August 2013

August 5th

          We're still wishing for rain, real rain. So far, just brief sprinkles. The ground is drying out, there is hope for a hurricane later this week, but we won't hold our breathe. 

          The grass is invading the garden bigtime! The volunteers are battling bravely, but the grass is winning.they have dug, wacked, yanked, and cut grass every week, but it is invading further and further. A real big problem. We plan to try using agricultural vinegar and see it that helps. Buying the stuff is super expensive, because if the shipping costs. But we discovered we can make our own by semi-freezing regular vinegar and pouring off the liquid. The liquid becomes a high percentage vinegar. So we'll give it a try. Now we just need a few days of strong sun. 

          We've been harvesting lots of beets and beans. We can really grow them good. Plus lots of kale. Our kale plants are turning into little trees! But the kale still tastes great. 

          The Swiss chard plants are getting very old looking. We cut them back to see what would happen. All the stems resprouted along the stems with lots and lots of little leaves. We don't think it's worth trying to salvage the plants, so we plan to pull them out and start new plants. We are learning which plants can be revitalized and which are not worth the effort. But we have discovered that chard never bolts to seed here in Hawaii. So this is one veggy that we have to purchase seed for, 

August 12th

          The hurricane was a disappointment. Not one drop of rain! 

           We managed to get two good sprayings of vinegar. The tiny baby weeds have already wilted, but not much has happened to the grass yet. Perhaps it's a bit yellow. Today we really savagely attacked the grass,  ripping and gouging. A goodly section of garden got cleared out. The grass is really frustrating. 

          Doug harvested a big bunch of bananas, enough for everyone to take some home. Plus there are several infant clumps up in the trees. So etching to look forward to. 

          The cherry tomatoes are starting to produce well again. We were surprised to see a yellow one. There must have been an errant seed in the pack. How fun! 

          The spaghetti squash is getting little squashes all over it. We are hoping that fruit flies don't like this variety. We've not been seeing pickleworm damage for the past two weeks, so we are keeping our fingers crossed for the squashes. 

August 26th

          We're still getting no recordable rain, just evening sprinkles. It is causing lots of leaf disease in the garden. Some sort of rot is attacking the gourds. Some tomatoes are rotting. The Portuguese cabbage and kale are getting mildew. 

        Vog! Last Wednesday we had a bad bout of vog come through. It burned a lot of leaves. The taro was the worst hit. 

         The sugar is growing crazy. Guess that's because it's a grass. When the stalks mature out a bit more, we are going to propagate this variety. It produces lots of sweet juice. It's a good one! 

          We dug up the experimental sweet potato bed. The experiment was a flop. We had been told that I stead of re-rooting new cuttings, we should just allow the end to restart itself. So we tried it, yes the plants regrew just fine. They came up from bits of tubers that were missed in the harvest. They grew lushly. But when it came time for harvest, there was very little there. Most tubers were small and not many. Only a couple of big ones. So we discovered that this is certainly NOT the way to grow sweet potatoes. So we dug the entire bed, properly this time. We will go back to our tried and true method of raising sweets. 

July 2013

July 15th

           We've been having new volunteers joining us and it feels great! It's so nice to see people come and garden. 

           Doug's tomatoes are producing nice slicing tomatoes. For real! He has been covering each tomato with a bag of so e sort to keep the fruit flies from being able to reach them. At first we didn't think it would work, but lo, it does! Real tomatoes! 

          The herbs have been producing really well in spite of the drought. We've harvested lots of extra and dehydrated them. Basil. Sage. Oregano. Parsley. Celery. Chives. Summer savory. We discovered that the chives lose their flavor, so they are not good candidates for drying. 

July 22nd

          The garden got a half inch of rain last week. Not enough but we are thankful for even little bits. But we still need to water everything. 

          Diane has been starting lots of seeds plus cuttings in the greenhouse. The cuttings have been popular at the farmers market and they help raise money for the farm rent. 

          We're seeing some disease problems in the gourds. Many are speckled. Some have rotted. The plants are dropping leaves. The plants don't look as good as they did last year and we are seeing some insect pests. Both pickleworm and fruit fly have found them this year. While we will be getting gourds, there won't be as many as last year. 

          Even though its a drought, we've been seeing a bride rain sprinkle just about every evening. Doesn't even get the ground wet, but it soaks all the foliage. The problem with this is that it is causing bacterial and fungal disease. We're starting to see mildew on the  cukes, squashes, and kales. 

June 2013

June 11th

           Volunteers have been really busy this week. Here's what they e been working on....

