PCR: Olla Update - Blessed with free tomato plants!

Flower Pot meets Olla (made of two 4" pots)

Saturday we went by the preparedness fair - lots of cool stuff there. I even had the opportunity to see one of the self-cloning crawdads I wrote about a while back. (Another Cool Aquaponics System and Send in the Clones)

'Went to a garden party...

The Texas Agrilife Extension group and the Master Gardeners were giving tomato seedlings to passersby, so I passered by and scored some free plants. (Thanks Linda and Vikram!).

That left me with four little tomato plants needing to be planted and a small stack of ollas needing to go underground. I put 4 and 2 together, and the grand experiment has begun. I found some old pots on the back porch and threw everything together. The compost box doubled as a planting table. It looks like things are falling in place. We now have tomatoes and ollas on the front porch. If they thrive, I'll post pics. If they don't, I'll invite you to the composting wake. Either way, we'll find a reason to celebrate.

May your grand experiments thrive.

Aquaponics Epiphany

I just figured out how I want to do this. Hopefully, I will have photos for you on Monday.

May everything in your care thrive!

(Few things offer more inspiration than a deadline.)

Aggie Aquaponics

I know, it's not much to look at and at that scale we'll be lucky to feed the neighborhood pseudo-jackrabbit - it's really a possum with big ears. But that's the shelf and 20 gallon aquarium that will be the aquaponics setup. My April 2 deadline is fast approaching. I set it up this weekend and the water is cycling now. I will keep you posted as the grow bed comes together and the tadpoles move into their more spacious new home.

As for the Aggies, the take the A in A&M seriously and they offer up all kinds of agricultural advice. Today I learned that they even offer up extensive advice on aquaponics. Whenever I search Texas wildlife, I am amazed at the great resources that come out of that school.

If you have any interest at all in aquaponics, ponds, fish farming, commercial viability, water quality, or (my personal favorite) crawdads, this website links to it all.
http://fisheries.tamu.edu/aquaponics/

May life thrive under your stewardship!