Many crops are coming to maturity right about now. Must have something to do with the fact that its mid-summer and the days are getting shorter. Maybe the plants think winter is coming? Regardless of the reason, we are seeing many gourds coming out of the garden, lots of potatoes and sweet potatoes, lots of greens (chard, mustard, spinach, lettuce, kale, etc). The radishes are constantly producing. And finally the tomatoes are coming in strongly. The snap beans and peas are great producers, too.
We have been getting an abundance of certain herbs, more than we can use, sell, or give away. So we are going to try our hand at drying them. So far the summer savory, celery leaves, tulsi, greek oregano, dill, sage, and parsley have all dried well. We will be trying the other herbs this coming week.
Today we harvested a new potato for us called Nicola. Not a real heavy producer, but very nice looking spuds. We also dug the white Hawaiian sweet potatoes. Not a heavy producer either and the sweet potatoes are gnarly shaped. We've already tried tasting them and they are just fine and sweet, just not what people nowadays expect to see.
We started a new crop that none of us have tried before....Okinawan Spinach. Kind of exciting when we find something new! We will let you know how it turns out.
August 13th
Lots of potatoes are coming out of the garden this week. Reds, purples, yellows, and whites with names like Huckleberry, Yellow Finn, Russian Banana, Kipfel, Purple Majesty, Red Thumb, Daisy Gold, All Blue, Adirondack Red, Yukon Gold, Irish Cobbler, La Ratte, Rose Finn Apple, and Carola.
Harvest also includes Norli snow pea, Oregon Giant snow pea, Valentino snap bean, Hickok snap bean, Black Valentine snap bean, Fordhook chard, Silverado chard, Bionda de Lyon chard, Yaya carrot, Dinosaur kale, Red Russian kale, Red Giant radish, French Breakfast radish, Portuguese cabbage, Goliath broccoli, Aztec spinach, Munchkin cucumber, Spacemaster cucumber. Also some veggies we don't know the exact name of: mustard spinach, chinese cabbage, and grape tomatoes.
We are drying our excess herbs now. This is the first time many of us have grown herbs, so we don't understand exactly when to reseed and start anew. So we are scrambling to restart the basils and dills. Happily the dried herbs will carry us through the times when we don't have fresh ones.
Lately we have been having plenty of small rain showers. Actually, we could use a few nice sunny days without the rain because we are starting to see mold among the plants. Today we thinned some of the rows and removed old plants. Hopefully that will improve air flow and reduce the mold problem.
The old pasture grass is trying to make a comeback in sections of the garden. The persistent stuff is even pushing up past the deep mulch. So we are digging the bigger clumps out and putting down a thick layer of newspaper before reapplying the grass clipping mulch. We'll see if that thwarts the pasture grass for a while again. A herbicide would indeed kill the stuff, but we want to keep any chemical use to the barest minimum. So we will try to avoid round-up, or even heavy doses of clove oil, an approved "organic" herbicide. As a group we have decided to avoid when possible all chemicals, even so called "safe" organic ones.
Diane worked all day today sowing seeds in the hoophouse. The house had gotten empty, yikes! And doing a seed inventory today shows that we need to order some more seeds. We'll figure out in the next few days what veggies we wish to maintain in the garden.
The sweet potato slips we got from Sandhill Preservation Farm are doing fine. One variety did rot out, but the others are vigorous. A few months from now we should be happily up to our necks in sweets. Sounds good to us! Since the old white Hawaiian sweet potato doesn't seem happy in our location, we plan to cut back on the amount of garden space we allot to it. Rather than trying to produce these sweets for food, we will maintain a preservation bed so that we can hand out slips to other gardeners who would like to try it.
The Okinawan spinich slips all look like they rooted. Every one of them looked perky this morning. How cool is that?!?!
We might be getting some more volunteers joining the group. If that happens then we'll see the garden expand in space. Time to think about wacking down more weeds, digging rocks, and breaking ground again.
August 23rd
A little while ago we were complaining about it being too dry. Well folks, now we're moaning about it being too wet. Not a whole lot of rain, but rather, a little all the time without giving the plants the chance to really dry out. As a result we are seeing mold and rot. The poor snap beans and peas have suffered the most. We're at the point where we will be tearing out the beans and peas. So we will give it a try again by reseeding. As a hedge we plan to grow some pole snap beans so that we can still harvest during wet periods like this. Hopefully this idea will work. We shall see.
We have two new volunteers who are YOUNG! Joyel and Tattie. Both energetic teenagers that have come to the rescue of a bunch of old fogies. Boy can they weed in a hurry! And they planted a couple hundred strawberry plants in a hurry. Gardening machines on legs! Wow! We are very, very thankful and happy to see them come on board.
The gourds are now coming out of the garden on a regular basis. Sue has carved and dyed a number of them, and a couple have just come out of the dying process. Looking good! Sue J is donating these first gourds to us, and we plan to sell the first few as a fundraiser. Special gourds for special people. I'll soon have the pictures up on the website.
August 27th
The greens are coming on strongly, giving us plenty to give to families/persons in need. We had so much this week that we brought about 20 bunches to the market to sell at a $1 a big bunch. Selling them at very, very reasonable prices is another way to help "feed ka'u". When people can afford to buy fresh food, they will! We brought eggplant, squash, radishes, leeks, grape tomatoes, mustard spinach, chard, portuguese cabbage, chinese cabbage, and broccoli. Plus 5 edible gourds.
This past two weeks we have been focusing on expanding the garden size. Carl mowed, whacked, and hacked a large area. We have used the mower to scalp the weeds down to the soil level, and the tiller to flip everything over. Now we will wait to see what weeds survived and attack them. Harvested bunches of rocks which we moved to the next chicken pen foundation.
Diane has our hoophouse just about full again. Lots of all sorts of things planted in flats and pots. It is guaranteed to keep us busy for a while. I just hope the new ground that we have been preparing will be ready in time.
A giant trashcanful of strawberry plants have been donated to the garden. Linda and Sue J cleaned them up and Joyel and Tattie got them planted. So far they look good. Strawberries will be a nice addition.
Speaking of fruit, Mac donated numerous white pineapple tops. This week we will get them planted. We plan to put them into the hill that is too steep to use easily for other crops. Pineapples will be a yummy addition too.
Now that we are committed to expanding the garden size (just about doubling it), we are all thinking about what we would like to see growing there. So don't be surprised to see some really neat additions to the garden in the next 2-3 weeks.
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