Aquaponics - Sweet Remano peppers

I harvested the first of my very late capsicums today.

This is my all time favourite variety called Sweet Remano pepper.

They are very late to fruit as I like them red, and they went in very late.

These things are so delicious, that I think they are too valuable to eat.





For some strange reason, I cant buy them from any of my local fruit and veg shops, or supermarkets.

Delicious.















120 Things in 20 years - I really need to learn how to use my new camera when trying to take pictures of the Sweet Remano peppers from my aquaponics system.

Aquaponics - Cucumber sprouts

Every single one of the capsicum sprouts got munched by slugs.

Now I have cucumber sprouts that have worked realy well in the bean sprout sprouter.

These seem to have done particularly well in the sprouter, but that could just be because they are a large seed, and make a large sprout.








I'm calling using a bean sprout sprouter to raise seedlings for aquaponics, a total success.

This cucumber sprout is around 240mm in total length from tip of root to leaves.

That's a big sprout.

All grown from seed in the bean sprout sprouter, and all strong, healthy, and best of all totally organic.

Actually the real "best of all", is that it doesnt contain any dirt that needs washing off before planting in the system.

Also, it's length means the roots should reach nearly to the bottom of my grow beds.

Much more than they need to find all the water and nutrient they could desire.



And all that means they should have no problems growing.





120 Things in 20 years - struggling without a spell checker to post anything at all, but still managing to put some semi-science out there in the form of my Aquaponics cucumber sprouts.

Aquaponics - Capsicum sprout success (I think)

I'm still a little hesetant to sugest the capsicum sprouter tests have been a success becuase one of them is turning a little brown on the root tip.

But that might just be because I'm a little rough sometimes and put my camera on them when trying to take side on, macro shots, in a dish.

It might also that be it simply doesnt work.

But I think what I see here is a shoot that might just be long enough to plant in my system.

I'd guess it's around 40mm long, and I think I'd prefer to transplant it at more like twice that, but I also think I could get away with it now.








In fact I might even just be able to transplant them as soon as the seed is proven viable. ie when they are at the stage of the first sign of sprouting. I'd need to be gentle, but it might be doable. Especially in the clay ball media rather than the rougher scoria.

Either way, it looks like tis turning into a useful method of propergating seed for aquaponics, allowing for additional control over where plants grow and when, without having to add dirt to a system, or buy seedlings.

Just as an aside, when you transplant seedlings bought from a store, wash them realy well, because there's a fair chance they have been sprayed with...

well...

everything.



120 Things in 20 years - Moving gradually closer to some kind of success with some stuff to do with raising capsicum seeds in a bean sprout sprouter.

Aquaponics - Sprouter capsicum falling over

The now 6 days old (from the time of first sprouting) capsicum sprouts in the sprouter are trying to reach up and put out some leaves, but they keep falling over.

This might not be a big deal, as it might just coil around a bit until it creates a stand for itself, and then goes about it's growy business.

The danger will be that by the time it creates a stand for itself, it will be out of energy.

As I understand it, the sprout grows only from the energy stored in the seed, and water from the environment. Some seeds need to get through quite a bit of dirt, so I'm hoping nature has left a little in reserve.


I guess they will still grow even if I transplant them as a coil, but I was hoping for a nice straight tap root to make sure it reaches the water in the aquaponics system.

It's normal in an aquaponics system to have a maximum water level set in the grow bed so that it's around 25mm down from the top of the media. This helps prevent evaporation, and also some diseases and fungal attacks associated with the stems of various plants being too wet.

So the jury is still out (for capsicum) as far as using a sprouter for seed raising in aquaponics.


120 Things in 20 years

120 Things in 20 years - Aquaponics - Capsicum sprout

The capsicum sprouting is going fine. I think they were originally planted on the 8th of October, and  showed first signs of a shoot on the 17th. It's now the 22nd, and the one I've been taking photos of is now starting to concentrate on going up a bit.

It looks like this.

The root is a little longer, but more importantly, it all sits in the wet now. The seed is doing it's best to stand upright, and there is some kind of demarcation between underground stuff, and above ground stuff.







