Aqaponics - Experimental tomato tactics

It turns out you can simply hack the top of a tomato off, stick it into your aquaponics system's media, and it will grow.

So as a bit of an experiment, I've been waiting until my big old tomato vine develops some flowers, then cutting off around a foot tall of the end growing bit with the flowers.

I jam it into the media and it wilts a bit. But then it comes good, the flowers open, and fruit is set.

It seems to be working, and might allow me to grow better quality tomatoes. I have no idea why, but it might.

It certainly will save some space.

Also it  allow me to grow six enormous tomatoes on a tiny one foot high vine which although it might not serve any purpose, it might look interesting. And let's face it. Looking interesting is what sells all those perfect little tomatoes still on the vine in nice neat rows that we see in super markets.

 My bee visited again today.


120 Things in 20 years is doing all those experements that don't really need doing so nobody else has to.

Aquaponics - Silver Perch

It's been a while since I paid any attention to my Aquaponics system, but it was nice to find my Silver Perch have been busy growing.

I wandered out to the Aquaponics system for the first time in ages because it was making a slightly different sound, and it turned out to be a partial blockage of the pipe work.

Blocked with tomato roots.

I've been expecting some problems because when I pruned back the four tomato plants that are still growing from last year, I accidentally killed one by snapping it off at the base. The roots are all meshed together with it's three tomato plant buddies, so there was no way to get them out. I figured it would work it's way out in the end. It probably would have. The system was still working, with some water going through my overflow. The overflow exits from the surface of the fish tank water, where in normal operation, the water exits from the bottom via a solids lifting overflow. As a result it's unlikely that both would be blocked at the same time.

Anyway, everything seems to be ticking along nicely.

I don't really know how big this fish is (I'd guess around 40+cm), but it's in really good condition. They're not just long, but really heavy as well. Heavy looking that is. I wouldn't like to try to catch one, I think it would be a little disruptive.

I'm not sure if this is the bigger of the two, but one of them now looks like this...

Aquaponics - Tomato

It's cold and rainy here in South Australia, and I keep picking tomatoes.

Winter isn't a good time for tomatoes, but mine seem to be having fun anyway.

My four tomato plants that are growing so their roots are suspended in the fishtank water seem to be fruiting a lot later in the season than they should be. The plants are out in the cold, but their roots are inside the fishtank which is inside a little growhouse.

The plants look like this.

And they are still doing a lot of flowering.

And there are plenty of fruit all over the vines.

And the fruit are still ripening.

These were today's pickings.

Not many today, but there are always some. And a few didn't make it inside.

And there are a lot more on the vines that are nearly ripe. Ripe enough to eat.




All these pics were taken today. It's winter in the southern hemisphere, so the tomatoes should have stopped fruiting a while ago.

It's strange that they are still growing and fruiting this late. Strange enough that I thought I'd contact someone from one of our universities. I remember someone from my research into bees, who was working on growing native bees to pollinate tomatoes. I'm not sure if there were a bee person or a tomato person, but I emailed them in the hope that if they don't care, they might know someone who does.

It might save the industry a bit of money if it turned out the entire plant didn't need to be kept warm to keep them fruiting.




120 Things in 20 years says to be on the lookout for tiny hot houses with tomatoes growing out of PVC tubes, coming to a winter tomato farm near you. Or not.

Thinking - Fresh produce

Is it just me or is everyone crazy?

Don't answer that, it was a rhetorical question .

I just picked a stack of cherry tomatoes from my aquaponics system. They represent only the second batch that has made it back to the house. All the others were devoured before the back door. But this time, some made it.

Looking at them in my kitchen has me wondering why we insist on having all our fresh produce being uniform in size, shape, and colour. This is a very "developed world" kind of issue, so if you are more sensible than this where you live, just ignore this post, but in this part of the world, almost everywhere we buy fresh produce only sells perfect looking produce.

I wonder what would happen to prices if they just left out one of the criteria for A grade produce.

For example, size.

The size of a fruit is by far the least relevant thing.

The tomatoes harvested were all ripe, all delicious, and all different sizes.

So why would the four on the right be classed as second grade.

It's because...







We are all crazy.




120 Things in 20 years - Where thinking and forming opinions about everyone regarding fresh produce, is often presented as fact.

Aquaponics - External Tomato growing in fishtank

I've been away for a few days.

It was nice.

