Aquaponics Lettuce and Basil
Posted on Jul 06, 2008 under Aquaponics, Gardening |My aquaponics system with expanded clay granulate is doing good. The lettuce I have planted in there hasn’t grown too much, but the plants are looking good and seem to start growing now. The reason why they haven’t grown until now is because there weren’t enough nutrients in the water. When you want to grow something in a new aquaponics system, you have to let the system mature for a while and give the nutrients time to build up a high enough level to sustain your plants. I’m the impatient type and can’t wait for maturing systems when trying new things, so I planted way too soon. Things are looking good now however, so it’s all good!
I have also put a cutting from a basil plant into the grow bed and planted some basil seeds. The cutting was cut from a basil plant that I bought from the supermarket and lives in my kitchen window. I just cut a piece and stuck it into the clay granulate. Two weeks later the cutting still looks good and it has grown some impressive roots! The basil seeds have sprouted too.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:42 am
[...] from a plant last year, I have also tried to propagate the plants by taking cuttings. The cuttings where a great success and I soon had more basil than we could eat in salads. As the plants where already flowering, I had [...]
October 27th, 2008 at 8:29 am
I was happy to see Travis Hughey’s name on the right side of your page as a commentator. I love aquaponics.
How big is your tank? How densely are your fish stocked? Extra nutrients would make your plants explode, although the cutting in the picture looks really happy.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I set up a new 3000 liter fish tank recently and am currently building one that will hold about 20.000 liters.
The little trial above was with a 120 liter fish tank with a few goldfish, so not really dense stocking.