The surface area the roots have is amazing.  The photo doesn't really show just how fine the finest roots really are, so you'll just have to trust me.

Amazingly fine.

Big surface area.

The last 20 times or so that I have typed "capsicum", I've typed "cupsicup" instead, and my camera...

Sounds like it's in pain when I turn it on and the lens grinds to a halt.

Then for some reason sounds an alarm at half the volume of the grinding noise,  to tell me about all the grinding that's going on.

Then grinds a bit more as it tries an automatic emergency shut-down.

And the takes photo's with nice dark corners.

But it also takes pictures like the capsicum sprout above which I think is pretty good for a low end digital camera, that has taken just short of 5500 pictures, so I guess it's just getting sleepy. Perhaps that's why it does the creepy crocodile eye thing.



120 Things in 20 years wants a new SLR camera, so I can take better photos of my capsicum sprouts for my aquaponics system.

Aquaponics - Capsicum sprout fuzz

I think it's day three now since I saw the first signs of life in my capsicum seeds I'm attempting to raise in my bean sprout sprouter.

Nature is doing this at the moment.

I think the fuzz is just a root system developing, but it could also just be mould.

My science fu is weak at the moment.

It would be easy enough to research it, but I like a surprise.

I think I'll just keep watching.





120 Things in 20 years - my aquaponics capsicum sprout fuzz comment fu also lacks dynamism today.

Aquaponics - Sprouter seed raising

A few of my capsicum (Sweet Romano peppers) seeds have come to life.

I put them into by bean sprout sprouter that I bought a while back.

It seems to have worked.

I also planted some seeds directly in the grow bed to compare, but there is no sign of them doing anything yet. I wouldn't imagine they would sprout any sooner in a grow bed than a bean sprout sprouter, but even if they did I wouldn't see them yet as they are below the surface. I'm trying to avoid the temptation of digging around a bit in the media, because I'd like to keep this as scientific as I can.


It's a little early to call it a success, but I think it will probably work. I think I'll call it a success once it's been successfully transplanted, and even then, it will need to better that simply direct seeding into the grow bed.

What sprouting will enable me to do, is be a bit more accurate in my placement of plants. When you direct seed a bed, you can never tell how many seeds will germinate, and if they will be all nicely spaced out.




120 Things in 20 years sometimes sees posts about raising seed for aquaponics in a sprouter, being marked with the word "success" even when it was just explained that it wasn't really a success.

Aquaponics - Species deception

Sometimes animals and plants look like other animals and plants.

I like the ones that do.

I've even grown some.

These two varieties of capsicums are the same species according to the seed packet, but clearly one of the plants is pretending to be someone else.

It's nice to see there's still a chance of randomness even if it's only through error.

I get the feeling all the chance has been taken out of seed production by cloning.

To be honest, I'm a little surprised I even noticed. I've been flat out trying to build my system expansion with what little free time I find myself in control of.

Hopefully by tomorrow, I'll have something to post about my new system.

Aquaponics - My first capsicum

I successfully grew some capsicums.

They look like this, and there are plenty more on the way.

That's it really.

Just the capsicums.








120 Things in 20 years, bringing you my first aquaponics capsicum.

Aquaponics - Capsicum leaf problem

I still keep losing leaves on one of my capsicum plants. It's the one I got my first fruit on, but since then all other flowers have failed to set fruit.

This has to be the least of all possible problems to have as I have four or five other capsicum plants that are all doing well, but I still find it interesting.

Some time ago I posted about the leaves all falling off the other plants as well, but all the others have recovered. This plant is going to end up being a stick with a nice healthy capsicum hanging of the top of it.

You can see at the bottom, a leaf about to drop. The string is because it never really gained a strong footing before this fruit came on, so the poor plant keeps having to lie down for a bit of a rest.

The leaf starts to fade at the tip, and the fade moves down to the stem until, after about a month, the leaf falls off. I have no idea what's causing it, or if it's still an afetr shock from the damage done to them earlier, but I cant wait to pick my first capsicum.

My next fruiting plant has a dozen or so small capsicums, and a few flowers yet to develop. The other plants that look a little slower, but even they have nice healthy leaves and the beginnings of some flowers.




