April showers surely brought on May flowers... plus lots of veggies too! We now have dozens of baby gourds rapidly growing in the patch. All the baby plants from early April now look big, vigorous, and a joy to the eyes. Harvests have included potatoes, spring onions, assorted herbs, kale, and the last of the first planting of peas and beets.
Now that we have been increasing the plantable garden space, our crops are getting larger. Most space devoted to potatoes, string beans, kale, daikon, broccoli, chard, beets, and sweet potatoes. We will soon be planting out more tomatoes, lettuce, and herbs. And we've started in the hoophouse the peppers, eggplants, winged beans, celery, and carrots. Mac just got in some new seeds of exotic oriental veggies, so it looks like our garden will be expanding ever more.
We are adding some new things to the garden (see what having some additional space does to a gardener? Makes 'em crazy to plant more!) including sunflowers, yacon, sugar cane, pipinola, and sweet corn.
Just about all the space that we have de-grassed will soon be filled with growing crops. So the next step will be to expand by tackling another big chunk of land. This work is hard and tiring, but at least now we will be able to rest a tad while gazing over the fruits of our labor-- the wonderful garden thus far.
We plan to start on the orchard by the end of this month. We are presently negotiating for orchard space. The best solution would be to have it adjacent to the community garden, but we have two other landowners offering to host an orchard. So we shall see what develops. So far we have several trees ready for the orchard: tangelo, pomelo, breadfruit, mountain apple, jackfruit, lemon, grapefruit, loquat, and banana. We will let you know next month where the orchard finally gets planted.
We plan to start hosting workshops this summer. Everything is starting to fall into place for it. This will be a totally new adventure for us and should prove to be very enlightening. We will be posting the dates on the website calendar in addition to posting a notice here on the blog.
May 14th
We are on the way to having a really great garden. The hoop house is pumping out plants, far too many to plant at our location. So we are selling some, but also giving dozens away to families who need and will use them. The compost bins are constantly being refilled, but so far it looks like we are making enough for the garden. For the first time we have managed to produce more biochar than we are using, but we will save it for replenishing the beds.
New developments: the horses are ready to move to the pasture. This will make life so much easier since we use lots of manure. The chicken pen is almost ready for the chicken move. Again, this will make life so much easier for us. The shed made the big move today! having the tools and supplies closer to the garden will be much, much nicer.
Harvests: Beets are all harvested now. The rest of the Irish Cobbler potatoes are harvested, and we set aside several for seed potatoes. Every week we have spring onions and herbs galore.
May 15th
The garden is ready for its next big step. It is ready for a formal name. We are reviewing a number of ideas and suggestions and will let you know our decision in a couple of days.
May 20 will be the first time the gate is open to the public. We will invite about 20 carloads of people to view the garden and learn about our efforts. We hope this inspires people to try gardening, and may be we will be lucky to find some more volunteers. Workshops will be part of the garden effort, so we will be listening closely to peoples' suggestions.
With the hoop house plants growing so rapidly, we spent time potting up seedlings. We also got more weedwacking and mowing done, since we could use some more mulch for the potatoes. A new variety of beans were planted, as were snap and snow peas. These peas won't do as well with summer coming on, but we should be able to get some to eat. More chard and chinese cabbage is ready for planting. And we have decided to put in sunflowers.
May 22nd
Our first open gate event went well. We had a total of 18 people and learned that we can comfortably handle 20 cars. So for future events, 20 vehicles will be our cutoff.
Garden volunteers gave tours and explained what the garden project was all about. Sue J had a story board and a finished gourd on display in front of the gourd patch and spent quite a bit of time talking about the gourd patch. Many visitors availed themselves to the free veggie plants that we offered to let people take home for their own gardens. All in all, a very happy day! Hopefully we have inspired a few more people to grow more food.
Gardening update:
More herbs are in the ground - cutting celery, Titan leaf parsley, chamomile. Another section of snap beans and snow peas are in, plus more chard. The boxes of seed potatoes just arrived in the mail, so we have to get on that real fast. Lots of varieties that we do not have. We also started lots of sweet potatoes cuttings, a yellow variety. Mc started more seeds in the hoop house, among them were a number of assorted chinese greens, cabbage, peppers, tomatoes, dill, and other herbs.
Harvest: Purple, white, and fingerling potatoes. Green snap beans. Spring onions. Assorted herbs. Bok choy greens. And our first cucumbers!
Feeding Ka'u: the trickle of food has just begun. We have given away radishes, beets, "pot greens", green snap beans, potatoes (white, yellow, purple, red skin white, purple/pink skin white), hydroponic lettuce, hydroponic assorted kits, and lots of started plants. Not much in volume yet, but the future is yet to come.
Educating Ka'u about food: We have held our first open gate event, explaining various growing techniques, showing people an actual garden that they could do at home, showing off an easy to build hoop house, showing two types of hydroponic set ups, demonstrating firsthand how to reuse "trash" items to use for food growing, easy no cost compost bins, and low cost way to start seeds. We have given people veggie starts so that they can go home and try growing food themselves. We are available at the local farmers market to answer questions and help people.
In less than 6 months we have a successful garden, all from scratch. Ah, now for the next phase!
May 23rd
For the first time we have had to water the main garden. Up until now our water use has been rather minimal, using it to start seeds and water in transplanted seedlings. So there we were, running the hose system for two hours. Yikes!
In order to reduce reliance on the water, we plan to aggressively mulch the garden. Digging in well prepared compost and chunky biochar between crops should also help a lot. And rather than using a sprinkler, we will install an irrigation set up that we can control where the water actually goes. No sense watering aisleways and perimeter grass!
I read in the newspaper that we should prepare for a drought lasting 5 months. So by tackling the problem now, we should be able to dramatically cut our need for irrigation. I'll let you know what we come up with and how well it works out.
Farmers Market Update:
Our presence at the local farmers market is finally getting the attention of the local people. Today we answered plenty of gardening questions and invited everyone to visit the website. We found many children to give starter plants and hydroponic kits to, hoping to ignite a spark for gardening. We also arranged to give hydroponic lettuce kits to many local seniors.
May 30th
Summer is finally here with its warmer mornings and dry evenings. The plants are responding to the increased warmth by growing faster, but we have to keep an eye on the water situation. We are adding a lot more compost to the soil and topping it off with mulch.
More seed potatoes have arrived from the mainland, so it will be a priority to get them all planted. The job is just about done. More seedlings from our own hoop house are ready for planting too.
Harvests are now including cucumbers on a regular basis, plus snap bean, spring onions, potatoes (hey, the solid purple ones are so pretty!), snow peas, bok choy greens, and herbs. We are getting an excess of food, so happily we are giving it away.
Today we gave hydroponic lettuce kits to the seniors of Naalehu. In order to avoid rat lung disease, hydroponic will be the way to go. The seniors have an interest in gardening, so next week we will be supplying them with assorted vegetable and herb seedlings.
This week we started clearing another section for expanding the garden. We hacked, wacked, and mowed. It will take us 2-3 weeks to have it ready for planting, but we will be able to add pipinola, more taro, and more tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers to the garden. I'm sure there will be room for other things too.
Our chickens are doing a fine job of producing eggs. We are getting around 18 eggs a day now. All different colors: light brown, chocolate brown, green, and white. And next year's pullets arrived yesterday in the form of newly hatched chicks. It will be 8 weeks before they are old enough to join the others at the garden. They are being raised organically from day one, so they will be a real asset to the egg production. The breed we choose is called Red Sex Link, a fine egg producer. The next batch of chicks will be Black Sex Link and Rhode Island Reds. They are due to arrive in late June.
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