One of the best things about aquaponics, is the fact that it takes care of itself. I came home to a system overflowing with produce, and with lettuce that was ready to eat, where when I left, it was nowhere near ready. It's amazing what a few days can do.

Also, not seeing my system for a few days made me realise just how big my tomatoes were getting.

That's them hanging off the side of the little grow house.

I'm calling this experiment a complete success. I had to tie the foliage to the growhouse to support it, because it was starting to pull the roots out of the water.



There's fruit forming everywhere, and in spite of the late start due to pruning it all back to only a few leaves, I think it will be a good season. Once the capsicum season is over, I think I might just pick up the tomato, and move it back inside for winter.

The tomato grows through a PVC pipe to stop it growing inside the growhouse, and the roots are all just hanging inside the fish tank. There is no media involved, and it relies on the water being oxygenated by the water movement, and the nutrient it gains from the fish.

This has been a lack luster post.

I'm sleepy from too much driving.

Aquaponics - PVC Tube tomatoes

My PVC tube tomato now seems to be growing at full speed.

There's stacks of new growth every day, and the first of the tomato flowers are just starting to form.

That should really read "the first of the tomato flowers since I cut all the existing flowers and leaves off, so that I could jam it into a PVC tube, are just starting to form".






The entire point of the exercise was to get the tomatoes outside where it could grow as big as it wanted without taking up all the space inside, but it looks like the entire system is about to be outside.

The grow house isn't UV stable, and as a result is turning to dust every time I so much as look at it.

Even a sly sideways glance from a distance sees yet more daylight induced destruction.

The hardware chain I bought it from will probably replace it, but this is my third one from them and I'm starting to wonder if they really care about the percentage of my life I spend dealing with a product that really shouldn't give any problems.

Any % of life spent at a returns counter, is too much %.

Aquaponics - PVC Tube tomato

My PVC tube tomato seems to have found it's feet.

It took a while after I removed all but four or so leaves on each of the four plants that make up this particular experiment.

 It's probably back to around what it looked like four weeks ago.

By my standards, that actually constitutes success.





On a side note, the foliage in the background is the grow bed that I emptied and flooded around five weeks ago (flooded to get any slugs out).

That's lettuce you can see, and we've been cutting a salad a day from just that right hand side. The left hand side was Bok Choy, but that all went to seed, and has since been fed to my worms.

When I put the seedlings in (bought from a shop) I also sprinkled some mixed lettuce seeds around.

It looks like this five weeks later.

We've been harvesting from the front, and you can see some of the seedlings from the seeds are looking a little weak because they have been struggling for light, but now they have some, they will spring to life.

In summer, and harvesting a light lunch size salad each day, (in Adelaide South Australia at least) we found you need around half a blue barrel worth of growbed real estate, as long as you seed every week.

I like coz lettuce because it can be harvested as it grows (ie just cutting off leaves rather than pulling up the plant) , but these loose leaf varieties are proving to be quick growing, and can also be repeat harvested. if you drop seeds in around the seedlings when the seedlings are around the size you buy them at, the seeds are seedlings when the lettuce has been repeat harvested as much as it can, and finally gets pulled out.  I just read that again, and I think all that means something. 

The leaves get bitter toward the end of the lettuce life cycle as they are about to go to seed. The leaves  also grow further apart. So once they start growing from a stalk rather than from a central point at the base, it's time to pull the plant up, and let the light in to the little ones, that are by this time the size of the store bought seedlings.

I don't think I've ever grown the iceberg style lettuce that grows like a cabbage, so I don't know if you can repeat harvest that, but I suspect not. 

I used to take a lot of care with growing lettuce seedlings, and transplanting them, but now all I do is put a stack of different seeds into a jar, and sprinkle a pinch of them around directly into the growbed. 

I suspect the clay balls are better than scoria when you direct seed. I think the seed (especially small seeds like lettuce) fall down until they stick to the side of the media once it's deep enough that the media is damp. 

I suspect that's just right as far ar growing goes. 

Perhaps with scoria, the seeds catch in the holes in the media before they get to the correct depth. 

Or it could just be luck, but I'm seeing much better germination rates in the clay ball media. 

But it's also a constant flood grow bed, so perhaps that's got something to do with it as well. 

120 Things in 20 years - Results, but no science to back it. Oh, and also PVC Aquaponics tomatoes.

Aquaponics - Tomato in PVC

It's been a while since I used PVC in a novel way, so I thought I'd cut all the leaves off my tomato and ram the stems and roots into a PVC pipe.

