Running out of room - New Garden

One of these days I'll just have to till the whole yard and turn it into a working farm - but until then - we have just one more spot to plant things. 

It's a little rocky, has a bit of a slope and is out front next to the carport. But it is 6' long and about 7' wide. 

I didn't want to get too close to the fence line. Right now we've been making concrete stones to act as a grass/weed barrier. 

We also placed our stones down to divide the new garden in half - about 3' wide each side. I've read and tried to follow the 2' rule - about having your garden 2' wide at any given point, as your arms can't reach in any more unless you step into the soil - which would be bad (step on plant, compact the soil, etc)

You can see the shadow coming in on the above photo. It's about 2:30 pm in the afternoon. Since we're planning on planting corn - I don't think the shade will be an issue as I think they'll rise above it and catch the afternoon/evening sun. Not like lettuce, or low profile plants. 

This go around we won't amend the soil too much. I did sprinkle the last of the slow release fertilizer (14-14-14) on both sides and wetted it heavily. I'll water heavy again this morning and get the plants in this afternoon - towards the evening. 

Recycling back into the garden

Earlier in the week I spent a little time taking apart old HDs that we've pulled out of CPUs over the past few years. 

Inside the HDs they have strong magnets and circular platters that have a mirrored surface. This is where your data is stored when you save your files. 

Well the platters were strung together with fishing line and hung up around the yard. I thought - to help scare the birds - yeah, they don't care. Especially the grey doves - nothing bothers them >.<

The magnets we hung with small screws in the garden shed. We removed all the nails hanging up our tools (spades, clippers and such) 

These small magnets are so strong, they'll attract and hold just about anything. 

Spider Mites.. ewwww

Spider Mites were found on the Eggplant by Madison. I had noticed a webbing on some of the leaves a few days earlier - but just thought it wasn't anything. Until today where there was bright orange on a lot of the leaves. Diane thought it was pollen... but it was moving. ewwww.

It took a while to look online and identify what they actually were. I found out that they are not insects, but yet actually arachnids. tiny tiny spiders that spin webbing around the plant and suck the moisture out of the leaves. So I sprayed - hate spraying - the plant with an all purpose insecticide. The one I use targets good, bad, whatever on the plant. It's used only - if - something like this happens, so once - or twice a year if that. But it gets the job done, and quickly.

Once the leaves had been sprayed, I waited 15min, then started cutting off the really infested leaves (see below) and throwing those into a bag and into the regular garbage (not green waste). Just like the Chinese Rose Beetles - I'll have to be checking every other day until the infestation has been brought under control.

Tomorrow morning, before the sun comes up, I'll spray down the eggplant with a good stream of water. I'm reading that they like a dry dusty environment - not wet. We use a drip irrigation system to water our plants and not the weeds - so this could be creating that dry environment.

It seems every year brings on new challenges and new bugs!


Mound of Spider Mites

Tip of Eggplant leaf





Closer view, must be a million-bajillion spiders! 

Papaya & Birds

Do you ever wonder what happened to your beautiful ripening papaya? When you've been dreaming of it ripening on the tree and you come home to a big hole on it's side and everything has been cleaned out - seeds and all?  >.<

The papaya in the front yard are rather small, as they haven't been properly watered and have this white scale on the bark/fruit. So really - it's not that big of a deal - just hope these birds don't get any ideas on the monster papaya in the back yard.

So maybe adding a few lawn ornaments will keep them away? Recently I was pulling a hard drive apart, and while the daughter was playing with the magnets - I strung together the platters on fishing line. They are polished to a mirror like surface.  

Guess I'll string them up next to the fruit and see if anymore gets eaten. anything is worth a try . 

 

January Seeding

Went a little crazy at the store. Seeded them all on Sunday & Monday.

Flowers

 - Teady Bear Sunflowers

 - Sunflowers

 - Cosmos

 - Zinneas, Large purple

 - Marygolds
 - Makiki Reds
 - Ladybug Poppys

Vegetables

 - peas

 - cilantro

 - carrots

 - cucumbers

 - lilikoi (from Diane's established plant)

 - thyme

 - radishes (placed in rain gutters) (water every 2 days?)

 - corn

 - fennel 

Garden Shed, Seeds placed along sunny side of fence


Cucumbers. 6 planted, 2 more soon, so 8 total

brrr! Cold days, just checking

Mililani has been having a good cold snap, at just under 60 degrees.

Diane has this cute ladybug lawn ornament she bought years ago. It also tells us the temperature. But I wasn't sure if it was correct. (kinda like the bathroom scale at +2lbs)

 Plus I had just sanded down and repainted it - trying not to cover the metal parts that the device uses.

 So while at Walmart, I picked up a $1.12 cheap-o temperature plate to see what it might say... Seems they are both about the same. 

This is great news as a few of our plants really need a cold snap of about 200 hours (Anna Apples, White Peach) 

Rain Gutters Part 2

So last year - we hooked up rain gutters to start our seedlings. We thought that we could also keep growing the plants in just the jiffy pods. But they got moldy and didn't work out. 