...digging out the invading grass. The pasture grass has been a real bugger to control. The roots are deep, up to 10". And leaving a little piece behind results in the grass regrowing. So we are constantly battling the stuff. 

...the gourd patch: plants are sending out runners now, so we need to go through every week and tie or train them to the trellises. The more mature plants are flowering,  so dipel needs to be sprayed frquently on the flowers to kill the pickleworm moth larvae. Here's what our first gourd of this year looks like---

And we have plenty if baby gourds too ---

...the herb patch is being expanded. New ground has been dug and derocked. New herbs have been added. 

...birds have been attacking and eating the greens. Volunteers made a scarecrow and strung up reflectors, windchimes, and other distractors to ward off the birds. 

...plenty of crops have been harvested: sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, radishes, daikon, spanish radishes, cherry tomatoes, our first slicing tomato, kale, chard, mustard, beets, portuguese cabbage, savoy cabbage, carrots, arugala, collards, cucumbers, eggplant, jicama, onions, leeks, and pipinola. Some goes to the volunteers, some is sold to pay the rent, and the rest is given away to feed Ka'u residents.  

...new crops on being planted: broccoli, beets, radishes, lettuce, spinach, potatoes, sweet potatoes, taro, carrots, onions, and various herbs. 

...we're trying new crops: rhubard, new zealand spinach, red amaranth, poha, tomatillo, sweet sorghum. 

           This past month we had a problem with stray dogs marauding the garden. Luckily no livestock was killed but we had to remove the sheep in a hurry. The ducks and chickens got really shook up. We found ducks hiding high in the trees. The chickens, though physically safe, stopped laying eggs.  They are only now starting to lay again. Sadly the farm cat was killed. As can be expected, we are all very upset and angry over the stray dogs. 

June 24th

          Last week we got rained out on the gardening group day,  but several volunteers came during the week to put a bit of work into the garden. Thankfully it has been raining. Not a bunch each day, but a few tenths of an inch. Just enough to keep plants happy and make them grow. 

          The problem is the grass. The rain is also making it grow. Sometimes it is very tempting to consider using Round-up, but so far we have resisted it. The grass makes our life miserable. 

           Each week we have been harvesting. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, cabbage, portuguese cabbage, kale, chard,  beets, bok choy, onions, leeks, herbs, pipinola, and now .... ta-da!... tomatoes!!!!!!! Here's a picture of Fran showing off our first slicing tomatoes. By the way, Fran is 91 years old and our oldest volunteer! 

            Now that grass is growing, we finally have plenty of material for mulch. Now the problem is finding the time  to keep it mowed. But at least we have mulch!

          We have been experimenting with new plants again. Burmese okra, 5 different types of cotton, different basils, new varieties of beans and peas. We gradually keep discovering what grows best in this particular garden. 

           The chickens are still producing, though not as much since the dog attack. But they seem happy and healthy so far. No signs of disease. 

           Fran is starting a new project. She is making scarecrows for the garden. We have been experiencing some damage from birds, so a hastily made scarecrow was put up. It successfully kept the turkeys out. But now the house wrens are causing havoc, so we need more scarecrows. Fran to the rescue! When she has a few completed, we will get pictures posted of them. We plan to have a naming contest. It should be fun. 

         Next week we hope to have some new furry additions.... kittens. Since the farm cat was killed, we are being plagued by mice and rats. So we need some feline hunters. All the kittens will be neutered. no way do we need to deal with an increasing feline population! But it will be nice to have a few cats around. We will post photos when they arrive. 

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May 2013

May 13th

         May is here again at last and we were sooooo looking forward to it. Things don't grown all the well in the garden during March and April. So we were all happy to see May arrive. 

           We have some  fresh seed ready that we grew on the seed farm in Mark Twain. It's called Purple Teepee, a purple stringbean. We grew it last year and it was much liked. So we are glad to give it another go around. 

          Some of the plants are getting rather mature and not producing all that well anymore. So out goes some of the old eggplants, broccoli, chard, and leaf cabbage. We're almost ready to ditch some of the old pepper plants too.  

          We are still planting onion plants and potatoes. Plus reseeding bok choy, kale, carrots, beets, and radishes. Diane started a whole bench of assorted seeds in the greenhouse so that in a couple of weeks we will have a nice selection of plants to choose from for the garden rows. 

         The strawberry plants have been producing but the birds and slugs are getting almost all the berries. So we need to make a change. Since we are busy replanting the empty garden rows, the strawberry project will have to wait a bit. 