It seems to have worked.

I like to think of it as a solution.

I started with four tomato plants that have been happily growing with their roots just dangling in my fish tank.

That's them after I fulled them from their comfortable home and lay them on top of the fish tank. They are around a metre long from root tip to top.

They look healthy, and have a stack of clusters of flowers and little fruit forming all over the place.



They were a bit bushy to fit them into a PVC tube with a 90 degree angle and it was going to be way too difficult to jam all that foliage through the pipe, so I trimmed some of it away.

Trimmed.

Now it fit easily into the pipe so that the tips were peeking out of one end, and the roots hanging out of the other.











The only thing now is to see if my aquaponics system will be a nice enough place for it to live that it bounces back from my cutty mistreatment.

I'm willing to bet this experiment will work quite well.

One potential problem I can see is that it will still try to make foliage in the pipe, and as a result, the conditions in the Tube will be damp and still, and that might lead to disease.

If that looks like being the case, I can always simply cut the PVC away with scissors.

It only has to last long enough for the tomatoes to reach outside and concentrate their growing out there.

Once there is enough foliage outside, and if I do have to cut the PVC away, it should be easy enough to keep the stems inside the grow house free of new growth.




120 Things in 20 years - only time will tell if my aquaponics PVC tomato works. It should be just a few weeks before I know.

Aquaponics - Training tomato plants

I'm trying to teach my tomato a lesson.

I'm tring to teach it to play outside.

It's way too crowded inside my growhouse for a tomato plant, so I've decided it has to go outside.

There's a small triangle space that's near the top of the fishtank, which should alow for enough space.

To force it to grow that way, I thought I might try just leaning it over, and covering it.

The roots have come a little way out of the fish tank as a result of leaning it over, but there are still a lot that make it into the water.

It's been like this a few days now, and I think it's working.

Maybe.

The tomatoes do seem to be ignoring my wishes and growing up, but that might just be from habit.

It's hoped that they will find their way out of the corner and then down the side of the growhouse, but it might take a while.















120 Things in 20 years thinks the secret to training tomatoes is a firm but calm voice, and patience ... and an aquaponics system... and a blue tarp.

Aquaponics - Dangling tomato

Originally I put a cutting from last years tomato into the fishtank in the hope that it would take root, and become my new tomato plant for this year, but for some reason it didn't and decided it would rather die.

Normally that doesn't happen.

I bought a punnet of cherry tomatoes and washed all the dirt from the roots.

Then I found this food container, and drilled it full of holes.

I teased the tomato roots through some of the holes, until it looked a bit like this.

An easy way to get the roots through is to run water through it. The water collects the roots on the way through.

Then I sat the new pot plant over the large screw top lid hole in the centre of the IBC.

The roots just touch the water, and the others should find their own way in the near future.

If it works, the root mass will be able to take up as much of the fish tank as it wants. I suspect the fish will enjoy it, and it might offer any young ones I add a bit of cover.

It looks like this with the camera nearly under water, looking under the plastic at the roots.

That's the reflection of the underside of the hole in the IBC with the pot plant and roots, not some crazy vortex.

That string you can see coming down from top of frame, is just a piece of string.

I guess this is an example of deep water culture.





120 Things in 20 years is probably going to have an aquaponics dangling tomato free year.

Aquaponics - Tomato problem

I haven't been into my grow house for a few days because I've been too busy making bread.

But today I went in and although everything is ticking along just fine, I found two odd leaves on my tomato plants.

One looked like this...

Very distinct purple veins.

Sometimes tomato plants have this a bit, and the photo didn't really capture how different this leaf is from others.

It's quite attractive actually, but is no doubt the harbinger of some exciting new tomato drama.

The other interesting leaf looked like this.

It looks a bit like normal old age in a tomato leaf, but this is a new leaf, on a new shoot.

I think this one might be nitrogen deficiency. The water has become cold, and the fish have nearly stopped eating, so there might not be enough nutrient.





I don't really have enough fish for my system.


120 Things in 20 years. That's the plan anyway. But for today, it's an exciting new aquaponics tomato leaf problem.

Aquaponics - Bucket tomato

I had a pair of tomato plants a while ago that I decided needed to be uprooted so that I might rebuild my system, and rearrange my grow beds. Mainly, they had to go because they were using the grow house for support, and the grow house had to be moved.

