Hawaii Garden – Second Effort

The first year we were in Hawaii, we lived in a region that was essentially rain forest. It was cool and damp year-round, and I had a very difficult time growing anything in my garden. The bugs here are a year-round problem, unlike in Texas where I could grow broccoli worry-free through the winter. In Hawaii, the cabbage butterflies decimate the broccoli unless you spray for them. Nematodes destroyed my carrots, and mold, mildew, and cutworms were a constant problem with seedlings. Snails and slugs fed on everything.

Needless to say, it was not a productive year of gardening. I got a handful of tomatoes, a few snow peas, and not much else. I couldn’t get okra, cilantro, or squash to grow at all, and birds ate my lettuce as soon as it sprouted.

After a year, we moved about 4 miles from where we had lived before, and the climate is quite different. It is much drier and sunnier than our previous location. Further, the family who lived in the house before us built raised beds in an isolated location that is surrounded by rocks. The man was an avid gardener, and took good care of the soil. So, I moved in, planted seeds (I actually planted them before we moved in), and waited.

What a difference the change made. In just a little over a month, I was harvesting zucchinis, yellow squash, lettuce, and tomatoes in large volume. The cilantro is growing quickly, and it looks like I will actually have okra to harvest. Because the garden is isolated from the surrounding vegetation, I have almost no problem with bugs. Birds will get into the tomatoes, but that’s about it. I haven’t tried my luck with broccoli yet; I have heard that you simply can’t grow them without taking special measures.

I have even planted some pineapples; too early to tell how that will turn out. Interestingly, we planted some pumpkins that have grown and spread like mad. But despite lots of blooms, there are no pumpkins. I don’t believe it can be a pollination issue; the yellow squash and zucchini are being pollinated just fine.

Despite my pumpkin puzzle, I was pleased to learn that Hawaii didn’t prove to be too great of a challenge for my gardening skills.

World's Largest Zucchini

8 Pounds and 20 Inches Long

I just spotted the monster above hidden away in my garden yesterday. OK, maybe there are bigger zucchinis, but I have never seen one. It is also bigger than several others I have seen that people had affectionately named "world's largest zucchini." I did read that the actual world record is 69.5 inches long, and that the record weight is 65 pounds. However I have yet to find a picture of one bigger than the one I pulled out of my garden.

Had I spotted this one earlier, I would have picked it before it got so large. In hindsight, since it was already so large maybe I should have let it keep growing to see how big it would get. It wouldn't have been edible, but I don't know how large they can actually grow. As it stands, it weighed 8 pounds and was 20 inches long.

My carrots were getting out of control, so I pulled up the rest of them. The ones that had gone to seed were no good, as their interiors had become the consistency of wood. I also learned a lesson about thinning them out. All of the carrots below were planted at the same time, and some were 10 times the size of others. Those that had room to grow were a foot long or so. The ones that were crowded were only an inch long. As you can see from the picture below, I also got everything in between. Oh, and you can see a bit of my zucchini (not the one pictured above), some yellow squash, and a little okra.

Some of My Harvest

And this is what the garden looks like now, with my dogs looking on in the background.

My Garden and My Miniature Schnauzers

It got so hot so quickly that I have pulled only one tomato out of the garden, and that one had been nibbled on by bugs. Right now I think it is just too hot. It has been consistently over 100 degrees. Overall I am pretty pleased with the harvest, though. I looked as this year as a learning experience for North Texas. Now I will have to go through this again, as next month I will be moving to the Big Island of Hawaii.

Birds Destroyed My Broccoli

Got back from Europe to discover that my broccoli heads were demolished. They looked like they had been shot with a shotgun. The second time I went out, I saw the culprits. Birds. At first I thought it had probably been insects (or maybe the birds were eating the insects?) but it appeared as if the birds were feasting on the broccoli. Thus ends my experimentation with spring broccoli. From now on, it is a winter crop for me.

The carrots are still coming on great. In pulling them from the ground, the tops kept snapping off, leaving the carrot in the ground. I decided I better water the soil first and soften it up a bit, otherwise I am going to have to dig the carrots up.

Tomatoes have really exploded, although no fruit yet. Yellow squash and zucchini continue the pattern of rotting after the blooms drop. Although it looks like I now have a couple of zucchini that are going to develop.

Finally, jalapenos and okra are both about to bloom. Looking forward to that, although I don't have enough of either planted. Actually, I planted quite a few of each (from seed) but only had 1 jalapeno and 2 okra plants survive.

Memorial Day Update

Time to catch up a bit. The garden has had mixed results so far. My snow peas got pretty out of control, and the pods had swelled quite a bit when I got around to picking them. They weren't really snow peas any longer, but more like English peas that had to be shelled. They were too tough to eat without doing this. So, in the future I need to do a few things for a better snow pea success. First, I need to plant them farther apart. By planting them too close together, I ended up with a jungle of snow peas that became hard to manage. In fact, when I picked them I had to just pull them all up (they had stopped blooming anyway) and pull the peas out that way. Second, I need to make sure I pick them before the pods start to swell. Finally, they are supposed to be pretty cold tolerant, so I think I will try a winter crop this year.

I had about decided that my broccoli was ruined. The bugs have been all over it, which wasn't a problem for my winter broccoli. But now I have heads developing quickly. They have some yellow spots, but I think they will be OK. But the bugs have really eaten on the leaves (and I haven't put anything on the garden to control the bugs). I think winter broccoli was a lot easier to grow.