120 Things in 20 years, more questions than answers, with aquaponics and capsicum leaf problems.

Aquaponics - Capsicum pollination fail

I don't know enough about plant reproduction.

I don't like not knowing enough about plant reproduction, so I'm going to do something about it.

Since I put up the grow house, I've had some concerns about pollination. With the door closed and when the weather is cold there isn't a lot of insect life around my plants. Most things seem to take care of themselves, but I have a cotton bud that I use on the first flowers I see.

The first flowers I see of something like my strawberries are more important then the next, because I want to taste the fruit, and I want to get photo's for this blog. As a result I try to take care of them a bit, and make sure they don't get eaten, or knocked off by my clumsy moves around the grow bed. (it's amazing how much damage one person can do when chasing a tiny bug around with a camera).

I also take the extra effort to make sure they are pollinated. To do this I have a cotton bud in a little jar that I keep in the grow house that I stick into flowers. I don't bother with it as an ongoing thing, but I almost always do it to the first of a new fruit or vegetable.

When my first capsicum flower opened, I didn't have another to cross pollinate with, but I thought I'd collect some pollen on the cotton bud I keep around, so that I'd have some for the next flower at least. So I took a swab. The cotton was already yellow with pollen from the first tomatoes, the first strawberries, and whatever else I'd used it on. 

That first flower turned into a fruit, so I didnt bother doing it to the next few.

The odd thing is, that the next few failed to be pollinated, and the fruit did what un-pollinated fruit do. They shriveled, died, and dropped to the ground.










On hot days when the grow house door is left open, I get a lot of visitors from the bug world, including some bees. I suspect that a bee or someone with a similar taste for pollen, visited my first flowers on my strawberries, and before I took a swab, left behind some capsicum pollen from a nearby garden. I took it up on the swab and passed it on to my capsicum's first flower.

Maybe.

I might be wrong, but just in case, I wandered out into the garden and, using the same cotton bud, collected pollen from a random selection of flowers.

It hadn't occurred to me that the bees would not just leave the correct pollen for the plant to set fruit, but it would leave a stack of different pollen. And perhaps not just the pollen it had collected, but probably pollen from everything the entire hive had visited. And given that flowers between hives are vised from both hives, perhaps even pollen from other hives. Pollen is small. really small. Small enough to be in the air and make allergic people sad. I'm told that today the pollen count is high, but I cant see any of it.

Small.

For the next few days I'll be taking my cotton bud around with me and stick it into flowers to collect a decent sample of everything that's currently flowering. Then I'll do it a few more times at different times of the year. Eventually I'll have every kind of pollen I'll ever need. It seems the stuff stays viable for a while as well.

It's also possible that capsicum flowers don't need pollination, thus my need for further education.




120 Things in 20 years, sometimes plant romance needs a helping hand, because sometimes aquaponics capsicum pollination fails.

Aquaponics - Capsicum

My capsicum, chilli pepper, red or green pepper, sweet pepper, or whatever else you call these things in your part of the world are starting to form.

I grew my capsicum plants from seed ages ago, but due to delays in transplanting caused by my being too lazy to add the needed new media to top up my grow bed, they lost a little of their desire to live just before transplanting*. This left all but one without most of their leaves. The one that did have leaves had also lost just under half its leaves.

The result was my feeling that I wasn't going to see a lot of fruit from my lazy labours.

It turns out being lazy can still pay, and in this case, might even pay off more than being whatever the word for un-lazy is.

Industrious? That works. Anyway...

It seems that after losing all your leaves, some plants like to grow two or more new main trunks, so I might see twice as much fruit on the ones that were sickest at some stage down the track, when they are fully recovered.

Or not.

I'm not sure that it would be worth doing on purpose, because the ones that fell apart are way behind as far as flowing, and fruiting are concerned.

But it might have worked out well by spreading the fruiting out a bit or perhaps as mentioned, mean I get twice as much fruit from them.

I'll let you know.






*sorry

120 things in 20 years - Aquaponics - Capsicum plants often contain methyl vanillyl nonenamide, which is what makes hot members of this family hot.