They didn't like it.

In fact I would go so far as to say they didn't like me.

I had to cut them free of the grow house, and the bits that were still in tact were all snapped and bent and generally looking more like tangled green string than a tomato plant, so I pruned them back to almost nothing but the thick base stems with a root ball attached.

Healthy looking no?

No.

Actually that photo misrepresents, because that photo was taken today, but framed to look like its from the past so that later when I show you the "after" shots, these "before" shots will look pitiful in comparison.



Nobody will know.

I put them in a bucket of running system water instead of composting them, because I figured it might be worth keeping what was left of the impressive root ball they had developed, and try to make use of it to get a head start on what I would have had if I planted some new seeds.

Most of the root ball was left in the grow bed, and what was saved looks like it's slowly looking for a nice place to sit and turn to compost.

I think that's why my once cared for plants didn't seem to like me any more.

But it turned out to be a bit of a success after all...

It's later, and they seem to be beginning to get the hang of it.

Which is nice.

It seems a little strange to me that they should be growing roots in the air, but I'm guessing they think it's a little strange that they should be living in a bucket of water, so clearly convention has gone out the window, and it's time to have a go, and see what happens.

Not only are there new air-roots, but there are even some nice, fresh, new, under water roots that I hadn't noticed.  

In fact, the reason I noticed them at all was that I saw them growing out of the hole in the side of the bucket to let the water out.

Sometimes it pays to get a bit ill and turn your back on your system for a few days.

I think the thing runs better without me.

There's fresh growth up at the top end as well.

Plenty of it, and even a stack of tiny clusters of flowers.

And this!

Huge isn't it!

Its amazing what you can grow in a bucket with running water while you're sick in bed.

Keep in mind, there is no media in the bucket, just water and roots.





I for one am impressed with my ability to grow tomatoes, but we middle aged men tend to think that about our tomato growing skills for some reason. If you know a middle aged guy, who lives in suburbia, you know it's true.

Tomatoes. (it's because all they need is too much of everything water, fertilizer, heat, sun. Too much of it all, and everything works just fine. I'm willing to bet that if a study were ever done, tomatoes would turn out to like too much beer as well)

But still - not bad, me.

I'm also slightly impressed with the universe and all the strange stuff it can do.

Not bad, universe.

Actually, my tomato was nearly the size of a large grape, was totally flat on the other side except for a large yellow crack running from top to bottom, was split, crackly, and charred looking on the bottom, where not only was it full of holes,  but where it had an entire civilization of something living in those holes.





My first 120 Things in 20 years, aquaponics water bucket tomato was delicious, and today I found a radish in my pocket that I'm pretty sure I didn't put there. (no civilisations were harmed in the eating of this tomato)

Also, it's "be nice to your mum week" because, if she's like my mum, she just got out of hospital.

I got her a radish as a gift, but it's a surprise.

I realise its not a surprise to my mum because she will see this, but it was a surprise to me, so it still qualifies.

Get well soon mum.

Aquaponics - Recommissioned strawberry towers

It occurs to me as I recommission my strawberry towers, that an aquaponics system is a lot less painful to stop and start than ...say... a nuclear reactor.

I'm not sure why that occurs to me, but it does.

After one of my recent floods due to poor craftsmanship, my strawberries and the plants in my NFT tubes went thirsty for a bit, and as a result, got all crunchy. I managed to save only a few plants, but even their small number was too much for my grow bed.

My grow bed now looks like this (I did some pruning of the tomato as well.

I pulled them all out and relocated them into the strawberry towers, and took yet another risk with running the towers again.

All these half dead hangers on were taking up too much space in the bed's and were crowding out the capsicums. The capsicum plants are now all fruiting, and my first is about to turn red.

I quite like green capsicum, and will probably harvest sooner than this first time, but I want a red one for a photo.

The rear two towers aren't flowing at all, but that's fine by me, because that's two less to worry about.



I think I'm going to buy another $30 blue barrel, cut it in half and, added with my two existing halves, make a four grow bed system. This will also allow me to mount the strawberry towers in such a way as to leak into the grow beds rather than onto the grown. This should solve a lot of sleeplessness.

The fish will be relocated into one of the IBC's I have kicking around, and will be joined by a stack of new friends.

