It's wintertime here now but you have to be a local to really notice it in the garden. The tomato plants have slowed way down. The brassica family has perked up. The greens love it. And the peas are growing strongly.
The jicama plants are covered in seed pods. Looks like we will have a bumper crop of seed to share with gardeners around here.
The gourds have finally slowed down. The plants are getting old looking and generally are not so vigorous looking. Sue pulled out a lot of the older, less productive plants. So it is time to revitalize the soil and replant.
We are having problems with the grass creeping back into the garden. It sometimes long (6-8 feet!) runners underground before popping up. We are loath to use herbicide, so we are attempting to control it by digging out runners when we can and smothering the grass with mulch.
Speaking of mulch, the chickens are producing lots of nice nutrient rich mulch for us. Every day we put two full trashcanfuls of grass clippings into their pen. Some they eat. The rest gets scratched around with the rest of the bedding. Every week we remove it to a compost bin. Within three weeks we have nice mulch/compost to add to the garden.
We found that we can encourage the chickens to till up the bedding by lightly sprinkling a quart of seeds over the bedding. This way the bedding stays light, airy, fairly dry, fairly odor free. We plan to start adding ground biochar to the bedding for the chickens to mix in. Might be a good way to incorporate the biochar.
Its almost time to order the onion and leek plants for next year. The catalog arrived in the mail the other day. The group will decide what to order this coming week. Texas Supersweet will definitely be on the order form!
December 6th
Wow, it's time to think about our spring orders of seeds and plants. Boy, how the time flies! The group discussed their ideas on the onions and leeks, so we placed our orders for a number of sweet onion types plus Lancelot leeks. Some of the plants we will sell, but most will head into the garden. Onions and leeks were a big hit last year.
We also placed our first seed orders. Harris, Seigers, and Victory Seeds got the first orders. Peas, beans, cauliflower, brocolli, turnips, and beets mostly.
This week we are thinking ahead to the January seed exchange. With that in mind we are making sweet potato and tomato cuttings. And next week we will be seeding trays in the hoophouse. Time, too, to pot up the edible hibiscus.
It's been dry recently again. No rain. The ground still has some moisture, thanks to the mulch, but we may have to consider irrigating if we don't get rain soon. And as usual, we are still making as much mulch material as we can. Every little bit helps.
The chickens are amazing. They eat up just about all the garden waste that is edible. So far we have not had to resort to bringing food in. We still have plenty of nasturiums, sweet potato vines, banana trunks and fruit, plus wastage and leaves from the chard, kale, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, winged beans, gourds, etc. And they get fresh grass clippings daily. Now that we can let them run loose while a volunteer is present, they are cleaning up all the bugs, slugs, and lizards. We are almost out of seeds for them, and the next seed crops are not yet ready to harvest. So we are considering alternatives. Yes, we could buy commercial scratch, but the idea is to be self-reliant. So we are thinking about harvesting the haole koa seed. We shall experiment and see what comes of it.
December 23rd
This is the first Christmas that we are actually working in the garden. Kind of special, eh? As a dedication, we are planting some small poinsettias in the corner and plan to add a new one each year. We will make it a tradition, adding a new color or type every Christmas.
Our first order of onion plants has arrived. Texas Super Sweet, Texas Early White, Texas Legend, White Bermuda, Southern Belle Red, and Yellow Granex. We have them all potted up now but need to prepare rows for them in the main garden. Some we will sell, but the rest will be planted.
Two horses have arrived at the farm! They are boarders, not ours. But they will be a great, close-at-hand source for horse manure. Right now we have to haul the horse manure from a farm a mile away, but having horses right here on the farm will be wonderfully convenient. This is another nice upgrade to this garden project.
We are now getting composted chicken manure out of the tumbler composters every week. A full wheelbarrowful goes right into the garden. It is a bit coarse because we are not bothering to shred it, but it tills very nicely into the soil as is. Another great upgrade to this project.
The Mojo tomato plants have been planted and we are building the trellising around them. To date we have about 50% of the row heavily mulched, so it is almost done. Just need to mow the grass a bit more. We plan to try a homemade drip irrigation system on the tomatoes and see it if works. By using compost or manure tea for the irrigation, it should provide enough fertilization for the plants at the same time. Of course, we will be adding crushed bone and coral, because tomatoes also need calcium.
Most of the new coffee trees are planted. Just 8 more to do. It will be three years until we get beans, but we are willing to wait. Putting coffee along the shaded property line is a nice use of that land. This is just a start. Each year we plan to add more trees along the border areas.
The garden has been producing quite a bit of food which as been going to various senior holiday dinners and needy families. Eggplant, sweet peppers, winged beans, green beans, chard, chinese cabbage, lettuce, kale, and sweet potatoes. Plus plenty of herbs.
Our special sweet potato varieties are now big enough to produce cuttings for propagation. Thus we now have various sweet potato varieties for sale. Ivy Leaf Carver, Old Hawaiian White, Pense Red, Carolina Bunch, Beauregard, Vardaman, Red Yam. More will be coming soon.
We have removed most of the old gourd plants and have started rototillering and preparing the soil for the next crop. Next to the gourd patch we have pipinola, which is now sending out vines that are almost 6 foot long already. Won't be long before they start covering the trellis.
The taro plants are starting to get significantly shorter. Know what that means? It's almost harvest time! I checked the plants and the corms are getting pretty big. Over the next month they should double in size, then we will start harvesting.
We have been planting pineapples. Not many, but it is a start. The nice thing about the pineapples is that we can use parts of the garden that are too steep for regular row crops. Again, a nice way to use land so that it doesn't go to waste.
This past month the avocado trees have been dropping avos like mad. They are not the buttery type, but they are pleasant enough. A bit watery. But we tried them as a cooking avo and they worked out just fine. And mixing them with a buttery type they make nice guac. It's a shame they are not the buttery type because then we could sell them easily. But there are too many good avos on the market right now for buyers to consider purchasing the watery type. Oh well. But the chickens eat the excess with no complaints.
We discovered that we have a cane toad in the garden. That's good for us because it will eat beetles and such.but we will have to be careful about having dogs visit because cane toads can be deadly.
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