CRAFTS Video Updates October 2014

CRAFTS set update October 2014

Equatorial Lowland Strawberry Project - Video Update 27th Oct 2014

Update 27th October 2014 of my Strawberry trial.

Equatorial Lowland Strawberry Project - Journal 17th Oct 2014

That aphid infested plant has to be sacrifice to ensure situation contained. I decide to re-pot and trimmed all leaves from this plant.

The black aphid reappear, but the ants are no more around.

I had to cut all the leaves and get rid all this aphid, need to visit the local flower nursery to find more potent organic spray to ensure they don't reoccur.

They are even in the crown area.

Trimmed and re-pot and will monitor closely.

Hope this plant survived the ordeal.

Planting Soursop

Durian Belanda, Soursop or Custard Apple as it is called is an evergreen tree from the rain forest. Three of its sapling were given to me and been standing to keep alive in my aquaponics growbed for few months.

Shifted from front to back and before it had its days I better plant it to soil, at least one of it.

This I do normal dirt planting there are two left, one I will use container with soil and another I will try Aquaponics.

Back lane CRAFTS set updates 11th Oct 2014

Not doing much these last few months on the back lane set, finally after festive season temporarily over I am tiding it up for more planting.

The Garlic Chives that I redo from front to make way for the Strawberry doing great and I got twelve pots in this growbed with few more in another growbed. This is more that I need, two pots is all that is required and I may reduce to only six pots for my own use.

 Three Basil pots I redo into two using the slotted orchid pot, one I transfer another start new from cutting.

More Basil than I can handle, Tilapia will eat this.

Turmeric are very slow to shot, I'll change to slotted pots once they have sufficient root growth holding the LECA.

Above potted flood & drain will be redo to have more plants in it.

I must get more plants going to use up all the nitrate, tilapia are getting bigger and they produce more waste now as compare few months back.

Few seedlings growing and I must sow more, heavy rain causes damage to seedling and some seeds just don't germinate. Need to change the way I sow those seeds.

Three pots of Sambung Nyawa plants taken out from the growbed and giving it away.

They Are Always Hungry, These Tilapia

No matter how you feed them, they are always hungry. Tilapia has short digestive track they eat a little bit at a time but most of the time.

These are in my CRAFTS set, and they are getting bigger. I use fish pellets to feed them.

Never over feed fish, especially in Aquaponics. Water will get murky and Ammonia will shoot up. If you see foam or bubbles in the fish tank just stop feeding them for at least one day and continue after water had cleared.

It's okay for them to go hungry, they will start to feed on the algae making water and tank cleaner.

Surplus greens is good, above is the Sambung Nyawa plants that I cut and throw it to give them something to bite.

Tilapia will eat greens, one of the best is Kangkung these they will nibble in no time at all. However before feeding them greens make sure they are really hungry.

There are loads of green from my Aquaponics growbeds and it's fish food.

After 1 day in the fish tanks, this is what left of the plants. Those stems can still be use as cuttings.

Kaffir Lime Seedling

Sown last August, after a more than a month it started to germinate, kaffir lime seedling out if 15 seeds sown only these three germinate after one long month.

Small tiny seedling that was over cast by Thai Basil plant, after the plant being trimmed only then these seedling were spotted.

All I need is one plant to make it, we use the leaves for flavoring. There are sign of another few more breaking ground, will wait another week or two before removing the sowing pots.

These I will try using container, direct soil and Aquaponics and see how it goes.

Equatorial Lowland Strawberry Project - Journal 11th Oct 2014

One of my plant got aphid and some ants are taking advantage of this tending to farm the aphid honey pots.

If not treated it will weaken this plant and worst could cause virus or fungal infection. I had to get rid of it quick.

Isolate the plant from the rest and at first I try to get rid of the ants by using this ants bait that could eliminate the ants. But it don't seems to work, because they are busy harvesting those honey pots and show no interest to my bait.

For a quick action, decide to clip off two of the most affected leaves and discard them to kill majority of the aphids. The remaining leaves are not that bad, but I must do something to stop recurring.

Leaves cut and sprayed with organic pest repellent, if needed I can make do with soap solution. Since I had this spray at hand, just try it out first before proceeding to the next step.

I had to isolate this plant, to ensure those aphid don't fly off or hop off to nearest safe place and will just makes things worst. Luckily the plants are all in individual pots, which makes it easy to do this.

Kutu Daun - Aphid

One of my Strawberry plant got Kutu Daun (aphid) and some ants are taking advantage of this tending to farm the aphid honey pots. If not treated it will weaken this plant and worst could cause virus or fungal infection. I had to get rid of it quick.

Isolate the plant from the rest and at first I try to get rid of the ants by using this ants bait that could eliminate the ants. But it don't seems to work, because they are busy harvesting those honey pots and show no interest to my bait.

For a quick action, decide to clip off two of the most affected leaves and discard them to kill majority of the aphids. The remaining leaves are not that bad, but I must do something to stop recurring.

Leaves cut and sprayed with organic pest repellent, if needed I can make do with soap solution. Since I had this spray at hand, just try it out first before proceeding to the next step.

I had to isolate this plant, to ensure those aphid don't fly off or hop off to nearest safe place and will just makes things worst. Luckily the plants are all in individual pots, which makes it easy to do this.

Lemon Grass in Container Flood & Drain

Serai or Lemon Grass is a common herb to most home gardener even in temperate countries where they would grow these indoor during the winter months and take it out in the spring. I did grow these in my growbed before back in 2010 or so but it just got wild and difficult to contain within my growbed.

This time I want to do it differently by using the slotted orchid pots, hopefully it can be "tamed" to within the confinement of the pot. Got myself few stalk of lemon grass which is easy to get and just let it stand in a bowl of water for couple of hour or so.

Since I'm doing it Aquaponics, a couple of hours is sufficient and don't need to wait for roots to form like when you are doing it with dirt.

Three pots and using some surplus hydroton and pebbles mixed as grow media I prepared six stalk for planting.

Two in each pot, just in case one didn't make it. But it is highly unlikely for this not to grow. Over here this is easily grown anywhere.

Placed the pots in the growbed and just wait. Ideally for this plant it is best to get a larger pot like twelve inches across, those pots is only six. I'll get a bigger pots once these shown good progress, on average Asian household we probably can make do with two pots of these for our daily cooking needs.

Equatorial Lowland Aquaponics Strawberry Project - Facebook Pages

I had dedicate a Facebook page Equatorial Lowland Aquaponics Strawberry Project to separate my normal Aquaponics activity to this trial that I am doing to grow Strawberry in the Lowland Equator.

The link to the page is : Here
The Category of posting is : Here

Thank you.