By buying some new fry, I'll force myself to build a bigger system like I should have right away. I'm still working on finding a more portable lightweight media so I dont get stuck in the same position I was in last time when I was forced to move just before all those tons of gravel came on line.



Here at 120 Things in 20 years, when thinking about aquaponics and recommissioned strawberry towers, one of my few regrets is not having built a proper sized system we could feed ourselves from sooner.

Entomology - Buzz pollination via electric bee

According to this reliable source , buzz pollination is something blue banded bees do, and is something tomato plants like.

I've only seen one blue banded bee in my aquaponics system, and that's the same one I've only also seen in my life*, so I thought I'd do a bit of dodgy science.

I've arbitrarily divided my system into electric bee buzz pollinated , and not. The right hand side will be buzzed, the left hand side, not buzzed.

I'll buzz it every day for a few weeks with what we electric bee experts like to call an...

 "e l e c t r i c   t o o t h b r u s h"

My trial involves resting the end of the electric bee buzz pollinator on the branch near the flowers and activating the device for a few seconds.

Science can be complicated.




I'll only buzz the right hand side of my tomato plants and see if there is any increase in the fruit setting rate. I'll be a bit vague about it, because if the difference isn't obvious, it's not really worth doing, so I think I'll judge it by counting the number of flowers that fail to be pollinated as compared to the number that succeed.

I'll start the count in say10 days and run it for another ten where I count. That way I wont be counting existing flowers.



120 Things in 20 years, Where else would you find equipment as complicated as an entomologist's buzz pollination electric bee?




*I've read that a few times and I'm pretty sure it means something

Aquaponics - Dramas and good times

All the water tried to escape again. This time the fail was in two places at once.

It seems I have sprung yet another leak in my strawberry towers. Last night at 4 am I heard the terrible gurgling sound of my powerhead trying to shift air instead of water. At least every time the water gets low its the power head and not the pump that's kicking up a fuss and sending out the alarm. I get the feeling the pump would fail if it ran dry, but the powerhead shifts so much water, it starts sucking air way before its dry. so it makes a lot of noise as early as possible to let you know something is wrong.

I think it's time to either rebuild the towers, or throw them away and move onto something that works

aquaponic

The rest of the system is growing really well, to the point where I'm starting to get crowded out of the grow house.

You cant really see it from this photo, but the tomato plant isn't just growing up, it's also growing toward the camera, and as a result taking up my head space whenever I'm sitting in their.

One of us will have to go.

And I own scissors.

Actually I've been pruning it a lot, but the latest hot weather has seen it going nuts, and seen me being to busy/air conditioned to go out and deal with it.

The other interesting thing in the garden at the moment, is that my bean density experiment is well on the way.

I haven't counted the sprouts, but it looks like there will be plenty enough to get a sample of which density produces the most beans.

I'm starting to think they would actually grow to maturity just sitting in their shallow water. It goes against everything I know about aquaponics, and oxygenated water, but who knows. I think I'll leave them in the seed raising tray, at least until they show signs of needing a better environment.



120 things in 20 years, Aquaponics - Dramas and good times

Aquaponics - Heat stress

This is a bit of a worry.

It's a 32 degree c day out there and fish tank water is already 30 c. The air temperature in the grow house is 40 c, and we get days of 46 c+ ever now and then.

My first bulk bean experimental planting cup is showing some serious signs of heat stress.

As are the coz lettuce.

The tomatoes on the other hand are loving it, and don't understand what all the fuss is about.












I'm not really sure what to do about it.

I draped some shade cloth over the grow house yesterday, but it actually made it hotter. I think if I leave an air gap it will work, but dark coloured shade cloth touching the grow house roof absorbed a lot of heat.

I think I'll try to add a frame and perhaps a water spray with a temperature probe to start the spray if it gets too hot.

I sprayed some water around and the temperature dropped by around 7 degrees, so I should be able to work something out.

Home made preserves - Green tomato chutney

In spite of the endless pruning and sun drying, I can see I'm still going to have too many tomatoes.

I think for my next trick I'll try to make some green tomato chutney. I bought some once and we ate it very quickly, from memory, on cheese sandwiches.

I was going to start picking and making, when I discovered all the recipes that look good, call for apples and a stack of different spices.

I keep a decent supply of spices, but for some reason don't have any apples. So it's going to have to wait until I get some.

Stay tuned.



