February 2012

We started out the month with some lofty goals: 

1- Open more area for next sweet potato crop.

2- Clear the area for the gourd intercropping area.

3- Get the area ready for the onion plants due to arrive in February.

4- Build the herb containers and start the herbs. 

5- Build the foundation for the shed and move the shed into place. 

6- Build the rabbitry.

7- Build the chicken pen. 

8- Continue de-grassing and de-rocking.

9- Make lots and lots of compost. 

We failed to get #6 & #7 done, but hey, we got a whole of the other stuff accomplished! The volunteers really worked hard! 

The weather has been cooperating and the volunteers are tackling the jobs, one right after the other. Wow!

1- Sweet potatoes: the next slips are potted and growing until the ground is ready. 

This next crop will be purple ones. The white, orange, and yellow tubers have been planted into potting soil so that they can grow slips. The next bed area has been de-grassed and is ready for rock removal.

2- Weedwacking: a new volunteer on board has done a marvelous job wacking down the weeds. She has opened a vast new area and whipped the gourd area into shape. Great!

3- The first crop of beets and radishes are into the raised beds. We started two different types of beets so that people can compare them for taste, growing ability, shape, etc. 

4- We are battling a woody weed in the mint family. The work is slow and difficult. But this week the volunteers managed to cut out a long strip along the irrigation pipeline. 

5- More growing container parts for the raised beds have been made and will be put together on the next get-together. Don't know yet what we'll plant into them, so it shall be a surprise. 6- We've started making the hydroponic containers for the rafts. We plan to use a variety of hydroponic systems so that people can get ideas about what would work for them in their home gardens. 

7- The irrigation system isn't functional yet, but we've set up a series of trash cans and barrels for water storage, making caring for seedlings and cuttings easier. 

By mid month we had a new volunteer come on board, I'd like to welcome Linda Nelson. She's a skilled gardener already and brings a vast knowledge on local plants. Thanks for joining us, Linda! 

1- Gourd update: The patch is ready to plant! Yup, we have the de-rocking and tilling done. Sue J. plans to put in 14-16 different varieties, so it should be an impressive sight. 

2- Another container bed got assembled and planted. So peas, kohlrabi, and carrots join the crop list.

3- The radishes look strong, beets are showing through the soil, and the hydroponic lettuce is sprouting nicely. The newest sweet potato slips are perking up, so they most likely are rooted by now. 

February 13th  Update:

We had a light rain over the weekend, just enough to freshen up the new young plants. 

Garden work update:

1- The gourd patch is now planted. 16 varieties are in. 

2- The donated sweet potato cuttings have been potted up, and the tubers of 5 new varieties have been planted in order to make slips. 

3- A good sized area behind the compost bins has been de-weeded and raked. This area is being targeted for maile and mamaki. 

4- Mexican Oregano cuttings that came from Pacific Quest have been potted. 

5- Onions: plants are on the way from the mainland. We tilled part of the area where they will be transplanted. Hope to finish that task on the next gardening day. 

6- Our first hydroponic tray is assembled and ready for the plugs. We plan to grow leaf lettuce in this first one. 

February 20th Update: 

It's getting to be fun doing the garden updates because we are actually seeing results now. 

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1- Gourds - several hills have germinated already and we are awaiting the slow pokes. 

2- Radishes - Egads, they grow so rapidly! We can actually see little radishes forming already. 

3- Everything we have seeded in the past weeks has sprouted nicely. Kohlrabi, carrots, beets, peas, etc.

4- Onions- the baby plants are in and already perking up and getting green. 400 plants altogether. They look so nice that we are tempted to go order some more. 

5- Our first maile and mamaki plants are in. 

6- Herbs- today we seeded 115 assorted herb plants. 

7- Sweet potatoes- everything we have done so far looks fine. So we started a couple more dozen cuttings so that we can continue the continuous planting schedule. 

8- Potatoes- put in our first of the potatoes. This one is a white boiler type. We will be following that up with fingerlings, purples, yellows, pinks, and every odd color combination we can locate. Should be interesting. 

9- Hydroponic lettuce- about 1/2 the seed germinated. Not so good, but what has come up is looking just fine. So we will go ahead and reseed again now. 

This coming week we plan to remove the old irrigation system. It is sun damaged beyond use and would be far too expensive to repair. How disappointing. We had counted on it functioning. But we shall make do with hoses until we can afford to install a new system. We also plan to finish mowing the tall grass and weeds. One of the volunteers is developing a garden plan on paper, and with the old irrigation system removed, it will be far easier to come up with a plan to suit the garden terrain and sun exposure. Once the grass is under control, we can really zoom into production. 

We have lots of ideas on the table we want to implement. More kinds of hydroponics. Table top gardening. More container type gardening. Vertical gardening. Some of our volunteers are really getting creative!