might be coming down the line at some point.

It never gets old seeing how excited my kids get when they have a real job to do outside, be it digging or weeding or raking. Makes me smile really big.

  

Speaking of smiling really big. Corra is becoming my outside work buddy. She loves hanging out in her chair while I am outside doing farm stuff. Layna just likes being outside when the shed door is open. That means she can stealthily poach animal cookies (goats love them) while I’m not looking.

 

Naomi decided that she was the “Princess of Dirt” and therefore Garyn was the “Prince of Dirt,” making me, logically, “The Dirt Queen.” Sigh. I’m pretty sure her skirt will never be the same again, but I’m ok with that…it was awesome watching her play on the manure smelling mound with that skirt and pink shoes.

 

This picture was taken just after I finished pouncing Neil for being awesome and bringing me dirt so I could have a garden and then happy dancing in my garden. Moving that much is not conducive to clear pictures. And who needs a Zen Garden when I have a dirt princess to help me de-stress?

Circle of Life: part the third

Green thumbs are something I aspire too. I was so excited about the aquaponics idea because I thought, “Here’s a garden that I can’t drown! or under water! or fertilize wrong!” Ah, but those stupid rocks, thwarting me at every turn [shakes fist]. Gardening in Las Vegas is possible. I’ve semi done it before (a wilderness of cherry tomato plants and a few watermelons that got lost in their own foliage). The thing is…not only am I a planner and a “we’ve made the decision, why are we not doing it right now?!” type person (which makes me think I can just stay on top of it without a schedule), I over-think and over-worry. That translates into drowned plants because they wilted in the late afternoon and I watered them…again. Or bugs starting and so I sprayed the snot out of them with bug killer (before I cared about organic hippie-ness). Or if a little bit of fertilizer is good then a lot must be fantastic!

I’m also kind of cheap. Even knowing the importance of “good dirt,” I’ve never been willing to pay for enough to get a garden off to a good start. So it’s a bit of good stuff in a whole mess of bad. “But you can amend and improve” the master gardeners are telling me! Yes but I have kids and I’m impatient and think I can just make it work. “I read a book on it, I got this,” I yell back!

Writing this post is a humbler, meeker novice gardener. I’m using my spring garden to experiment and the real work will be done in the fall. However. Little does my garden know that I have a secret weapon. The second part of my circle of life! The Earthworms!

 

Cherry tomatoes don’t scare me. Big ones do, but these little guys I can handle. So they are my control experiment. Only good quality dirt, a watering system that doesn’t depend on me, and a location that is sheltered but with enough sun. My high tech watering system is the water bottle. There is a small hole in the bottom, right about root level, so when I fill the bottle it slowly drips right onto the roots. It’s a red- neck drip system but I’m ok with that. It works with the 5 gallon bucket grow box.

 

This is the rest of the garden. The two white “grow beds” were left over from the aquaponics system. They desperately need some support but, meh, they’ll work for now. The middle, nice looking grow bed is going to give me grief. Stupidly I ignored the voice in my head telling me to put weed cloth down because we have Bermuda back there. Stupidly I mixed a lot of the dirt that was back there (mostly dried-out marginally composted horse manure) with decent dirt but no other amendments. Stupidly I didn’t address the red ant colony that the box was placed on. Everything I planted in it has now died (minus the lone zucchini that could). In my defense we have had some wicked wind storms that haven’t helped anything. Mostly I was in a hurry and stupid. In the fall I will rectify the stupidity and start over. My goal is a killer herb patch in this box for the rabbits.

 

On the happy side, despite my best efforts to kill them, a pumpkin seed sprouted this morning and my watermelons and cantaloupes are all doing well.

So that completes our Circle of Life. The rabbit poop feeds the worms. The worm poop feeds the plants. The plants feed us and the rabbits. The rabbits feed us. The human poop goes to the city sewer system and all is as it should be. I’ll let you know if it all works out accordingly to plan. I’ve realized that being naïve, optimistic, and impatient doesn’t work so well for gardeners. One or the others you can work with but not all three. Alas for me. But there’s always the fall right?

i [heart] physics

Physics is how my garden grows.

We are going to actually plant stuff! [SQUEEE!!!] <— crazy excited noise. So here is how this rig can allow me to start a garden in the middle of a Las Vegas summer and not doom myself to failure.

 

The grow beds (left) are flooded with water from the sump tank (right) to about an inch below the rock level. The sump also pumps water into the fish tank.

 

Here is the brilliant physics part. When the fish tank water level gets to a certain point it drains out that tube on the right back into the sump tank, but it pulls the water from the bottom of the tank. So ucky fishy water leaves from the bottom while cleaner water flows into the top. Meanwhile in the grow beds, physics is hard at work being even more awesome!

 

This is the auto-siphon inside each grow bed. It is three layers: The open drain pipe attached to the bed on the right, the bell covering thing on the left and then the gravel guard lying on its side in the right picture. Put these together and when the tank fills to a certain point a siphon is formed to drain the water faster than it comes in. So it cycles (filling and emptying) about 5 times an hour. This is excellent for the plants because they have a constant root temperature, constant nutrient rich food supply, and are oxygenated when the system drains. Because of this the plants can grow much faster. But wait there’s more!

I also [heart] chemistry and biology. The way that the ucky fish water can be good for the plants is actually because over time a bacterial colony will grow on the rocks in the grow bed. This bacteria will convert the ammonia to nitrites and then to nitrates (which the plants devour ravenously) as it fills and drains. Then the cleaned and de-ammonia-ified (like that word making up?) water goes back to the sump and back to the fish.

These are the happy plants that get to live in our garden. Best way to start seeds. EVER. Plus it meant I had an excuse for Panda Express. Total win-win. Here we have zucchini and yellow squash up top and spinach on the bottom.

 

On the left we have cucumbers (foreground), Roma tomatoes (back left), and  green beans. On the right we have cherry tomatoes (foreground), cantaloupe (back left) and watermelon.

Once we get these suckers planted, we add in this rank smelling seaweed extract to start the whole process. Then after the system has been running for about two weeks we add our fish. Which means we have a deadline to 1) decide on fish 2) figure out where to buy said fish. Current thought is Koi, unless anyone has any suggestions for a fish that can thrive in 85+ degree water and is easy to keep alive? I don’t have a great track record with fish. So I’m calling them Neil’s fish so as not to bring down my horrible aquatic juju on our unsuspecting aquaponics system.