Bounty

Yesterday Diane picked Thai Basil and made a pesto for her coworkers. I picked Thyme and Hawaiian Peppers for the Jamacian Jerk Mardinade.

I had to use 4 peppers to get the heat that one habanero will put out. Once I grill it though, it'll mellow out.

Here's a photo of what we grilled last night. Diane marinated the meat in oyster sauce and used the rosemary (sticks/branches?) as skewers. 

Peppers!

Peppers - Sweet & Hot!

 I foresee Salsa, Salads and my Jerk chicken in the near future. As you can tell in the photos, the now red pepper is I think a Hawaiian variety? Then we have what looks to be a green Bell pepper - but will turn bright orange, and then today I noticed that we have tiny baby Habaneros! 

I've gone ahead and picked a few of the habanero babies off the plant., I think its a bit young and small to be giving out peppers so soon. I'd like it to grow just a little bit more before really giving it's all and gifting us with what will be some serious bounty of peppers. 

Now somewhere I've read that peppers like sulfur, and sticking a few match heads into the soil helps it out. So I added 2 sticks per plant a few days ago to see how well this works out. Funny, we now have the baby buds on the Habanero plant. Probably just a coincidence...

We've been looking for how hot these peppers are - and for that - we need to look at the Scoville Scale. It was developed by Wiblber Scoville way back in 1912. He basically took alcohol and soaked the peppers in it to extract the capsaicin, then added sweetened water. The amount of water that is used to dilute the extract has become the Scoville Units. 

Still looking for the Hawaiian or 'Bird Pepper' numbers, but the Bell Pepper is basically zero and the Habenero is around 150,000-325,000.

Some reference numbers: 

 Thai Pepper: 50,000-100,000

 Ghost Pepper: 855,000-2,100,000

 Jalapeño Pepper: 5,000-15,000

Found it!

 Thanks to the University of Hawaii's agricultural department. I found a paper written back in May of 2012 by a friend of mine: Dr. Ted Radovich, he along with Kevin Crosby, Gless Teves, Alton Arakai and Amjad Ahmad wrote a paper on Capsaician Content of Hawai-grown Chili Peppers. Seems the Hawaiian Pepper is around 200,000 

Hello Max!

We got home and had enough time for everyone to play in the yard and garden. Even Max had a blast.. just keep those lizards alone dude! They eat the bugs!!  :)

    Who's a good boy?!

    Awesome flowers!                          I like how this cucumber plant is holding on

    We need to start measuring these plants

   ok... Keep the Country Country.. but what's w. the horse??!!

Planning ahead

Valentines Day is coming up fast! Gotta plan ahead and be ready for it.
... I hope she doesn't check the mail ...



Order #: B7867443
shhhh!!

Nasturtiums

  Diane loves her Nasturtiums. So I've done a bit of searching around and have made a list of some of the different types of plants that are available. I'm hoping we can order some of the seeds online and get them planted and growing as a decorative - but useful - plant around the garden.

'Apricot Twist'. The vines of this trailing variety grow 3 to 4 feet long and the camellia-like double flowers are apricot-orange splashed with raspberry red.

'Empress of India'. This semi-bush selection produces 1- to 2-foot vines and features large, bright scarlet flowers that contrast well with the blue-green leaves.

'Hermine Grashoff'. The vines of this trailer grow 3 to 4 feet long and produce red-orange, camellia-like double flowers.

Jewel of Africa mix. This 4- to 6-foot-long trailing mix includes yellow, red, cream, and pink flowers with unique variegated leaves.

'Moonlight'. The vines of this trailer grow up to 7 feet long and produce unusual, pale yellow flowers.

'Night and Day'. This mix produces compact plants with 12-inch vines and flowers in both white and deep red.

'Peach Melba'. This bush variety has cream flowers with a raspberry red throat.

'Salmon Baby'. The flowers on this bush variety are a striking shade of salmon.

'Strawberries & Cream'. This bush variety features flowers in pale yellow with splashes of strawberry red.

Tall Trailing mix. The vines of this vigorous trailer grow 8 to 10 feet long. Flower colors include rose, yellow, and orange.

Tip Top Alaska mix. The vines of this bush-type mix grow just 10 inches long. Flower colors include yellow, crimson, orange, cherry, and salmon, held above variegated foliage.

Whirlybird mix. This bush variety is available as a mix of flower colors, or in separate colors, including cream, salmon, gold, and cherry rose. The flowers are semi-double.

*list from Edible Landscaping

Alaska Mix, Vesuvius, Peach Melba

Dwarf Jewel Mix, Flame Thrower, Empress of India

*photos from Burpee.com

Growing Vegetables, Links

I'm no farmer. I just plant stuff and figure if you use potting soil, water, and trim/look for pests - you'll get a nice crop of something that you've planted. Everyday I learn something new about gardening. Like adding a few match heads to your pepper plants - as they like a little bit of sulfur!?

