Hawaii Update

I have not updated this for a while, but I am settled in Hawaii and experimenting with what will grow here. I have some pumpkins, zuchinni, summer squash, snow peas, broccoli, jalapenos, and tomatoes that are in the ground outside. The tomatoes look pitiful, but the pumpkins and broccoli seem to like the weather. Inside I have planted okra, basil, cilantro, and oregano for transplanting outside later. I want to get some carrot seeds in the ground as well, but the soil I am working has a lot of rocks in it - not good for carrots.

It has turned cool here, but it never freezes. I suspect that most things will do well right through the winter, but don't know if it will get warm enough for things like okra. At this point I am more or less experimenting.

I do have several fruit trees in the yard, and can enjoy a fresh-squeezed lemonade pretty much every day.

Phase I is Complete

I came back from my European trip on March 5th to find that some of the squash had died. The temperature got down to 26 degrees twice while I was gone, and while my wife covered them up, the cold got the weaker ones.

Still, there were 5 or 6 that survived, and while they don't look good, I am hoping they come back now that temperatures are in the 70's and 80's. The 10-day forecast has no freezing weather, which probably means we are out of the woods.

Carrots have broken ground, and the peas are coming on strongly. It's been a month today since I planted them, and the carrots look like they are only a week old. I guess they only sprouted when it warmed up a bit more. I would guess that 80% of the peas sprouted, but their stems are very weak right at the ground. It looks possible that something has been chewing on them. The cilantro has really exploded; we have far more than we can use and I had only put out two plants last fall. We also had a lot of broccoli heads ready for harvest.

Of the seeds I had planted, I recognize a couple of jalapenos, a couple of crookneck squash, and a couple of okra coming up. There are some other plants coming up, but I can't tell if they are weeds or something I planted.

Today I also went ahead and put all inside plants in the garden. This included 3 tomato plants I grew from seeds (they are really small; I am not sure they will survive), 4 jalapenos, 2 okra plants, and a zucchini. In addition I put out a basil plant I had been growing since last summer (it looks like a small tree) and some oregano.

Phase I of the garden is in. Once I pull up all of the carrots, and the peas and broccoli are done, I will plant more warm weather plants.

What I Plan to Grow This Year

Eventually I want to start using heirloom seeds, but this year I went with what they had in the seed rack at Home Depot. My garden is laid out in a 5 foot by 25 foot plot. I may have to add some on to that. But here is what I have planned:

20 Green Goliath Broccoli
20 Sugar Daddy Snap Peas
16 Early Prolific Straightneck Summer Squash
10 Big Boy Tomatoes
6 Clemson Spineless Okra
6 Burpee's Hybrid Zucchini
5 Pimiento Jalapenos
Big Top Carrots
Genovese Basil
Oregano (Origanum vulgare)
Cilantro (Coriandrum sativum)
Marigolds
4 Flame Seedless Grapes
2 Celeste Figs

As I have mentioned already, I have been experimenting since August with some of these. Cilantro and the broccoli thrived through the winter, surviving a low temperature of 16°F (Jan 16th, per the Weather Channel's website). I had some jalapenos outside in containers, and they survived until a hard freeze in December. So I am optimistic that I can get in a really good harvest of those until late fall. I have one basil and some oregano in the house. The oregano has thrived and the basil has survived, and I will plant both outdoors in late March.

The temperatures start to regularly get into the 80's in early May, so I hope to have a crop of broccoli, snow peas, and carrots finished by then. I will replant some of the warm weather items like jalapenos and okra in their place.

Summarizing Fall and Winter 2008

January 11, 2009 – This will be my first entry, so I need to catch up on what I have been doing. I read John Jeavon's book book on high yield gardening, and plan to use his techniques. On August 30, 2008 I planted some jalapenos, some broccoli, some cilantro, basil, and oregano. All were in containers, but I transplanted the broccoli outside later on. The jalapenos lasted outside in a container until December, and one was on the verge of blooming. However, a hard freeze killed it, along with some basil I had transplanted. Cilantro and broccoli thrived through the cold, and here 4 months later the broccoli is about ready to harvest. The heads on it right now are about 2 inches in diameter; not sure how large they should be when I harvest. Had I planted it in more fertile soil, it would have probably been ready 2 months ago. I have some basil and oregano in containers, and they are doing OK in an East-facing window. The oregano is doing quite well and spreading, and I will transplant it outside when it warms up.

Today I planted 20 broccoli seeds and 20 snow (sugar) pea seeds in flats. I set the flats in a small plastic swimming pool, and put a small amount of water in the bottom to keep the soil moist. I go to Europe tomorrow, but when I return they should be ready to put outdoors. The Collin County Master Gardener site recommends February 10th for the peas (and for carrots and for lettuce) and February 10th for broccoli. Later on I will plant zucchini, crookneck squash, okra, tomatoes, and marigolds. These will need to go out in late March.

I fly to Europe tomorrow, but when I return in two weeks I will double-dig the bed. I removed turf from an area that is 5 feet wide and 25 feet long. I plan to have several 5x5 beds, with a 1 square foot stepping stone in between that I can stand on and work each bed. On the double-dig, I will spread an inch of mulch, remove a foot deep strip, put it in the wheel barrow, loosen down to 2 feet, and then transfer each 1 feet strip into the next trench over. Sounds complicated, but there are some YouTube videos showing how it is done. I dug a trench today just to see how much work it would be, and there are a lot of rocks in the soil. It was fairly easy to dig down to the 1 foot level, but beyond that there is a lot of sticky clay. This is also the rockiest soil I have ever seen; I keep running into white rocks the size of my head.