          This week we got the new tilapia pond set into place and the rock wall built around it. We made it out of an old spa tub that was donated to us by one of the volunteers. Thanks Missy and Jeff! In the next couple of weeks we will get all the holes plugged then fill the tub up. Everyone is eagerly looking forward to the arrival of the baby fish. 

          Lunch:

A stew like concoction of local beef, our carrots, tomatoes, onions, beans and herbs. Served over rolls or rice. A vegan stew made from assorted garden veggies  picked from the garden served over brown rice rice. Fried sweet potatoes. 

April 2013

April 8th 

          No rain yet, but I keep hoping. The garden is really getting dry and we will have to be irrigating the plants soon. Right about now I'd do a rain dance in the nude if it would help! Thank heavens we have county water to fall back on. .......so that I don't have to follow through with that idea. Naked at my age would not be a pretty sight!

       Today at the garden felt like a real good day, didn't it? A variety of potato, Red Dale, got harvested today. Nice looking spuds. Lots of beans and eggplant were ready too, as were some leeks and green onions. A couple of pipinola. Saw a few takers of various herbs. Good! Those lima beans are growing and hugh, full of flowers, but no pods yet. Any ideas? Are we doing something wrong? Possibly not a good variety for Hawaii? I've never grown them before, so possibly it takes longer for the pods to fill out?

          Lots of seedlings got potted up in the hoop house. And lots of boxes of potted plants got moved down to the holding area in Naalehu for the coming Spring Fling. Plus there appears that there will be plenty more ready in time for the sale.

         Missy is making business cards for us to use at Spring Fling. What a great idea. She showed us the final draft today. We shall see how they work out and make modifications as needed. 

          Today the coffee trees and tomatoes got a nice watering, as did the gourds and herbs. The main garden got a light watering today, and will be watered again tomorrow. More beets got planted out. More seeds were started in the hoop house. I saw the Sweet William leaving the garden. It didn't bloom for us, but maybe it will do better for someone else. The plants were started over a year ago and out side of becoming green and bushy, there have been no flowers. 

          Looks like the Chinese rose beetle attacked one of the plantings of beans. We might consider tilling it under and trying something else there that the beetle doesn't like. Gotta keep those bugs confused. Doug and Laurie suggest that we try a newspaper barrier, so that's what we'll do. I'll be thrilled if it works. The Chinese rose beetle is a tough one to control is you are not available at dusk to pick them off the plants. 

          We had a visitor today who shared lunch with us....Olivia L. She lives down in Green Sands. She has expressed interest in the garden in the past. Possibly now that she has seen it she might join the effort. She really likes growing taro and has been very successful with tilapia.

         Lunch turned out to be dang good: BBQ beef over homemade whole wheat bread; egg and cheese spread; beets; fried potatoes; pasta salad; tuna pasta salad; international cookies for dessert. The beef was local from Michele Galimba. The herbs, potatoes, onions, and celery were from the garden. The eggs were from our own chickens and the cheese was homemade from local milk. 

April 15th

          'Twas a very nice morning to garden. Maybe not a perfect day, but a very nice one. Lots of activity in the hoop house. The benches were practically empty at the start, and ended up with a decent covering of trays and pots. Since most everything was sold over the weekend, it felt good to get the hoophouse refilled. Yes, the Spring Fling was a super success. Almost all the plant starts, taro, and wood ash sold, as well as several packets of seeds. We got the word out to plenty of new people about the existence of the community garden. 

          Doug wasn't successful in getting the little tiller started today. So it's off to the engine hospital to be fixed. It's the first time that it's broken in the two years that it's been working. That's the best track record I've ever had on a tiller. ......The lawnmower is working again ok. I found debris in the gas tank which must have been blocking the fuel flow. Once cleaned out, the mower is running fine. Carl will be harvesting more grass clippings so that we have the mulch we so desperately need for the veggies and gourds.  

          The ducks seemed overjoyed to be released this morning, flying and fluttering about. I found a treasure trove of slugs when I harvested potatoes, and those greedy ducks ate every one of them. Good guys!

          We discovered that Blue Lake pole bean is not a good variety for us. Either it doesn't do well with our growing methods or else our harvesting habits aren't compatible. Either way, the beans are fibrous compared to other varieties that we have tried. So we will retire this variety.

          More onions were ready to plant out. And some more seedlings made their way into the garden. Doug prepared a good sized patch of soil down beside the current herb garden. Looks like we will be able to expand the herbs. Super! There is a bucket of lemon grass awaiting a home.

