Making do until we get some gravel. It is kind of depressing , we are waiting for the income tax return to get here to get the gravel and a few other things . It really sucks that it takes them so long to get your money to you. If it was the other way around they would sure be hounding me , sending nasty letter, nasty calls, and putting me on all kinds of lists. Any way it all comes down to money, that is the hold up on the Aquaponics system. The fish are doing great the water is testing well with in normal range on all the test.
Until then I am still a dirt farmer…lol. I have been working on a few projects , most of which I got the ideas from Pentrest. If you are not aware of this site it really is a great place for new ideas. As the above shot shows my Herbs are doing really well. My tomatoes suffered a attack of the du’mass( its French ) I was trying to take care of pest in a natural way. I read about a spray made from liquid soap and hot peppers, well I made up a spray according to the directions that i had found. Except that I didn’t have any hot peppers to blend in to the mixture. So I used some very hot sauce that I had. Any body know what happened next? Every plant that I sprayed it on started getting brown spots and curling up. I am thinking that the hot sauce might have been to hot., Then while looking for a natural weed killer I came across a article praising the accolades of white vinegar as a “Weed Murderer” . After a few moments it hit me , the ingredients in Hot Sauce are hot peppers salt and Vinegar. Duh , so any way the tomatoes have made a come back and my patio tomato even has small green tomatoes on it. The egg plant did not do so well, it looks pitiful . I have bought some more plants and I will replant them once the sun gets behind the trees this evening. Can you believe they are calling for 90 degree weather for the next five days, in May , In NC man what is August going to be like.
These are a few shot of the garden now.



You can see the Pepper plants didn’t like the vineger spray either. aI still have to find out what is eatting my plants.
This is the only squash plant that made it the others were eaten, I have more planted and they are starting to come up now.


Ok these are something I saw on Pentrest and decided to try . Had the old ladder I didn’t trust any more . Now tool this picture to show the bean sprout but also noticed the mushrooms here. The soil in the buckets is composted cow manure and top soil…..so what kind of mushrooms are they….they are out in the morning and gone by the time the sun hits this bucket….interesting….yes I am a child of the 60’s …let you take it from there.

I have also started another Pentrest inspired project. They have tons of thing that can be done with pallets. This will be a standing planter in a couple of weeks, once the roots get a good grip on the soil.
The whole thing is planted with annuals, here you can see the top where I have planted the colorful bedding plants like vinca, dusty miller, coleus , marigolds…ect.. the front is planted in ornamental sweet potatoes poticala , and petunias. These should fill out and cover the pallet.
My helper…
Another idea gleaned from Pentrest , was these wine bottle tiki torches.
Here you can see that it is EMT conduit, and pluming hangers.
Still have to straighten the pipes I put in the ground to slide the conduit into. I have cut them to size and painted the conduit black. Not to bad I think.
You can also see the system which is just waiting.
Shot of the fish… there were a lot more visible when I started to push the shutter button ..lol
This shot shows the beans I have in a tub on one side of the ladder. Hoping they will climb the ladder. But , to my wife’s skepticism I planted about 5 or 6 kernels of corn out of the pop corn in the pantry. Well as you can see there are a couple of them coming up. The beans can also climb on the corn, 2/3 of the 3 sisters.
This last one is a cauldron that I planted cucumbers, since the cukes in the beds all got eaten and the seeds I planted there to replace them haven’t done anything. This is on the opposite side of the ladder from the beans so they can climb up the ladder on this side.
This ladder should look pretty interesting in a few weeks. With beans and cukes climbing up it and cantaloupe coming don from the top. It also has herbs like flat leaf parsley , cilantro, oregano, basils…and such….. we will see how it all turns out. It is sitting in the spot in the yard that gets the most sun all day. I like the idea of vertical garden. in the space I could have grown one maybe two tomatoes I am able to grow a whole garden of veggies and herb.
Well that about it for this up date ….really hope that check comes soon , want to get those plants in the system up and running. Think i’ll go check now.
Later
Eddie
newwavegardeningexperiment 