April 2015

Flea beetles, aphids of kale , pea virus, mildew on cowpeas

We are growing our own onion starts this year. The seed is small and difficult for us to sow thinly. So the seedlings came up in clumps. Prior experience has shown us that we can allow the seedlings to grow together for a while, then when more developed they can easily be separated and transplanted. So for now they are in clumps. 

Our Swiss chard is growing strongly. We sowed a mixed color package of seed. So we are seeing a rainbow of colors. While the colored ones are a tad tougher, the colors are appealing. We find that the chard responds very favorably to being mulched. 

This time we tried growing long beets in addition to the standard round ones. They did just fine. Some got quite large before we got to them but they were still tender and sweet. 

The sprouting broccoli is starting to produce buds. The broccoli is a bit crowded so we plan to remove the smaller plants, harvesting them for their leaves and small buds. That will give the larger plants more room to develop. 

The spring we are seeing lots of the pineapple plants producing. Some are already growing the stem sucker, which becomes the replacement plant. You can see the sucker in the photo below growing out the side of the stem below the pineapple fruit. There are also several small slips growing from the base of the pineapple. These two can be planted but take longer to produce the next fruit. 

Now for the bad news......

Aphids have moved into the kale. We didn't notice them at first until they had already caused a lot of damage. We got rid of them using soap spray, but even so, the kale took a nose dive two weeks layer. We have removed those damaged plants since we have plenty of other kales for picking. 

The snap peas are succumbing to some sort of pea disease. We haven't identified the culprit yet. 

Mildew is finally showing itself in the garden. For months now we have been anticipating it. The weather seemed ideal for mildew. The first crop to show mildew this time is the cowpeas. 

Vog attack! The volcano has been acting up lately, sending bursts of vog our way. The taro has been burned and so have the gourd leaves. Long sections of gourd vines have been burned. 

March 2015

Cutworms!  The garden is seeing more cutworm damage once again. Luckily it is not a severe infestation. But it does get frustrating to see a seedling get chopped down right at the soil. The photo below is from a USDA extension site, but that's the type of damage and worm that we are seeing. 

Our harvests still include a selection of various veggies. We have a fairly steady supply of potatoes, either sweets or Irish type. And the garden constantly has a selection of greens and herbs. 

Another of our experiments below.....

Here we are testing to see of the potatoes will produce a crop if grown and a pea trellis. The peas may eventually shade out the potatoes, so we shall see what happens. 

These young potato plants above are ready for mulching. 

February 2015

The heavy winds last month seemed to have slowed the growth of the veggies. Or perhaps it was just the time of year? But some taller crops surely didn't look so good after the winds. The pole beans, tomatoes, eggplants and such all have had a down turn. But lower growing veggies look good.

Below are the last of the rat tail radishes. Everybody is pretty tired of trying them. They were a nice novelty. Good fresh in salad or for dipping, ok added to stir fry. I bet a good use would be as pickles. But we grew far too many plants. In the future we will limit it to 6 plants. 

The daikons are something that grow real well. Below is a Korean type. They got quite large and still stayed good quality. We liked these quite a bit because we could leave them in the ground longer without them becoming pithy. Thus the harvest could be extended. 

Below is the last of the rat tails we are harvesting for the time being. 

These pallet boxes are proving to be excellent compost makers. As we can find more free pallets, we are making more boxes. 

The compost soil we get out of each box looks and smells quite nice......

The celery we planted us starting to grow up. We have been harvesting individual stems for cooking. 

Another herb tht we harvest individual stems as needed is the chocolate mint. It is a nice flavoring. 

Our cilantro is going to seed. We are planning to use done of the seed for replanting. The rest will go for seasoning. 

January 2015

Good news, bad news month. The bad news first.......major wind storm. While no trees fell into the garden itself, we did have one giant tree smash into the lunch area, destroying both the lunch tent and the potting/work area tent. Both tents were a total loss. On top of that, one lunch table got broken. Bummer. Trees also fell onto the chicken and rabbit pens, severely damaging both. Only one hen died. Poor girl. But happily all the others, including the rabbits, survived unharmed. They all got loose and ran amuck for several days, but in the end everything was fine. 

Good news....

Two new pipinola beds got created. We are using dead standing trees as trellises for the vines. We built a low rockwall around the tree, filled in the bed with horse manure, compost, and soil. Then planted several pipinolas around each tree. They should be producing in about 6-9 months, were aiming for 6. 

We get excess from the garden that does not get eaten, sold or given away. Mostly it's damaged and misshapen stuff, or the rest of the plant parts that don't get harvested. If it's edible, then it goes to feed livestock, otherwise is heads to the compost boxes. Below are two new baby pigs that are the newest recipients of the garden waste. These cute little guys already have told us that they don't like green beans, but the love sweet potatoes, both roots and vines. 

