A new round of LUL was started to day. The last round went well with the lettuce producing till it got to the point of being overgrown, unmanageable and matured to the point of becoming slightly bitter. The remaining goldfish is still kicking and it appears that the ammonia it helped produce was enough to keep the lettuce fed. I didn’t weigh my harvests but the single 13″x26″ float tray gave us enough lettuce and then some once it got to the point of producing. Of course if we were liked salad everyday it would not have been near enough for the 2-3 of us that eat here regularly. As it is we like salad 1-2x a week at most.
A new seeding went in today, this time in coir. So far it appears that it will be lighter than the soilless mix I used last time. Whether or not it will wick enough water remains to be seen. I’ve never worked with this medium before.
The seed I have been using is the Burpee Gourmet Blend mix. It contains seed of Grand Rapids, Royal Oak Leaf, Salad Bowl, Red Salad Bowl and Ruby. A nice mix of greens and reds. The package says it takes about 45 days from sowing to harvest. I find that to be for mature plants though. I tend to seed thickly so there are several harvests of thinnings along the way to the 45 day mark.
I decided to go ahead and do another sowing inside even though I have a cold frame almost ready to plant. I may end up transplanting some of the thinnings to the cold frame as a test to see how they do.
3 responses so far ↓
1 jenn // Sep 17, 2005 at 12:57 pm
Neat.
Such a cool experiment. I’m glad the fish worked out. I’m amazed the fish worked out.
Keep us posted on the next batch. I don’t have room for this sort of garden, but I love to cram ideas into my head… maybe the next house!
2 kerry // Sep 17, 2005 at 2:23 pm
The main reason I added the fish was for mosquito control. The ammonia was a benefit I hadn’t considered. The real test to see if fishy produces the needed ammonia will be seen this time around. The soilless medium I seeded in last round may or may not have been ammended, I don’t remember. I know I didn’t add anything after planting though. The coir, afaik, doesn’t offer anything in the way of nutrients, it is just a medium to grow in. I know goldfish can produce a lot of ammonia (ever forgot to clean the fishbowl regularly?). If I had to guess I would say that there are about 2-3 gallons of water in the plastic container the float tray sits in. I do feed the fish daily, did not change the water and it has never smelled. It seems to me that the plants were taking it up as it was produced.
The amt of space needed for this setup is about 2′x4′ with the two shop lights. I used the basement because it is out of the way, I can keep it dark easily when the lights are off, and it has cooler temps. I suppose a closet might work too if someone wanted to try it.
3 kerry // Feb 13, 2006 at 4:53 pm
Update :
The coir and a single fish alone did NOT provide enough nutrients to maintain the lettuce. The lettuce sprouted and grew to about an inch across. It was the cutest little plants, full of leaves but never grew any larger. I even tried over feeding the fish to up the ammonia in the water but for the life of me I could not get the numbers high enough to have an impact on the plants. Perhaps the next time I try this I need to add more fish.
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