Giving thanks . . .

Lots to be thankful for on the urban permaculture front. A couple of those bean sprouts have actually emerged from the soil! Also, I was able to sprout some purple basil in an AG3 using a tea bag as a medium. Curious to see what the longterm results will be.

Oh the big news, I finally bought some test leads and merged Aerogarden with aquarium. It seems to be holding steady after a week. The main question is, why?

On the not-so-thankful front, the crayfish seems to be eating the basil roots. Which is ironic, considering that herb might join him in a sauté pan one day.

Tersano Lotus really works

Hey, I got a Tersano Lotus for Christmas. It does all it says. These should be as ubiquitous as vacuum cleaners. It will really come in handy with my various projects.

Also, I finally got some neem oil to try to keep spider mites offa my succulent aerogreens.

Finally, it's been one year since I got my AeroGarden. The basil is still going, stems as thick as tree branches.

End of passive aquaponics experiment

I just shut down the passive aquaponics experiment I had on my porch. This was basically a cheap styrofoam cooler stocked with some guppies and some AeroGarden plants floating on top.

The main reason I took it in was the cooler, the kind you get when you buy steaks by mail order, was beginning to leak too much.

Amazingly, the little experiment worked pretty well. The fish survived a couple of months with no motorized filter even though it got to up to 111'F out there. I got a little bit of basil out of the deal and my chives even came back from the dead (both of these originally planted last Christmas).

The fish are now chilling in a small aquarium and most of the plants are back in the original AeroGarden.

I do believe the concept works on a small scale. If I were to do it again, I would get a real cooler with a drain on the bottom for waste purposes. I would have to figure out some way to put in the seed pods, probably just cut holes out of the top with a template. That should make a very efficient---and portable---little garden.

Basil outside and in the office

I have been experimenting with transplanting GrowPods into containers. Meet Basil. I was having a hard time keeping up with the basil, and I wanted to lower the lights in that unit so I could get other stuff started, so I yanked him out and put him in a vase, with my formula of one tablespoon coffee grounds (for nitrogen and carbon) and a little java moss (for oxygen). He spent some time indoors and out, even in the direct sun, and he looked OK for a few days. Now he's starting to look dried out though.

AG hacks that worked

I am happy to report a couple of my tricks for capitalizing upon the excess energy flow of the AeroGarden have proved fruitful. What you do is plant seeds in the little peat pots and set them in range of the grow lights. In this environment you have to water them every day; in some cases I recycled the little clear plastic caps that came with the AeroGarden seed pods.

Peas sprouted in a couple of days. So did cilantro, an herb that AeroGrow removed from its herb kit because it is so hard to grow! Hopefully it won't curl up and die on me.

The aquaponics experiment has also proved successful. Basil will root very well within a week.

Instant aquaponics

I have also started an aquaponics experiment buy putting a basil clipping into a vase with a fish in it. It is parked in the light of an Aerogarden 3, which by the way warms up the water quite a bit; I'll have to watch that.