120 things in 20 years, bringing you nothing really, not even "Home made preserves - Green tomato chutney"

Home made preserves - Sun dried tomatoes

In spite of all my pruning and pinching off growing tips to keep my tomatoes from taking over, my two trimmed tomato plants in my little aquaponics garden have been producing tomatoes faster than we can eat them. I've started giving excess tomatoes away but now I've decided to horde them and try my hand at sun dried tomatoes.

If it works well, I'll make a solar drier based on the stuff I learnt from the solar hot water collector experiments I did, but for the time being, I'll knock up a temporary test drier.

I figure I'll need a screen to keep the flies off.

I have a kitchen sieve or two that have so far escaped being destroyed in aquaponics experiments, so I'll use one of those.

And I'll need a couple of tomatoes.

From what I've read, they should be the same size, but I didn't have two ripe ones of the same size so I photographed them to look the same. The closest one is about half the size of the other.

Nobody will know.

So I cut them into sections and thumbed out the seeds.

I pealed two sections as well to try them that way, although it is not normally done that way.

I then found a bowl and a cake cooling rack.

I put the cake cooling rack over the bowl, and spread the tomato sections out over the rack, and put the sieve over the top.

I moved the entire thing out into the sun near an ants nest, so figured I should stand the whole contraption in a big bowl of water to keep crawling things out.

Now we wait. I'm told for a few days.



120 things in 20 years, Home made preserves - Sun dried tomatoes, and waiting

Aquaponics - My first tomato

I made a tomato.

And It's perfect.

It looks like this.

It makes me sad to think that if my tomato were part of some tomato making production facility, it probably wouldn't make it to the first grade bench. Not because there is anything wrong with it, but simply because there is too much individuality in my first tomato. Aquaponics has given it a really good supply of nutrients, but its fellow tomatoes are different sizes. Already they seem like their own tomatoes. Not towing the line and being totally uniform.


I wonder if there is a lot of nipping buds in tomato farms.

The fruit come on at all different times, but I figure if I cut out flowers for a while, then suddenly let them all grow, then cut out new flowers, I'd be able to get packs of six vine ripened tomatoes in a bunch all connected and all ripe at the same time.

Perfect to wrap in cellophane.

It seems like a lot of effort to go to to waste a stack of tomatoes.

Not that I can talk. I've been wasting many more then I'm letting grow out, in an attempt to leave some space in my little grow house for other things to also have their sunshine.

And just in case you missed it, here's another photo of the same tomato, but taken with a little more love, more accurately reflecting the feeling I have toward my first tomato I have ever grown in my life.

I feel like I've come of (middle) age.

I just made up a riddle...

How many lunatics does it take to photograph a tomato with love?




120 Things in 20 years - Not just un-natural tomato love.

Aquaponics - Tomato

There's not a lot of truth in anything you can say about gender differences, but I think men, as a lump, grow a lot of tomatoes*.

I suspect it's because it's colourful, plentiful, tasty, normally involves a lot of crap, and most of all, fast and easy.

I never liked tomatoes as a kid, or a young adult, but as I hit middle age I'm starting to think growing tomatoes is exactly what a middle aged man should be up to. I've been at it for only a few months, and already I've been pruning buckets of foliage, flowers, and even tiny fruit, as the two tomato plants threaten to take over the entire growhouse.

I've cut it back to something around the size of a large family dog.

But in the last couple of days I've started to see colour.

It looks like this.

And I'm getting a little excited.

I'm starting to wonder if people grow these things because they taste so much better than the supermarket varieties.

Of all the fresh(ish) produce you can buy, I'm guessing tomatoes, strawberries, and maybe bananas has been messed with most.



As a kid, I don't remember fresh bananas from Koki Market staying fresh for quite as long as the things I've had in the bottom my fridge for weeks, I also remember being a kid in South Australia where we had a large strawberry patch where you could hunt around for fresh strawberries, but if you ever picked a stack of them to take inside, in a bid to become more popular, they tended toward mushyness within only a few hours.

Tomatoes, I don't remember.

But I'm pretty sure they are not meant to bounce after months off the vine, and I'm also pretty sure they are not supposed to have all that white skeletal structure in them.

I hope they are as delicious as I'm building them up to be in my head.

*Really spell checker? You spell the plural of tomato tomatoes - see, not only did I not eat them, I didn't even write their name.!






An aquaponics tomato is just a tiny part of 120 Things in 20 years