Imafan's 2022 Garden

[imafan26]

Starting a new thread for this year. I got some baseline pictures of what is in my garden now. I somehow did something on my phone and changed the filters so some of the photos appear red. The green leaves actually look red. But, hopefully when I turn my camera on next time it will reset. I have caught about a snail a day. Some plants and most of the weeds are loving the rain. One of the tomatoes is definitely rotting from too much rain. Some black spot on peppers. The ones with some resistance, I have been removing spotted leaves. Most of the citrus trees are fruiting now. I am harvesting beans, semposai, kale, Swiss Chard, perpetual spinach, choi sum and some of the red currant tomatoes.

Replanted some of the pockets in the tower garden with cilantro. The older cilantro is bolting. I have some bell peppers with tiny fruit in the tower. I took off the wheels and put the tower on a paver base. It is not completely level but it cannot sink into the soil anymore. I probably have to take the nasturtiums out. they are blocking light to the some of the pockets.

I one of the 22 inch barrels that the snails have been decimating with mesclun and a Dunja zucchini. I replaced the plastic fencing cover with a mesh bag, I got on amazon. It is designed to cover small trees and shrubs I bungee tied the bottom of the bag to the pot so it would have a tighter fit. The bag is 4.6 ft x 3.9 ft. with a purse string closure. It does not close very tight so I did have to reinforce it otherwise the snails could have gotten under the bag. The netting is small enough to stop white flies, and fruit flies. But it is not a row cover, that would trap too much heat. It allows air, light and water through. Dunja is a compact zucchini, but the netting can expand a little over the sides of the pot so the leaves will have a little more space to grow.

I have also refurbished two of the larger pots with trellises. One has snow peas and lettuce, and the other has Soarer cucumbers and Romaine. I transplanted some of the mesclun from the zucchini pot, but not all of them made it. I have had to replant some of the Soarer since not all of the seeds came up. Soarer is very resistant to downy and powdery mildew and it has done well even in the rain before.

Most of my peppers have lost their leaves. Unusual for those. The wet weather invites pepper spot and they have white flies. So, I cut the hibiscus and peppers back. The hibiscus is a white fly trap, the peppers will regrow new leaves. I still have the pepper in the front yard to cut back. It is not in a good location. It is too close to the wall so it gets white flies easily. I may just remove it instead of just cutting it back.

The lavender is getting too much rain and some of them are turning black. This does happen. I have to try and cut them back. Some will make it, some won't.

The rhapsiolepsis indica is very happy, it is putting out a flush of new leaves. It lives mainly on rain, but I have been watering it more the last couple of years because of the long drought.

The roses need to be cut back, but some are still blooming. I have treated them with a systemic fungicide to control black spot. I can't really cut them back until the rain stops for a few days.

I have a few orchids blooming. However, the flowers won't look good in the rain.

The weeds are too happy. I will need to do another round of Round Up when it dries up again. The weeds from the first round finally did start to die off. I might image the grass, now that the grass is getting so much rain, it might compete better with the weeds.

I planted a few seeds in compots of fennel, cilantro, and chard. I have to wait to plant more of the succession crops or everything will come in at the same time.

[imafan26]

The weather has been sunny for the last couple of days with the usual overnight rain. I only had to spot water in the garden, most things are still wet. I pulled out the peppers that had too much black spot to save and pulled some leaves of the chard and perpetural spinach since they are spotted too. I pulled the tomato that rotted in the rain. I guess, I won't try that cultivar in the fall.

The tower garden had some empty pockets and the cilantro has bolted so I redid the top three tiers. They are still heavy from the rain. I pulled out the nasturtiums because they are blocking too many of the pockets and they don't transplant well. I did transplant one of the swiss chard from the tower to the main garden. I still have the semposai, swiss chard, a couple of unhappy beans, mizuna, and the Burpee experimental #5 which has 2 peppers. It did get some black spot, but I pulled off the bad leaves and I am hopeful that it will make it. I have two more choi sum to harvest in the 48 quart container then I can redo that one and replant it.

Another cucumber has disappeared. I only found one snail today and one slug. The toad must be doing a decent job, I usually find dozens at this time of the year. My older cucumber is still hanging in there. Even though it fell off the trellis twice during the rain, it is still flowering.

I sprayed Image on the nut sedge in the grass. The rain that is coming will wash it in and I can weed whack it again when there are a couple of more sunny days to dry the grass out.

I fed the worms. It has been over a week since I fed them and they were hungry. I gave them the lower leaves from the kale and parsley. I already killed off most of the bitter melon vines, and that is what they usually get. I wonder if I can give them the leaves from the ornamental plants? I have given them weeds before.

My friend gave me 5 gallons of coffee grounds. It is going to take a while to use them. She said I can't give too much of that to the worms. I added a handful of it to the vegetable tower tier. The mushrooms are sprouting in the places where the sta green potting mix was used in the cucumber pot and in the main garden. There must be a lot of compost in that mix. This does not happen with peat based soil mixes. I don't have nearly as much unfinished organic matter in the peat mixes.

