DaveOponic's Borneo System

[DaveOponic]

Here are some photo updates of my verandah pond and basil farm. The basil is growing like a forest. Big thick woody stems and so much basil we really don't know what to do with it all. In my dirt gardens, I pull out basil like a weed, there is so much of it.

I am finally getting some lettuce that I can eat, although it grows very strangely with long, long stems.

Note the 200 litre drum, which is my new Bio filter. I just put it together last week after losing a few fish. (Thanks to all of you who posted with suggestions etc - it motivated me to do something) I now have the test kits for Nitrates, Nitrites, pH and Ammonia to try and prevent any bad water conditions.

Having said that, my home made biofilter is working beautifully. The inner workings are a plastic garbage bin, lots of scraps of PVC pipe, fine grade plastic mash offcuts, various grades of aquarium foam. I have diverted the water from the waterfall via a PVC pipe and clean water gushes back into the pond to create lots of aeration.

My Koi are looking very healthy and the Tilapia are probably getting close to maturity - I'm looking forward to seeing some fry (he he ..... pun intended)
and have a nursery pond ready for the babies. My kids have two little turtles (terrapins?) in the pond. You can see them taking a shower under the filter outlet.



Dave

[Hamish]

Hi Dave.

Very neat and tidy system - well done!

The lettuce does look strange. Never seen it grow like that - perhaps starved for light? What variety is it?

The basil looks awesome! Make some Pizzas - tomato and cheese with basil put on for the last couple of minutes just to wilt it. Yummm.

Or try some basil pesto:

https://www.recipezaar.com/recipes.php?s_type=%2Frecipes.php&q=basil+pesto&Search=Search

In fact I have been meaning to share the whole RecipeZaar web site with this forum for a while - the great thing about this is that you can search by ingredients. So if you have a glut of basil for instance you can find a whole heap of recipies to use it up.

[DaveOponic]

It's a mixed packet of seeds. Bought lots of lettuce in Australia so lost track of which ones I planted. Very few lettuce seeds available here. The Brunei Malays don't really eat it and the Chinese like to cook lettuce. In the supermarkets they sell lettuce (Hydro) flown in from Australia - about $ 25.00/kilo:eek:

I planted the lettuce seeds under the basil forest.... it looks like it has ventured out to find the light. Delicious and I have about 7 varieties that I can identify. I've started to see some mint and parsley struggling to grow in the bed. I planted the seeds months ago. Parsley seems to be a touchy plant but once established there's no stopping it.

Dave

[Jonathan Dyer]

Hi Dave,

Most certainly your lettuce are due to a lack of direct sunlight. The forest you have of basil is exactly that a forest hence, very little light is making its way down to the under story. I would suggest not to over do it with too many plants per bed, if its not too much of a drama try adding another grow bed with just lettuce this way competition will not occur with ‘tree like plants’.

[Hamish]

Perhaps staging your grow beds - tall plants (basil) to the back and shorter plants to the front closer to the sun (lettuce).

[GaryD]

Hi,

I suggest that you carefully remove the mint as quickly as you can. If I had to choose one plant not to put in an AP system it would be mint. Its roots will invade every piece of pipe work and every fitting.....eventually causing blockages everywhere.

Sorry 'bout the bad news but it's good that you should know sooner rather than later.

Congratulations on your new bio-filter.....it sounds like it's doing a good job.

Gary

[DaveOponic]

Gary, Here in tropical Borneo mint seems to be very difficult to grow. What you describe happened to my Hydroponics (table & soft drink bottle system) setup with cucumbers. i had some amazing vines and heaps of cukes but when the crop was over all the PVC pipe right back to the nutrient bucket was totally clogged up with roots.

My previous hydro crop of mint was pretty well behaved but yes, I know how mint loves water normally. In Hong Kong I grew mint in a retaining wall where nothing else grew. It eventually found its way to the tap and went beserk.

Maybe mint doesn't like the 30 degree heat or 90% humidity here in brunei but haven't had a bumper crop so far.

PS Hamish, thanks for the web site address.... I have just printed out 8 different recipes for Basil pesto. The kids will be pleased because they were getting sick of my pesto recipe.