System Progress Update

Been a while now since I posted anything on my system progress. The past few weeks its just been a day to day routine thing, where I have been feeding the fish and at weekends emptying out the fish waste. We use the fish waste on the garden and the plants seem to like it.

Its not so exciting at the moment. That makes it difficult to write a lot but .... Today we had a good clean up and checked the water quality, pH of 8.0, bit on the low side but OK. Im still looking for DO and Nitrate test kits. So if any of you out here can point me in the right direction please do!

The plants are doing well. Tomatoes are turning red and the chillies are surprisingly hot! Also thinned out a few of the basil and will be planting some more in next few days.

Wanna is beginning to take an interest which can only mean one thing. They are nearly ready for the Bar B Q!!!!

On a separate note Ive been looking into a commercial system and will be getting round to my business plan shortly. Need to decide just how big to be and as long as it is sustainable I can employ someone to look after it up on our farm. Will keep you updated on developments.

Fly Kite Blood Moon Day

Date:  Apr 4, 2015

Today, we decided to go to Marina Barrage to fly kite and to watch the moon eclipse.

The kids love outdoor so much.  And they keep on jumping up and down.  The found a big bird statue behind.

A lot of people when they come, they will walk up to the roof top.

For us, we walked from the reverse direction, from the Satay by the bay, we will see this green green slope.  And surprisingly not many people here.  So, we decided to fly our kite here and we setup our picnic here too.

There is a nice view of the MBS and the Singapore Flyer.

Let’s fly kite.

Kay Kay flying the first kite.

The Red Angry Bird kite.

Look closer.  This is the one.

Kay Kay just witness a runaway kite.  The kite and the handle flew away in front of him.  

So, he was a bit scare of loosing his kite.

So what we do is we tie the kite on to his waist.

So, that he can fly the kite even the wind is strong up there.

See… Hands Free flying kite.

Jay Jay will fly the rainbow parachute dog kite.

And up up and away...

Jay no need the kite to tie to his waist.

He is very steady flying the kite.

Hello little friend.

We started our picnic.

Terry & Laurel joined us together with their niece Claris.

She gets to fly a kite too.

Here comes my dinner.  Kueh Pai Tee.

OK.  The night is coming.  Sun has set.

And we are searching for the Moon direction.

There is an app for it.

The kids were playing the Star Tracker App.  There were amaze of seeing things that they cannot see.

Later, mommy and Jay Jay setup the telescope.

We will use this Telescope to search for the blood moon.

And we have align the telescope properly towards the east.  The moon will rose from the East.

Let’s see if we can see Jupiter or not.

This is the direction the moon will rose from.

Oh… some people are playing the drones.  The drones change green and red color.  Cool. 

Here we get the glimpse of the moon.

Laurel’s camera can see the color.  Some how, my camera filtered off all the color.

This is what Laurel’s took from his borrowed camera.

The eclipse has begun to uncover the moon slowly.

Bigger now.

They found a way to take photo via telescope.

Bigger.

I am using my Sony super zoom camera.  Automatic mode.

Jay Jay was amazed when looking at the viewfinder of my camera,

Moon getting bigger again.

These astro-scientist is trying to take photo thru the telescope eye hole.   

Moon getting bigger.

And bigger.

Laurel took the photo and the color is definitely are more real than mine.

Hers is yellow color.  

I am still taking lots and lots of photos about this eclipse.

When we reach home, the moon has become round moon.

So round.  And that concludes the blood moon day.  The full moon back to the full moon again.

Lessons learned about nutrients and pest control

Well, its been a few weeks since my last post. Im sorry to say that I did not do my due diligence in researching the addition of nutrients to the growbeds in conjunction with the use of organic home made pest control measures. Due to some iron deficiencies in several of my plants, I decided to order some chelated iron to add to the fish tanks and to spray on the plants. I also, experienced some issues with red spider mites on a few of my plants, some on my Cilantro, and Stevia. After mixing up a home made remedy of garlic pepper tea, I decided to attack the red spider mites with a spray bottle of my home made concoction. This appeared to work, so I decided to spray all of my plants...no big deal or so I thought until I sprayed them afterwards with the iron chelate, which was a little to strong. As you can imagine the garlic pepper tea opened the pores in the plants leaves/stems and the iron chelate, being a little too strong, did the rest. By the next morning I had tons of black leaves on most of my plants and within a few days many had died and / or the leaves were severely burned. I am glad to say those plants left have recovered fully, and are growing once again. I even have a few new tomatoes on my plants.  I also had to pick a few cutter type worms from some of my swiss chard, so I have ordered some organic BT and Neem oil spray to treat the pest in the future.This will also help with any fungal problems I might encounter in the future. Lesson learned, follow the instructions to the letter on the label, or from the source of the information. A setback...yes, but not the end of the world.

Here are a few pics of the disaster.