          Lots of potatoes were ready to dig......purples, whites, and reds. The first onions are bulbing up. A few peppers were picked. Still have lots of eggplant, kale, chard. A little broccoli was there. Still some portuguese cabbage producing, as is the arugula. Radishes are ready. More sweet potatoes are ready. A few beets could be pulled. The celery and Thai basil are regrowing, and the holy basil looks good. The yacon is about one foot high now. Both the tomatoes and the gourds got some TLC. In the next few weeks both of those garden areas should take off. Before and after photos will be impressive, just like last year I hope.

          Lunch was enjoyable, as usual. Quinoa salad, spinach salad, pipinola pickles, stringbeans pickles, beef stew, sweet potatoes, fried green beans, and omelet. Alot of the ingredients were from our own garden

 

April 23rd

          .Another week has gone by....again! For some reason, the weeks seem to be getting shorter. When I was a kid, the school week lasted forever!

          The garden got a nice bit rain this week. Of course it could use another 3-4 inches, but it was nice seeing some rain that actually was enough to get the soil wet for a change. In order to conserve some of that moisture, we hope to harvest a lot of lawn clippings over the next couple days to use as mulch.

          Quite a bit of the seeds that were planted in the hoop house have begun to sprout. I didn't take note if the variety names, but a saw a lot of baby plantlets. Out in the garden I saw at least another row of potatoes ready to harvest. And plenty of radishes. Is that baby bok choy out by the gourd patch? If so, it's ready to harvest the thinnings. They should be very tender and tasty at this stage.

          Other gardeners around the island are reporting a major outbreak of aphids. Maybe we should check all our plants for infestations, if you see any, there is safer soap spray in the hoop house. If it runs out, we can make our own out of dish soap that is effective against aphids.

          We harvested plenty of veggies including some beets and sweet potatoes.

April 30 th............

         This Monday was a good harvesting day : potatoes, pipinolas, arugula, radishes, eggplants, onions, carrots, kale, and more. There are a few sweet potatoes that we can harvest next week, plus the first of the lima beans.

          A few notes :

....Lima bean - although the packet describes it as a bush, it could use some cage type trellising next time. The bean pods are so heavy that they are dragging the rather large plant down and many pods are laying on the ground within reach of the slugs.

...onions-- we can hold on harvesting them until they get bigger. Last year many grew to 3-4 inches in diameter! Some even bigger. The clue to look for, not just bulb size, is that a few that don't bulb up are bolting....that is, pushing up a flower stalk. Of course, volunteers can always harvest as they need them for their own tables. But as far as the surplus, they sell for a dollar an onion when they are giant sized.

... Elba variety of potato. We've discovered that this variety produces shallow tubers, right up by the soil surface. so this variety, as with the Russian Banana variety, need to be mulched to prevent tuber greening.

          Doug got the rototiller running again. 

          Lots of weeds pulled today! And rows got replanted. And the expanded herb garden got planted by Miss.  The gourd patch underwent a deweeding, now it needs to be mulched before those gourds realize their capabilities to grow rampantly. Once they start going, it's like risking your life to walk among them. Just remember what they did last year. 

          We had new volunteers checking out the garden today. I'm terrible with names...are they Vicky and ? Anyway.....welcome!!! We're glad you're moving here and would like to grow your own food. Looks like we'll be having a good time together.

          Lunch: 

Mouflon veggie soup. For those who didn't try it, mouflon tastes more like beef than lamb. All the veggies came from our garden except the tomatoes (which were local). Potato soup. 100% from the garden. Nastursium flowers were used for the peppery taste and the salt came from Honomolino bay.  Veggie stir fry over rice. All they veggies came from the garden (arugula, pipinola, onion greens, bok choy). Cucumber salad. Most ingredients were from the garden. Very refreshing taste!

March 2013

March 14th

              I've been very busy this past month, too busy to run into town to update the website. Sorry. But we have been busy not only with the garden, but we are also now developing another half acre 5 miles away for seed production. We also plan to use the new land for sugar cane. 

           The volunteers exchange an email each week among themselves. It is basically a newsletter keeping everyone up to date and connected.  Some volunteers suggested that we post this each week in the news area, and I think that is a grand idea. Since I still have copies of the last few emails, I will post them for everyone to peruse. That should be a nice way to bring all our followers up to date. 

March 16th

          Our new seed production/sugar cane project is now in motion. I'll get some photos tomorrow for posting to the website. Here's what has happened so far:

1- Purple Teepee Bean. Two box units have been planted with Purple Teepee bean seed and both have sprouted just fine. Plants are about 6-8" high now. 

