Mary, How does your garden grow?

Well my name's not Mary but I'll show you comparisons of lettuce seedlings started in a raised bed vs. in my aquaponics system,

Planted in April 2014 

and the same in the raised bed

Here's what I had in May..

Here you can see the green Romaine is quite a bit more mature than the dirt version:

The dirt version:

The same with the reds:

And in dirt:

Another planting (2nd) later in September:

P.s. Notice anything different in the coloring of the lettuce?  Its
the result of a mineral deficiency which is mainly iron depletion. 
I'll share more under the post: "Tricks, Tips, and Headaches".  

And the dirt version (I assure you these were planted at the same time).

Oct 2014:  
I've started a winter batch (3rd for the year), here its about a week old:

So I'll talk about tomatoes in another post. They were ridiculous growing in AP...look for Part II

website: No Dirt Required

-T.C.