A quick run through to bring you up to speed on how things are going with my Cantaloupe Melons in the IWS Flood and Drain system.

An all important upgrade I recently acquired.

A quick run through of how I went about conditioning my rockwool cubes before planting out into the Air Prune Pots and RTA Stands.

Aaaaah Watermelons..... Massive balls of sweet and juicy goodness to get all down your face when you get a thirst on in summer. I germinated these little beauties in January under some supplemental lighting and using a heat mat to keep the root zone temperature up....

It's easy to get complacent in a growing environment, particularly when it comes to keeping things clean. However, regular cleaning of your grow room equipment (and general area) will help extend their life spans, reduce chances of harbouring diseases/mould spores and make things look nice and sparkly when you're looking around. A clean grow environment is a happy grow environment.

The Datura have been going amazingly well in the WILMA 9 in the greenhouse since they were transferred. They have been flowering constantly from approximately the end of April with masses of double purple flowers. Behold..........

I'm pretty sure that there will be no arguments when I say plants need light to grow, so when it gets into winter things start struggling somewhat to photosynthesise enough for any decent growth.

This little fella has only been in the greenhouse since around the middle of the year. It's a dwarf Banana Tree and should only reach roughly 1.5m in height before it starts producing bananas. I've always wondered how big a dwarfs' banana would be compared to a normal one, so I suppose I will find out later this year sometime....

The Regina Giacci that I planted into the Gulley system towards the start of October time, really haven't had the greatest of times (mainly all due to the light levels being messed around with). They didn't have any supplemental lighting at all to begin with and bolted pretty much straight away...

Things have been a little slow in the aquaponics department recently, mainly due to the low winter light and heat levels and a temperamental heating system, so we haven't been able to add any further stock fish to get the nutrient levels up as there wouldn't be enough plant growth to handle the higher levels. However things are most definitely on the up and both plants and fish appear to be thriving.

If you go into the greenhouse at the minute you might just notice (unless your blind) a large, new, rather bare looking system that could be mistaken for a big tub of clay pebbles.

however what you're really looking at is a first for aquaculture, it is actually our first aquaponics system.

Here's the little beauty.......... It's a seedless variety called Red Flame. It's meant to bear large bunches of super sweet fruits when it's mature enough.