2- Two box units have been planted with sweet potato stock plants. Carolina Bunch. Ivy Leaf Carver. While the plants are small, they appear to be healthy. 

3- We have enough parts to put together 24 more growing boxes. Once assembled, they are filled with compost and green waste, then topped in soil before being planted. We can make and plant two boxes a week. So it will be a slow project. 

4- Several weeks ago we cut up sugar cane and planted it in pots. Many of them took and are pushing new growth. We are now digging trenches and preparing them for the baby sugar cane plants. This will be a slow project because the lava is difficult to dig through. But we have time on our side. We aim to get 6 plants put in per week. 

March 18th

          Today we got the gourd patch ready for planting. The trellises have been rebuilt. The holes dug. Compost and manure rototilled in. Weeds chopped out. Yes, we're ready to start the gourd madness all over again!!! 

           Funny thing, while cleaning out the area we found some gourds that had run away from home. Deep in the weedy area around the patch, among the Mexican Elderberry, we found 5 dried gourds. Little buggers got away from us. 

February 2013

February 13th

:

          The gardening project has been really hopping the past two weeks. We have had plenty of volunteers plus guests coming by and giving a hand, projects that we have been working on :   

    expanding the size of the garden

    removing large areas of grass and rocks

    removing the old plastic on the hoophouse and applying a new cover

    propagating sugar cane

    constructing the first aquaculture set-up

    removing old mature plants, tilling and improving the soil, and replanting the rows

          The plants are doing better now that the days are growing longer. Young seedlings take almost no time before they are ready to plant. Our sweet potato have been rooting and sending out new shoots. The tomato cuttings have grown so large that we need to get them into the garden ASAP. Even the pipinola is starting to bloom --

          The plastic on the hoophouse finally gave up and shredded. It was only one year plastic, and that's just about how long it lasted. So today a group of us got together and replaced it.  Now the hoophouse is good to go for another year. Just in time to start planting more seeds!

          Today we harvested the jicama. My goodness, the roots were super jumbo! I guess we left them in the ground too long. It was less than a year, but definitely too long. We divided the harvest among those volunteers willing to give it a try. So we'll find out next week how edible those jumbo roots were.  

           We also harvest tumeric for the first time today. None  of us have every grown it before so we didn't know what to expect. From those little roots we planted that were far smaller than our little pinkies, we harvest a mass of tumeric almost as big as a soccer ball. Wow, quite a return on our investment. Now we just have to figure out how to use the stuff in cooking. It appears that we are quite good at growing it. 

          Harvest today also included Jimmy Nardello frying peppers (we all agree that they are winners),  eggplant, beans, chard, savoy cabbage, snow peas, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, mustard spinach, purple broccoli, kale, arugula, and collards. The basil is almost ready to eat too --

          The coffee trees we had planted look like they have finally taken hold. They are greening up and starting to sprout new leaves. We also interplanted red hibiscus and it also looks like it took root just fine. 

          Many of our sugar cane starts have sprouted shoots. Time to repot them into individual pots for growing on. We don't have a space yet to plant them out into the garden, but it looks like we will have to get a space ready. Our group has discovered that fresh pressed cane juice mixed with some fresh lime and orange juice is just yummy. So we plan to grow our own supply of sugar cane. 

            Our pigeon peas were ready for harvest.... for seed. We grew these few plants in order to have seed to grow more. From just four plants we got a quart of seed. Impressive yield! We plan to grow pigeon peas not just for human use, but also to help feed the chickens. 

          The dinosaur kale continues to grow. It never stops! It's getting so tall that they look almost like little palm trees of some sort --

           Speaking of chickens, the girls are doing well. We have learned that if we let just a small group out at a time, they are easy  to get back into the pen. But if we let them all out at once, then they are a bugger to corral. So each day  we rotate who gets to go hunt bugs.  They seem to like the system ok because they are calm and lay a good amount of eggs each day. They are up to 5 dozen a week now. 

           Our baby ducks are starting to look like adults. No more baby fuzz. This week for the first time they seemed interested in coming out of the pen to go bug hunting. Finally they are getting over their shyness. Boy are they death on slugs!!!!!!!! Every slug they found instantly  was eaten. When Doug tilled a new patch of soil, they made a beeline for it, clearing out any bug or worm found. Good ducks! Now before everyone starts screaming at us about the worms, yes they ate them from a small patch. But the garden is teeming in worms. It won't take long before that small patch is full of worms again. And anyway,  worms are a good food source for ducks and chickens. We  can spare them a few.