Oh Those Amazing Tilapia

This video was shot at the beginning of  week 12, though I put it together this afternoon. The fish will be 13 weeks old on the 21st. Their growth since the previous video was apparent while recording, however at today’s weigh-in amazing gain was confirmed, as most of these food fish are now 6 inches long and some are 7.

That’s an inch of growth in a week.

In addition to being fine growers despite feed supply issues*, this year’s tilapia are also nicely light in color. Our previous two crops contained quite a few of the dark blue colored fish, but we endeavored to produce whiter blue tilapia this year and it seems we have succeeded. Growth rates slow as the fish mature, however this year’s harvest is on track for late fall.

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Here they are as fry. Awwwww.

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* My usual supplier failed and so I ordered from online suppliers and received spoiled feed that the fish refused. Twice. Happily I have duckweed overwintering in the greenhouse, and have  aggressively managed that, but winter is not duckweed’s favorite season.

New! Tilapia Recipe Page

Let this whet your appetite for yummy, responsibly micro-farmed tilapia: a whole page on this blog that’s devoted to photos of and links to recipes for exquisite seafood dishes, all of which either feature tilapia or can be prepared successfully with tilapia. Enjoy! Here’s that URL: http://backyardeggs.wordpress.com/fish/tilapia-recipes

They Grow Up So Quickly!

Here’s a video I took yesterday of this year’s food fish. There are a couple 6″ fish and a few 3″ fish but most of these Thanksgiving babies are now 5″ long.

If you want to eat local responsibly micro farmed fish you are reading the right blog! Order your share today!

(Look below the video for a glimpse of what these fish will look like come harvest time.)

 

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Two beautiful share fish from the 2012 crop.

 

Hobby Farms’ Aquaculture Farming Basics Article

Ever wonder what it takes to raise your own seafood? Maybe you hope to farm enough fish for your community. Hobby Farms has made it easy to investigate the art and science of aquaculture without having to pay hundreds for classes. True, you will not come away with the skills to make your aquaculture dreams reality, however, HobbyFarms.com has posted a nice introduction to small scale fish farming article. (That URL: http://www.hobbyfarms.com/livestock-and-pets/aquaculture-farming.aspx)

Below are article highlights.

USDA/Stephen Ausmus

In this article …

• Getting Started
• Farmer Qualities
• Most Common Stock
• Aquaculture Challenge
• Portrait of an Aquaculture Farmer
• Conservation and Environmental Benefits

Loose Organic, Dried Tea & Tincture Herbs

New at the store: an assortment of dried organic tea and tincture herbs.

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Just listed are goldenrod, horehound, lemon balm, red rose petals, rose leaves, rosemary, St John’s wort, wormwood and yarrow.

This medicinal material was grown here, dried carefully and processed quickly then stored in air tight glass containers in our cool, dark apothecary to seal in potency. Prices shown include shipping, but of course, there is no shipping charge when herbs are picked up at the farm. The 1/2 ounce price for any dried organic Middleground Farm herb listed is $2.50.

Click here to shop for tincture herbs.  Click here to learn more about each herb offered as well as what other herbs may be coming up for sale soon.

We’ve Opened an Online Store

To make it simpler than ever for you to buy direct, we’ve created a store that accepts credit cards and instant transfers (same as cash) through PayPal. At the moment you can buy 2013 tilapia food fish shares, homemade organic fruit butters and preserves, wild foods plus organic tea and tincture herbs. Click the photo or any of the links above to go to the store now.

We have sold out of tilapia fingerlings and breeder colonies for the year.

For Sale: Large, Organic Aloe Vera Plants

 I see this page getting a lot of traffic, so, please know this:

We will not have aloe vera plants for sale again before spring 2013 after we’ve thinned one of our organic greenhouse aloe beds. Those thinnings shall be offered for sale. Plant prices will be set at that time.

Meanwhile, fresh cut organic aloe leaves are now offered for sale  at our online store’s Wild Foods and Herbs page.

Whole leaf prices are as follows: 

$1.50 per 18-24 inch fresh cut leaf

6 fresh cut organic leaves for $6

 12 fresh cut organic leaves for $10

plus shipping and handling. Leaves are generally 3-5 inches wide and 19-24 inches long.  These plants are mature, and have been growing in our greenhouse for over 8 years.

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::: 2012 Aloe Vera SOLD :::

We have potted aloe vera for 2012, as well as cut leaves for juicing. Plants range from $33 to $63. Leaves are $2 each.

These are large plants and will not ship well, thus we are interested only in local sales.

::: 2011 Aloe Vera SOLD :::

Offered are three 28 inch greenhouse grown plants in 5 gallon nursery pots. These beauties are from a recent thinning and will not need to be transplanted again for a couple years. Yours for $24.00 each or $60 for all three pots.

These plants have large ready-for-juicing leaves. Compare with this 5” Plow & Hearth aloe vera for $30! (http://www.plowhearth.com/product.asp?pcode=12695 ) Not only do you get far larger plants when you buy ours, you can begin using them right away with no concern for synthetic fertilizer residues.

Aloe vera juice is highly regarded in natural health circles for use as treatment for heartburn and irritable bowel syndrome. Additionally, aloe is widely used as a topical treatment for rashes, sunburn, cuts and scrapes, and is known as the medicine plant.

Food Doesn’t Get Much More Real or Sustainable Than This

We’ve also canned delicious stock and tunaless salad with our homegrown tilapia.

A Big Thank You

… to the Horton and Crout families for purchasing humanely raised Cornish roasters from us. We’ve raised both laying flocks and meat chickens before, but this was our first time raising them for others. Things went according to plan, and we trust the families are well pleased to have purchased meat from a local farmer. These roasters were grown without hormones or antibiotics and were fed organic greens plus locally sourced feed.

So to the Hortons and Crout families, we say…

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Grow, Harvest, Repeat

Ah, the cyclic life! As one crop comes to fruition, another begins to grow. We’ve Cornish roasters ready to harvest out in the meat chicken facility (first video) and tilapia being born in the breeding facility (second video).

 

Visit our YouTube channel to see more Middleground Farm videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/MiddlegroundFarm

With our chicken and fish operations, our first priority is to humanely, sustainably and responsibly produce healthy food for our family. We are also happy to raise roasters for others (indeed, the birds featured here were raised for other families) and to sell a portion of our annual fish crop as ‘shares’. By law, we can only sell live animals, thus the customer must see to butchering.

To order either fish or chicken, visit our online store here.