Grow bed...

Here is the grow bed today...

Carrots back and lettuce front of the photo above. Peas back and peppers front of the photo below.

A photo of the entire bed. As you can tell we made a trellis out of stuff we had around the house...well Michael made it.

And a photo of Thor today. After I took the above photos he came out and laid down in front of my exercise bike and just looked at me so I snapped his picture too.

4 days later...

The grow bed looks like this:

You might have to look at it full size but there is lettuce in the front left, carrots in the back left, and peas in the back right. The peppers have not sprouted yet but that is not surprising since they should take the longest. That one pea is about 6 inches tall and only sprouted on Sunday or Monday (can't remember which). It will be interesting to see how these end up doing. We might make another grow bed as the fish tank can support 2 or 3 beds this size.

What we've been up to...

We have been attempting to grow herbs. But it has proven that we really don't have much of a green thumb. Above it oregano and below is cilantro. If the cilantro grows, we will let some go to seed and then have coriander.

Below is cumin. It is growing fairly well so that is good. Besides these we also have parsley, basil, lavender, sage, chives and dill.

We are also trying our hand at aquaponics. It is similar to hydroponics except a fish tank is used to fertilize the plants. Below is our fish tank. It is a 20L and we have a few guppies in it. We have 2 males and 2 females. All 4 are in this photo...the females are yellow and the males have an orange/red tail. The females have given birth several times and there are a few fries (baby fish) of varying sizes also. You might have to look at it full size to be able to see. You can also see that the grow bed is on top of the fish tank and holes are drilled in it so that the water drips back down into the fish tank. This is the filtering system for the tank.

Below is the grow bed. Water runs through the PVC pipe in a continuous flow. There is a pump in the tank. Then the water drips onto the pea gravel. We have planted lettuce, carrots, peas, and peppers. The lettuce is already coming up. It is in the front left side of the grow bed.