Aquaponic Greenhouse Fall Update

I finally had some time to make another video update of my greenhouse. As you can see, I’m still suffering from a white fly problem and the strawberries just aren’t strong enough to survive. They’re starting to succumb to the flies and are getting mildew on them. I’m probably going to rip them all out, and this winter drop the temp below freezing to kill off the bugs. Bring back DDT! ;-)

There are some stats near the end, so you may want to watch it in full-screen hi-def so you can see the info!

Leopard Frog

This large leopard frog has been hanging out in the greenhouse for a couple of months. At first he would jump into the sump pump area whenever I would go in, but now I can walk right up to him and he doesn’t even care. Luckily, he’s too large to get sucked into the impellers of the pump!

Problem Solved

I was able to build a new wireless bridge. I was given a Linksys WRT54G2 router that "didn't work". These don't have a setting to run in bridged mode, but the firmware can be replaced with the open source firmware from dd-wrt.com. (This firmware has far more features than the one that Cisco provides!)

Next I removed it from its shell and placed it in a surplus NEMA box. The antennas were simply hot-glued on to the circuit board. Working great!

Problems in the greenhouse

Anyone that has watched my greenhouse videos (Click for video) has seen I have it fully automated - I LOVE automation! The best part is I can spend very little time in there dealing with the vents, checking water levels, or even feeding the fish. I can easily disappear for several days and not worry about the system. Well, not really, I always worry about it. I just have to trust it keeps working!

The other day, my web site that collects the data stopped receiving information. I use a Wi-Fi access point (AKA Wi-Fi bridge) that transmits the data to our house - then to the Internet site. Upon closer inspection, the bridge wasn't powered up. I checked the power supply and it was good, then decided to pull apart the bridge. This bridge is designed to be used in the comfort of your home, not the harsh conditions of a greenhouse. It's easy to understand why industrial controllers can get quite expensive. Next time around, I'll probably get the same cheap bridge, then throw it in a NEMA (waterproof) box and try to figure out how to get the antenna through the case....

Tomatoes!

Picked these 3 bad boys out of the greenhouse today. They weigh a pound each! These are the Brandywine heirloom variety.

Building a hobby room

Something a bit different from my aquaponics systems. I built a custom hobby/craft for my wife. She will put it to good use!

(It may be best to click on the video to open YouTube in a new window. Blogspot like to cut the edges off!)

Official strawberry count of the season:

65 plants
679 berries
85.78 ounces (2.4 kilos)
~ 19 cups

Many of the berries were small because the majority of plants were everbearing. I have a few other plants that had some huge sweet berries and will take the runners from them and get rid of the everbearing.

Overall a good experiment. The funny part is I'm done with the season and I just got a message from the local orchard that their pick-your-own field is now open. ;-)