Bad news.....

Grasshoppers. We started seeing holes in the Chinese cabbage leaves. We were thinking it was slugs but we caught grasshoppers in the act of munching. So we went looking for them by using a stick to brush the leaves, causing the hoppers to jump. Gotcha! 

Another insect we are seeing around the perimeter of the garden is the walking stick. So far we haven't spotted any in the garden itself. We don't know if they would damage our garden or not. 

Another pest we see from time to time is the sphinx moth caterpillar. It eats the sweet potato leaves. We don't see many and frankly we don't mind having a few use the garden for the supermarket. We have plenty of sweet potatoes and are willing to share with a few moths. 

Harvest still include a nice variety of veggies. 

December 2014

The garden is producing quite a bit of extra now. Basically we have its & bits of extra herbs and greens, plus carrot tops. Some of these go to the rabbits as a treat. The rabbits are growing big. 

We have nearly all our starter beds planted or set aside for crops soon to be planted. So Matt is creating more beds. It's a lot f work. Digging. Removing rocks. Breaking up the clumps. Adding manure, compost, etc. Here's Matt pictured below. 

We are adding another section of pole beans now. We are not sure what the timing between the plantings should be, but for now we are sowing a patch every two weeks. 

The garlic chives really like our garden. They are fine for cooking. We plan to see if they can be used as  a pest deterrent. 

This months harvest are including bok choy, n addition to the other veggies. 

We have been harvesting a lot of cucumbers lately. But we are starting to see some problems with the pickleworms. This cucumber, below, just had one worm in it. So half the cucumber was salvageable. But we are starting to see many pickleworms and they are ruining the entire cucumber. We're not sure yet how to control this pest. Spraying dipel on the female flowers every day surely helps, but the evening drizzle washes it away too fast. So were considering other options. 

Above, you can see the hole that tells us that there is a worn inside. 

Above, we cut open the cucumber to reveal the light green "maggot". 

Above,  those holes in the flower are created by the pickleworm "maggots'. 

Above, this is what the pickleworm moth looks like. It is a night time moth. About 3/4" long and ours are more grey than brown. 

November 2014

As we are expanding the garden, we discovered that we needed more tools. More volunteers -- more tools. That makes sense.

Some of us like to dig with a shovel, others prefer a garden fork. So e would rather weed. Yet others like to work on getting rocks removed. So we keep a selection of various tools handy. 

Farm dog.....Mr. Crusty. Crusty us finally getting use to the garden volunteers. He's a shy dog and as been watching the garden goings-on from a distance. He's finally starting to join the group and us accepting a bit of petting. 

The pole beans have exploded with growth. They at now on their way of climbing the trellises. We've harvested all the radishes that had been planted along the edges. So the two crops go together well, not interfering with each other. 

You can see how the pole beans climb the trellis. They don't have tendrils, but rather the whole stem windsI itself around and around the pole. 

This is a variety of purple basil we are trying. It's ok but not spectacular. Everyone so far prefers the genovese variety, 

This is a lemon basil. Personally I find it goes nicely with chicken dishes. I bet it would make a nice tea. We grew far too much of this stuff for our needs, so we are feeding the excess to the rabbits. They love it. 

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We are still getting a nice variety of veggies each week. Our green peppers are pathetic. We need to put more effort into them. 

October 2014

The garden is growing larger each week. We're gradually getting more and more beds derocked and planted. This means that we need a lot more mulching material. Since the county mulch is no longer available to us here in Ka'u, we are resorting to using grass clippings. Because the garden is growing in size, we need to upgrade the way we get clippings. No more push mowers. We have switched to using a lawn tractor. The garden group doesn't own one of these, but the owner of it generates clippings for the gardens. 

A large grassy area is needed to supply the clippings. By large, I mean acres. A neighboring macnut farm is allowing us to mow their grass. Those five acres are giving us plenty of clippings to use as mulch or to turn into compost. 

A lawn tractor can create lots and lots of clippings, far faster than a push mower. In fact, it's a mountain of clippings! 

In order to get the clippings back to the garden site, we load them into trashcans then truck them back. The trashcans makes it easier to bring the clippings right to the spot in the garden that they are needed. 

Above, there are more and more garden beds being created and planted. 

This is our first baby watermelon. Watermelons are very difficult to produce in Hawaii because of the fruit fly. But we hope to get a few before the flies find the garden. 

The pole beans are bushy now and about a foot tall. While waiting for the pole beans to grow, we planted radishes. The low plants along the front of the bean row are the radishes. 

Squash stem borer is another problem in the area. We are trying an experiment. Can we confuse the squash borer by hiding the vines under a grass mulch? 

Our harvests this month include a nice variety of veggies each week.