Peas & Tomatoes - an update on my aquaponics system

When I first started my aquaponics system about 2 months ago, I added some new pea plants and added an  almost dead tomato plant from the soil garden in the hopes that it might be saved. Having never planted peas or tomatoes before I was very excited to see the outcome.

My 2 little tomatoes!

At first the tomato tree had only 2 leaves on it and was really not looking good. It had not done well at all and had never produced a fruit while it was in the soil garden. Once in the aquaponics system it started to develop leaves and then flowers. After checking today it has 2 tomatoes that have started growing and there are more to come! It's really exciting for me to be able to say that I have grown my own tomatoes. You can see by the pictures that they are very small, but they will hopefully develop into some lovely fruits. I know that it is very late in the season for tomatoes and it's more than likely that they won't ripen on the vine, but that just means that I will have to ripen them inside. I'll write about that when I get to it.

Great looking peas :)

The peas have not looked back since day 1. They have shot up and kept growing and growing. They started to develop flowers about 2 weeks ago and then little pea pods started to shoot up. They're now growing into awesome sized peas. I am really excited to be able to harvest some when they're a bit bigger. I hear that peas start to decrease in their sugar content the moment you pick them from the vine (as with most plant I would imagine) so I am looking forward to eating them right after they have been picked.

Soil bed doing well.

Beetroot in the making

In my soil garden the cauliflower and broccoli are starting to look great. They're still very small, but it looks like they are past their most vulnerable stage. I have also planted some kale, Chinese cabbage and Cape Spitz (a.k.a sugar loaf) cabbage. While those vegetables get settled I have started some beetroot to experiment with over the winter - and those are also starting to look good. I hope to put them into the ground within the next 2 weeks.

I want to write another post soon on how to start plants from seed - because I feel that not a lot of people realise how easy it really can be. So if you think it's something that would interest you - then have a look back in a couple of days.