Here is a little of what has been happening in our backyard garden in April. This weekend we finally got about 10mm of rain, which the garden has been waiting for and by the look of the weather forecast the days will begin to get cooler and we are on our way to winter.
As of this weekend, all of our winter crops are now sown and some of our seedlings have also been transplanted out. We have had a few issues with mice eating our pea seedlings and had to build a homemade mouse trap bucket. Our cream gold onions and swede seeds have not sprouted, so we will either buy more seed or now that it’s getting late in the season we may need to buy seedlings.
The aquaponics has had a major change and cleanout. We have now installed 21 dutch buckets onto the aquaponics and also changed the pipework around the pump which gave us an increased flow rate. This created a large issue that the single solids filter couldn’t handle the flow rate, so we had to build a second solid filter and split the flow between them. The trout have not still arrived due to the hot spell we had on the Easter long weekend. We are hoping to get the trout in early May.
Here are some picture of my backyard garden. I hope you enjoy.
Pink Cosmo out in flower 
Red Pak Choi planted in the aquaponics 
Scarlet Runner Beans still producing 
Strawberry passionfruit still producing passionfruit 
Tamarillo putting on some new growth 
Norland Potatoes have had the first leaves push through the dirt 
A transplanted perennial broccoli in our new backyard garden bed 
Apricot climbing rose in full flower 
Lilli Pillis are still producing fruit 
Garlic which was sown in late March is up and doing well. 
Copenhagen Cabbages which have just been transplanted out 
Bunching broccoli or broccolini planted in a pot 
Birds of paradise putting its flower on for the year 
Brassicas in new Dutch Buckets 
Brassicas planted out into the flood and drain bed of the aquaponics 
Pak Choy have put on some good growth this week 
One of our apricot climbing roses in flower