I made the mistake of sowing my carrots thick and not thinning them. Like the peas, I have a jungle of carrot tops, and I have to wade in and just pull a handful. It is funny to see them, because some are still not much more than an orange string, and some are pretty large. Next time, I need to spread the seeds out more (although carrot seeds are so small that this is hard) or at least thin them out.

My crookneck squash is still rotting as soon as the blooms fall off. Not sure how to combat this. I have zucchinis now that are looking pretty good, though.

Tomatoes are getting really tall and blooming. My new fig trees, only a couple of feet tall, also have tiny figs on them. The grape vines are all growing quickly, and as soon as they are large enough I am going to train them to climb the back fence.

Finally, my cilantro has really become a jungle. It threatened to take over the garden until I cut it way back. I think it will wilt in the heat, but it really thrived through the winter and spring.

Spring Update

It has been a while since I updated, but the garden is coming along nicely. I have a few new learnings to document.

First, the wind in my area has been pretty strong this spring, and two different times I went out to find one of my broccoli plants snapped off and laying in the yard. Broccoli tend to be very top heavy early in their growth. Eventually, the stem becomes very thick and difficult to break, but it is probably a good idea to pile up dirt around the stems until the stem thickens. Had I done this, I wouldn't have lost those two plants.

Second, I have been harvesting snow peas, but I made a big mistake by planting them so close together. I followed the guidelines for intensive planting and put them 3 inches apart. What I have now is a virtual jungle of peas, and it is very difficult to find peas to harvest. In the future, I probably need to space them 6 inches apart. I plan to try another crop in the fall.

I have been occasionally pulling up a carrot to see how big they are. The first couple of times, the root still looked like a thick hair. This time, the top of the carrot was about as big as my pinkie. So, it won't be long before I can start pulling a few to eat.

Finally, the crookneck squash are showing some tendencies that I have often encountered with my squash. The tiny squash look perfect until the bloom falls off. Then, after a few days the squash starts to rot from the tip. I have heard that this happens when the female flower does not get fertilized, but I am not certain. I have also been advised by a couple of people that I should be harvesting and eating the male flowers - but that seems like it would make the rotting problem even worse by preventing fertilization.

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.

Risking the Freeze

I went ahead and put out my zucchini and crookneck squash transplants on Sunday, despite the risk of freezing. The Weather Channel predicts 31 degrees on Saturday night, but the days will be sunny and several will be in the 70's. The prediction on Sunday had been 28 degrees on Thursday night, but that has now been revised to 33 degrees. If the forecast remains like that, I will ask my wife to cover them with something (I am in the Netherlands for 2.5 weeks, which is why I went ahead and put the transplants out; they were already crowding the containers).

Besides the transplants, I planted a variety of seeds in the garden. Again, just experimenting, but I put a couple of tomato, a couple of jalapeno, some marigolds, okra, and some squash in the ground. I know it is still early, but I figure if I get lucky and we don't have another freeze, I will really have a good head start.

But, hedging my bets, I also planted the same variety of seeds indoors in pots. Even if they don't survive outside, when I return to Texas on March 5th I should have some decent transplants to put out. That is, if my wife remembers to water them.

Besides the broccoli that is really growing quickly, the cilantro has really taken off as the weather has started to warm. I planted a few seeds as an experiment, and while they started out looking not too impressive, now they look really healthy.

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.

Spring Planning and the Double Dig

January 22, 2009 – Freshly arrived back from Europe. None of the 40 seeds I planted before I left have sprouted, but the soil is still damp. I now have two broccoli plants that are ready to harvest. I will do that this weekend.

I harvested the compost from one of my composters and spread it around on the ground where I am going to do a double-dig of about 125 square feet. I realize I don't have enough, so I will need to either pick up more compost or some peat moss. One of the things I am learning is that decaying organic matter in the soil is very important for good growth. Not having that is why it took my broccoli all winter to produce.

I started the double-dig, and it was slow going. Lots of white rocks as big as my head have to be removed. I had put up a temporary fence to keep the dogs out, but I can see they have been in and gotten mud everywhere. My back started to get sore about halfway through the double-dig.

January 23, 2009 – I awoke this morning to find that 10 of the broccoli seeds and 3 of the snow peas have sprouted. I guess they were just waiting for me to get back home. I plan to let them grow for at least a couple of weeks – and maybe a month – before transplanting them outside. The only problem is that the flats are not very deep, and even now I have roots trying to come out the bottom.

Back in the fall when it froze and killed my nice-looking jalapeno (which in December was just about to bloom), I also had one in a container. I brought that one into the garage, and left it to die. Funny thing is that it didn't die. It doesn't look good, but I have some hope that I might be able to keep it alive until time to transplant it outside.

Right now, I am scheduled to go back to Europe on February 16th. I plan to transplant the broccoli and snow peas outside just before I go, as well as plant a row of carrots. Today I also planted 6 zucchini, 6 tomatoes, 16 crookneck squash, and 12 marigolds in a couple more flats. I plan to transplant them outdoors some time after I return from Europe the first week of March. Hopefully they won't be too packed in the flats by then. I am also going to plant some jalapenos in some small pots, which should be ready to go outdoors in March.

I went to Home Depot today and bought two grapevines (Flame Seedless) and a fig tree. I plan to set them out tomorrow.