If your family is also gearing up to start a garden - or small farm lol, here are a few links to look at

Farmers Almanac - Vegetables

Farmers Almanac - Raised Beds

*update*
 This past weekend was spent playing with chainsaws, sharp knives, drilling things, hammering and more., all digits and body parts are a-ok. Come into the office, pickup a box - slice - 'paper cut'. sigh

Layout

Since the rain came down kinda hard at times., I was in the layout stage of the raised garden beds. We have all this wood and some we scavenged from an old wooden pallet. I placed down an edging border that Diane had in the shed to give me and idea where I'd like to place some ground cover and a path going up to the - soon to be - terraced hill.

I think I'm going to cut up some more wood to make them all the same - as best as I can. Still need to find wood for that 4th raised bed. then It'll be what to plant in each!

Bye-Bye Aphids & Tomato Saga

 Diane went to Wallmart and picked up 2 spray bottles. We decided to use regular soap from the bathroom (non-detergent) in the bottles and see if what we had would help control the aphids on the lemon tree.

Question: If you cut a tree., do you need to put that tar stuff on the cut stump/branch? I'm thinking it's to stop a new growth going up or out in the direction you've just trimmed? Gonna have to do more Google searches on that today.

 I found this web site that talks about using natural and biodegradable ingredients in helping to control pests and some fungus that may appear on the leaves of say cucumbers or tomatoes.
link: How to make Natural Garden Pesticides

 This morning was spent cleaning up the tomato plant. We have lots of cherry tomatoes coming in, and the plant just keeps growing in all directions. So I was reading this web site and watching this video that talks about picking the suckers and keeping the leaves trimmed as well.

 Well Diane is laughing at me because I'm going for a true 45 degree angle and the plants suckers are not all at 45! She is sniping away as I have my "protractor out" measuring each branch  >.<

 Oh and as bonus - we found under the tomato plant another two green onion plants! yay!

 Hopefully by next weekend we will have a few more ripened tomatoes, peppers and cilantro to make us some Superbowl Salsa!

    Visitor to the garden: Mr. PJ 'Funny' Bunny

Saturday Project

The back of the yard is done - well., the main part that we wanted cleared - is finally done. The small area going down along the back side will have to wait for another day. But at least the vegetation is off the hill and the main part of the yard.

Our green bin is again overflowing with yard waste and I have more to recycle back by the wall when I can.

So what do we do now? Well... We are thinking of terracing the hill in 2 parts., and the yard will have 3 or 4 raised bed planters. These will have themes to them like: Salsa Garden, Herbs de province, Salad Garden and uh... still thinking about the 4th one.  :)

The Lemon tree was cut down., most of the upper part was straggly, dead, and hard to reach the sparse fruit that would grow. It does have new leave sporting from its sides, but they are occupied heavily by aphids. We're going to spray them with a water/soap solution to try and curb the infestation. We are also getting soil and worm juice from Yvonne sometime next week. I'll be putting that around the base of the tree to give it a good feeding.

Taken with Photosynth on the iOS

Taken with Apple's Panoramic camera app

Aphids

Well hello to you too  :)

State of the Garden - Week 3

Heavy planting was done on the 1st of January, and added to the existing garden that Diane has had for years. We are into our 3rd week of Earth Boxes and all plants are doing very well. 

    Peppers are getting red

    Avocado

Bugs

 Sooner or later it was bound to happen., we would attract a few bugs. But I have to say - so far it's been a very light attraction to the bug world.

 We had picked up Sluggo snail bait for the garden - that way Max the 'Velociraptor Hunter' wouldn't eat the bait and get sick or worse. Next we put down bait for the fruit flies and other small flying pests, buy using Apple Cider Vinegar and a few drops of liquid soap., as we'd like to stay as green as possible and save a little $$$ along the way as well. 

 Today will be a quick trip to Walmart to pickup a spray bottle or two, so that we can start using a mixture of natural soap and water for the control of aphids and white flies., later on I'll post picts on the lemon tree as the poor thing is fighting a losing battle. (but not for long!)

    Apple Cider

    Poured in a cup with a little (2-3 pumps) of liquid soap (any kind)

    Leave it out and see what you catch!

A thought...

As I walk around the garden this morning., the temperature is again around 50. I'm thinking that the cold weather is whats keeping the tomatoes and other fruit to slowly develop. Which may be a good thing at this point., so to let the main part of the plant grow and get stronger. 

 So far we have used the dill in our salads, eggplant in the crockpot, strawberries as a garnish for the waffles, basil for our pesto and other dishes, rosemary on the steaks when we grill and flowers in a vase by the window. 

 This weekend I'll be in the backyard clearing more area and hopefully finishing up the spot we want to use for our raised garden beds. This is how I left it a week or so ago, the green bin shown is totally overflowing with yard waste (today is pickup day) but the State will not give us another bin as the lot we are on isn't over 10k sq ft  >.<

 Happy Aloha Friday Everyone!

Now that IS cold!

    This mornings temperature 

    Fresh pesto all packed up and going out to workmates

Dang it's chilly!

It's cold and windy here on Oahu. All day at work I've been thinking about the garden and how it's been holding up. Well, not too much damage., the netting around a few plants needed to be re-adjusted, and leaves picked up. All the fruit is still hanging on, and ripening as you can see in the photos...

    Eggplant

    Green (but will turn orange) Pepper

   Tomatoes

    Thai Basil (Picked all the flowers off tonight)

    Lettuce Basil (which is Pesto now) :)