September 2014

Compost is one of our main sources of fertilizer for the gardens. We use no commercial chemical fertilizers. So we make a lot of various kinds of compost. In the photo below, we've opened up one of the compost making boxes in order to use the material in the garden beds. We spread a light layer on top of the soil and lightly dig it in before planting the next crop. 

We make a variety of composts. Some have more manures for a nitrogen boost for the garden. But most commonly we make a compost based upon vegetable matter.....weeds, discarded veggies, old veggie plants, grass clippings. As we make the compost we add a little soil, lava sand, coral sand, wood ash, and crushed burnt bone. If we have it we'll also add a bit of biochar and mushrooms. We don't have an exact science about it, but the compost works. The veggies grow well. 

Above, these are bean plants in flower. This variety does real well at our location and produces heavily. An added bonus is that the pods are purple, making it easier or the volunteers to see and pick them. We find that purple podded varieties are a bit tougher, but not much. And raw they are just as fine as the green and yellow types. 

Another form of fertilizer we use is manure, compost, and grass clippings tea. We're experimenting to see if these three teas result in differences in the garden. We're just starting to try using teas. 

The garden is coming along. As one bed is harvested, the next crop goes in. So the garden is constantly looking different. Some weeks it is simply bursting in greenery while other weeks it looks empty because new plantings have just been made. 

Cucumber/Mint Ice Cream

The first time Missy brought this ice cream, I was real leery. Oh come on now, cucumber ice cream? But once I had a wee little taste, I totally changed my attitude. This stuff is great. 

1 large English cucumber, peeled, seeded, and roughly chopped

2/3 cup packed mint leaves

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 cups whole milk or half & half

1 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon vanilla

4 large egg yolks

2 tablespoons honey

1 generous pinch of kosher or sea salt

Optional -- 1/2 to 1 cup very finely chopped white chocolate

1- purée the cucumber in a blender or food processor. You should have a scant 2/3 cup of purée, some of which is liquid. You're going to strain out the solids so this is fine. Alternatively, if you have a juicer you could simply juice the cucumber. 

2- put the mint leaves and sugar into a food processor bowl. Process until the mint is finely ground. (Or you could grind them together with a mortar and pestle.)

3- in a medium saucepan, warm the milk and cream over medium heat. Sit occasionally. 

4- whisk the egg yolks until smooth, then add the sugar & mint mixture. Whisk until thoroughly combined. 

5- take the saucepan off the heat and stir in the tempered egg mixture. 

6- return the saucepan to the cooktop over medium heat. Add honey and salt. Cook, stirring, until the mixture is 175-180 degrees F, or thick enough to coat the back of the spoon, about 5 minutes. Do not allow the mixture to boil. (When you draw your finger across the spoon, it should leave a clear mark through the custard.)

7- strain the cucumber through a fine mesh strainer into the custard. Stir in the vanilla. 

8- cool the custard somewhat in an ice water bath and then strain it (to strain out some of the mint leaves) into a pitcher. Refrigerate until cold, 

9- pour the custard into your ice cream freezer and churn according to the manufacturer's directions. When the ice cream is starting to thicken (and look like ice cream), about 5 minutes before it's ready, pour in the white chocolate. 

Avocado Butter

Another great recipe from Missy. 

Approximately two avocados

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 ounces butter

1 garlic clove 

1 tablespoon cilantro leaves

2 teaspoons cumin

Mash together. Wrap with parchment paper. Freeze. 

Avocado Ice Cream

Missy made us some avocado ice cream and it was amazingly yummy! Even people who don't like avocado like this recipe. For real! My mother, who not touch avos, liked it. Now that's saying something! 

This can be made regular or vegan style. 

1/2 cup orange juice

1/2 cup lemon juice

14 1/2 ounces evaporated milk, chilled 

              Or vegan style, use coconut milk

1 cup mashed avocado (approx 2 avos)

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Mix the juices. Beat milk to double volume. Add the rest and freeze. 

August 14, 2014

A few people that didn't make it Tuesday came to the garden today. With just a bit of effort, we got a few more things accomplished. 

A new area is just about ready for planting. It's been sprayed a couple times with vinegar & lime juice, treated with wood ash, process bone and coral. The mulch is in the process of covering the burnt grass. A spot for planting was derocked and rabbit manure tilled in. Good area for??? Spagetti squash? Pumpkin? Gourds? 

An old tarp was spread out in order to create an area for potted plants. They need to grow for a while before we can sell them. Sales help pay for new seeds and tools. So far we have some ornamental taro growing. Next will be assorted sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and others. 

The tents had been taken down in preparation of the hurricane, so today they went back up. Same with the tables, chairs, and other supplies. Above is our little potting tent. Below, Missy is getting everything back in order at our lunch area. 

Laurie worked on weeding and sowing sweet corn. We also had numerous short pieces of white pipe dropped off for the garden and we got them placed around beds that still needed border markers. 

It's still raining almost daily. As a result lots of things are sprouting, but slow to grow. The new peas, beans, bok choy, and radishes are all up now. A few of the potatoes have made it up. But the poor tomatoes just sit there praying for sun. We are starting to see some damage to the green tomatoes....some rot, some slug damage. Dang rain! 

