So here's what happening amidst the benign neglect:
Fiance's purple peppers
The last of the roma tomatoes
An armenian cucumber, finally!
Some beautiful golden bell peppers
An overview of the jungle (I mean "garden") after fiance heavily pruned back the tomato plants (not that you can tell - they're still huge)
And we definitely need to harvest some fish. I'd like to pull out some of the overgrown leafy greens, but they're necessary to balance the fish load.
One of the interesting things, to me, is the discovery of what we'll actually bother to harvest.
I've learned that we're not that big on lettuce.
We'll eat hearty greens if I go get them and prep them, but they aren't fiance's first thought. On the other hand, the lettuce and hearty greens were seriously infested with aphids and cabbage worms. That makes both of us less enthusiastic about even touching them. Fiance works hard to keep the worms down (and the fish appreciate the snack) but it's still been an issue. We got a new, aquaponic-specific, organic spray to try. It just came in this week, so I don't have anything to report yet. I'll keep you posted.
I think many of the specialty salad greens were just too unfamiliar to fiance. If you're not sure what to do with something, you tend not to harvest it.
He also pulled out most of the brussels sprouts. They were covered in pests, and still didn't have... what do you call the actual edible parts? Well, they still didn't have them. He got frustrated and gave up.
It's been a learning experience. We'll consider carefully what we plant next, to make sure it's stuff we'll use. And we'll keep our fingers crossed on the new pest spray.
Also, we need to start planning the solar water heater now, while the weather is still very comfortable. I don't really want to deal with the large electric bills any more from that bucket heater, but the fish can't be out there in cold for 4 months.
On to the planning!
