Marty had a rare Friday off work, so we got the majority of our errands run then. We met his brother, Ben in Waco at Homestead Heritage for lunch. Then made stops at Walmart and Home Depot. Marty need to purchase some more gravel to get grow bed #2 started. Me, being a somewhat impatient person, decided to pick up some lettuce and cabbage starts to put into grow bed #1. The seeds we planted last week just weren’t doing it for me. I also bought a chocolate mint plant, which smells heavenly! We also bought 3 dozen minnows for the fish barrel, so we can start getting some fertilization going. So here are photos of what we did this weekend!
As you can see, we now have grow bed #2 up and filled with gravel. Nothing planted in it yet.
Before we could plant the starts, we had to wash off all the dirt on the roots. These are our cabbage plants getting a bath.
See the pretty clean roots. This is to help keep the dirt from getting into the water in the system.
Now that the roots are all clean, it’s time to start planting them!
Marty used the garden knife to plant the starts into grow bed #1. Just push the gravel aside, insert the plant and cover with the gravel.
Getting grow bed #1 planted with lettuce and cabbage.
Our newly planted lettuce.
Our newly planted cabbage.
an enlarged view of the newly planted grow bed #1. As you can see we still are trying to sprout seeds in the back left corner.
Here’s what they look like right now. We have a few more starting to sprout, but over all it hasn’t been very successful as of yet. We used seeds that were several years old, so I’m not sure if that was a factor. We’ll keep trying and watching them. If they don’t start doing something in the next week or so, we may try again with new seeds.
As of right now, all is going pretty well. The only real problem we’re having is getting the homemade bell siphons working consistantly. That’s driving Marty bonkers, but I know he’ll figure it out. I think the big problem is that the grow beds and the fish barrel (where the water for the grow beds are pumped from) are too close to the same height. Next weekend we will probably be changing things around a little in the greenhouse. We’re going to purchase a kiddy pool for the fish instead of the barrel. This will be lower to the ground and hopefully make the bell siphon work better. We’ll see 🙂 We will also be making some worm beds and adding so we can grow our own fish food. We also plan on exchanging the minnows for some sort of fish we could actually eat. Perch or Crappie probably. We just need to get them ordered and purchased.
But we’re sure enjoying the process. There’s something really relaxing about hanging out in the greenhouse and listening to the water. That, and I get to enjoy the scent of my chocolate mint plant (not to mention a slight fishy odor now that we have fish in the system!).
Essential Traditions/Real Food Real Frugal 