We've added soil to the gutter and have planted radishes. Since this is also a test, and radishes typically take 30-35 days to mature. 

Panoramic shot (camera made it bend)

So we weren't sure if the water would actually flow through, would it catch too much soil - clogging the holes, and the weight of all this - could they just eventually fall off the fence? 

It's all a wait and see type of thing. But at least the water moves through the bottom quickly, but slow enough to soak the soil all around and the weight doesn't seem to be a problem. But let's see what happens in 2 weeks...

Eggplant

Flowers: 44 (not including buds (non-open flowers or flowers with tiny eggplant already producing)

Hand pollinated once or twice a day (morning and/or evening)

Pruned two weeks ago. Looking like we have to prune again. 

Water - when needed. About every 3 days or so. 

Eggplant - getting a little out of control. 

Flowers everywhere

Yay. No yellow flowers! :)

 Using a paintbrush on each flower, 2 times pass

Thai Papaya - the Opening

 The fruit is *finally* starting to slowly... Very slowly... ripen. Which now that I think about it - is probably a good thing. If they all ripened at the same time we wouldn't ba able to eat them all!

 Since papaya #2 weighed in at 5lbs for a single fruit. 

 One of 8 plants. This one has the biggest fruit. Diane took a smaller green fruit off another plant and gave it to her boss for a green papaya dish (soup? I think)

Papaya #2 with beer for scale. Papaya #1 went to Diane's nephew a few months ago.

Split open - seeded

Split open with seeds. No, didn't save the seeds. Really have no more room for papaya plants in the yard!

Madison's breakfast - 1/2 papaya with strawberry yogurt and granola.

The papaya, wasn't as sweet as say a smaller yellow papaya, but it had a very good and soft flavor. The skin cut like butter.

After the family finished the papaya, we sliced the skins up and placed them in the composting bin. 

Brrrrr!

Another chilly and cloudless sky this morning. I'm sure the Anna Apples and Peaches will be loving the 'cold snap' that we've been having. 

 When we bought both plants at Walmart - said that they need 200 hours of a cold spell. Last year at this time we had maybe just slightly cooler temperatures (58) and the whole apple tree was covered in pink flowers that spring, which resulted in tons of apples. 

An update for those pesky Chinese Rose Beetles: around 8:30pm last night I took a flashlight and looked leaf by leaf for the bugs. 7 were found. 3 on the grapes and four in the apple tree. Zero were found on the raspberries - but it's a big bramble and they are difficult to spot. 

Just have to keep vigilant and look every night this week, and then once I feel it's under control - keep looking a few times a week - if the lacy leaves come back. 

 

Chinese Rose Beetle

Diane and I found grapes at Lowes one day. We bought two plants and placed them along the fence in purple pots - since it's on a small slope.

They've been doing quite well, and as they grow I've guided them up the poles and along the wires. 

As you can see. Something was eating the leaves. We've looked in the morning, during the day and just trying to find the right time to catch whatever is was/is that's eating the leaves.

Well yesterday I may have found the culprits -

Jessica said that these are: Chinese Rose Beetle...makes leaves all Lacey...

 They were hanging on the leaves - not moving. Since I had sprayed the leaves over the weekend - I thought they were dead. I grabbed a beer bottle, filled with soap and water, then carefully placed the opening of the bottle right over the beetle and dropped them inside. 

 I don't think they bite or sting - I just wanted to make sure they didn't fly away! >.<

I believe the raspberries have also gotten attacked by them as well. As the leaves are the same 'Lacey' design as the grapes. I just hope there aren't more of these pests lurking in the spikes of the bramble we've created.

Today I'll have to spend some time looking up how to defend against the Chinese Rose Beetle, and Thank you Jessica for identifying the bug!!

 ok - so the link above - i'll post it again right HERE - talks about the Rose Beetle. There are a few ways to combat against them - one is to shine a bright light at the plants a few hours right after sunset. As they don't like bright light (probably why they were hanging under the leaves), I can also make a trap (Solar light, water, soap). click the link above to see the details. What scares me is the wording: If you have a large infestation of rose beetles... ACK!

Thursday Night: 7

Friday night: 6

Saturday morning: 1

New Year, 2016

January is the start of a new year, and three days of weeding, clipping and such turned our little overgrown jungle into a small garden. 

I was quite surprised to find the raspberry plant that I had thrown into a few beer bottles filled with water had rooted. 

Today those went into containers filled with soil and placed in the garden to mature.

We still have a bunch of work to do. Diane was working in a concrete project by the side door. The guava tree took a hit this past storm. So we tied it back - branches and all - to hopefully guide it back skyward. 

Our 2nd Thai Papaya. The 1st one went to Ian as he just loves papaya. This one (beer to scale) is getting yellow, so we threw it into a paper bag for a few days to ripen. 

As you can see, tons of fruit, and we have 3 more in the back yard. 

Grapes

Raspberry

Lemon

This side is going to change soon. We have Gerber Daiseys growing, & soon the corn will be planted. still thinking of how to put together a structure for the lilikoi. That sucker vines like crazy and gets very heavy. 

Along with that - we'll add lighting so we can enjoy the yard at night.