Today we were able to harvest a few things -- beets, Chinese kale, dill, basil, onions, cucumbers, bok choy. 

Aug 12, 2014

Today was basically a rain out. We didn't have much time to get anything done before that rain started.  But here's a garden update:

Zucchini squash-- the plants are starting to show signs of mildew on the leaves. When we started removing the affected leaves we saw that stem borers have been attacking the plants. 

All the plants had their main stems destroyed. But odd thing was the plants themselves.  Half the plants seemed small, quite a bit of mildew, but not dead. No flowers. The other half were thriving, very little mildew, and had flowers. Why the difference? The thriving plants had put down roots along their stems above the borer damage. 

So we may be able to take advantage of this plant behavior. By pulling soil and mulch up around the stems, the plants could send out new roots, making the plants stronger and better producing. Looks like the plants would be able to fight off the mildew better too. We will have to do some experimenting. 

Another one of the grow boxes is ready to dismantle. With the rain today, this job will be postponed for next week. 

We did get the two grow boxes replanted with sweet potato cuttings. 

Before the rain came we got a bit of harvesting done, but because of the goat attack, it isn't a lot. 

...shelling peas, a modest amount

...bok choy, enough for everyone to take some

...little onions, enough for everyone

...purple green beans, a modest amount

...enough dill, basil, and parsley

...cucumbers, enough to go around

We are seeing more damage from the pickleworm. Perhaps it is time to try an experiment to block the moth at night. Maybe something simple like laying screening atop the plants to see if that is sufficient to block the moth. We'll give it a try and see what happens. 

August 5, 2014

So here we are, August. It's been three months since we started over. In just three months we have a 75' x 125' garden developed. Not bad! And were still expanding. In fact, it won't be long before we really have to expand because we're outgrowing the first allotted space already. 

So what's in the garden so far?
Roma tomatoes
Sweet peppers
Hawaiian chili peppers
Three kinds of eggplant
Snow peas
Snap peas
Bush green beans
Pole green beans
Radishes
Turnips
Daikon
Broccoli
Chinese kale
Carrots
Yacon
Taro
Onions
Leeks
Potatoes
Several basils
Sage
Rosemary
A couple types of mint
Golden purslane
Cucumbers

Watermelon
Zucchini
White summer squash (doing poorly though)

Pineapples

(Above, new pineapple plants we added today.)

Ok, we don't have a lot of each one of those, but we have some. And as we open up more space, we'll devote more room to the varieties that we like. We still have lots more that we are ready to add. As each new bed gets created, it quickly gets planted with another crop of something.

(Above, we just added watermelon seedlings to the garden.) 

The garden is already bigger than what we had at the previous location. Without having to deal with the pasture grasses, we are able to spend our time on our vegetables instead. As a result we are going to be able to maintain a much larger garden.

 

As I mentioned, the white summer squash is doing poorly. Every plant except for one has succumbed to some sort of disease that has rotted up the crown. The plants are goners. 

We are trying to experiment with the leeks. Rather than hilling the soil up around the plants, we hope to blanch the stalks some other way. Our first try will be to wrap a cardboard roll around each plant. 

We'll see how well this works. 

The tomato plants are doing fairly well considering they are growing in unimproved rocky soil. I wasn't expecting much from them. But they are loaded with green tomatoes. Surprise! 

Remember the goat attack? He had eaten these bok choy pretty badly. We had trimmed off the half eaten leaves, and now they've grown back to the point that we are harvesting the biggest ones. 

The new bean trellis has bean plants! The beans have popped up, and so have the radishes we seeded beside them. Those radishes will be harvested long before the bean plants are very big. We didn't seed the entire trellis bed all at the same time. We plan to plant it in four sections, each planted two weeks apart. We want to see how staggered plantings on pole beans works out on the harvesting. 

A sign tells other volunteers not to sow anything in this bed. 

Today we emptied one of the grow boxes that we as been using to produce sweet potato cuttings. The soil level had sunk down to the point that it only filled the box halfway. Time to redo the box. So we opened the box, harvested the sweet potatoes......not many because we had stunted the plants by taking so many tip cuttings. But we knew that in advance, so we didn't expect any tubers, but we actually got a few. We then shoveled out the soil using it to top off two other grow boxes that we made....the far two in the photo above. Now those two boxes are ready for planting. Re-closing the box we took apart, we began dumping organic debris in it again. It's the front box in the photo, and you can see the weeds and cardboard lunch plates. The cycle starts all over again. 

We noticed our first attack of leaf borers. They are in the watermelon leaves. There are three in the leaf above, two close together and one off by itself. You can make out the light colored line that us the tunnel they have eaten inside the leaf. Since this one leaf isn't all that important to the plant, we opted to simply remove and destroy it. Another option would have been to use a fingernail to kill the little leaf borer at the end of its tunnel, thus saving the leaf. 

Today's harvest included bok choy, onions, green beans, zucchini squash, cucumbers, and some cool looking pink potatoes from Peru. One of the cukes was an interesting joined double ....