[imafan26]

cucumber 13.5 inches long 660 gms picked 1/21/22. I cut it before I remembered to take a picture.

tuna and cucumber salad

I found a cucumber hiding behind my pot while I was watering this morning. Most of the seeds I planted in the pots have sprouted. Some of the pots look like the mix is too wet. It is turning green. I think I have to go back to the 50/50 peatlite mix. The 60/40 is too wet for this time of the year.

I have 3 zucchini that have set under cover. The one I am growing now is Dunjia which is parthenocarpic and resistant to downy and powdery mildew. That came in handy with all the rain.

I still have to try to restrain myself and spread out the planting so everything does not come due at the same time. I have a lot of bok choy that are planted way too close so I will have to thin them. It does take a few baby bok to make a meal but when they get bigger, I may have too many again.

Thai pepper seeds sprouted. The temperature has been marginal for sprouting with night temperatures around 61 and days around 78. I guess it is still warm enough and the seeds are really fresh. I planted them the day after I collected them from the peppers.

The Kuroda carrot are starting to make thin roots. The swiss chard, perpetual spinach are ready to eat, but some of the leaves have bacterial spots from the rain so I have been picking them off. The broccoli is about 18 inches tall now and the komatsuna and lettuce are 5-6 inches tall. I am able to harvest semposai and mizuna from the tower. The mizuna is ok in the tower, but the semposai would have had bigger leaves in the ground. The second sowing of cilantro is sprouting in the tower now. I don't know why the first one did not really take. The Burpee experimental # 5 has 2 peppers. I had to cut the tops because of bacterial spot and I have other peppers in the garden that have some spotted leaves that I am picking off as I go. The other peppers are starting to flower and so are the contender beans that are lying on the ground. The lettuces have been thinned to their final spacing. There aren't that many, about 10, but that is just about right since I don't eat that much lettuce and I rather space the plantings so not all of them will be due at the same time.

I cut the weedy trees and now the orchids and bromeliads have so much light they are burning. They will look ugly but most of them should survive. The dragon fruit is trying to escape again. I have to pull the wayward branches away from the fence.

I cut the lavender. Some of them may have been cut too late, but others are already showing signs of new growth. I did cut the one in the front yard in time so it looks gorgeous now.

I saw a hover fly in the pollinator garden the other day and the bees are foraging on the cuphea. I have chicken poop in my yard, but I haven't seen the chicken. The neighbor says it is still around. One of my brazen yard geckos came out to check things out when my friend came over. Those lizards just wait for me to start digging in the garden so they can pounce on any earthworms I dig up. it is actually nearly impossible to dig in my garden bed without doing that. I have to bury the worm before the lizard can get to it. I got one snail today. I haven't seen that many snails in the backyard and the snail damage is less now that I have fenced the garden with netting. But something did eat one of the cotylydons from the cucumber. I hope it doesn't disappear again. I am not able to make use of my trellis because of the marauders eating up all the bean and cucumber seedlings.

I bought some bulbs. Three daylilies which I have already potted up and more glads which I need to put out in the garden.

[imafan26]

I am experimenting again with organics in pots. I have failed miserably before. I am already using an OMRI listed peat moss and perlite is OMRI approved. So, I am still using by basic potting mix, because it works. I know adding compost and manure has been a disaster in the past. This time I replaced the synthetic slow N fertilizer 4-6-4 with micros with an organic fertilizer 7-13-7. It has some minerals and chicken manure from what I am getting off the label.

I am only going to trial this in 18 gallon containers. They may be large enough to hold a decent soil microbe population. I added a couple of cups of my vermi compost to the pot since peatlite will not have a lot of soil organisms to start with.

I am planning to grow some of the lower nitrogen plants. Cilantro, mizuna, bush beans to start with. I will also grow the moderate feeder cucumbers in 18 gallon pots as well. These are plants I have grown before so I have something to compare them to.

Because organic in pots is not sustainable, I will need to supplement them with fish emulsion and maybe some vermi compost tea. At least, I have all of the seeds and supplies for this experiment to start with. I have one gallon of fish emulsion, so it won't be enough. I may have to buy blood meal as well. This is gonna attract flies.

It will also take a little more time since I will have to supplement weekly with the fast organic nitrogen fertilizers. Whereas, the synthetic fertilizers haven't really had to be supplemented for at least the first month and only about a tablespoon of dry fertilizer once a month for the long term pots. Now, I have to make room for all this stuff.

I went to get some vermicompost from my worm bin. There were roaches and fungus gnats in the pot. It is a problem. I took out the drain plug since the compost was so muddy. That is better, but it allows vermin in. There were a lot of big worms in the bin and most of the food and carbon was gone so I loaded it up again. I actually don't have that much to feed the worms. I have been taking off the bacterial spot leaves and I don't feed them that anyway, but I only found one wild bitter melon vine. I killed the rest earlier so I had to pick some parsley, kale, and chard for the worms to eat. I don't have that many kitchen scraps now, but I guess I need to save even the smaller stuff now.

I planted the first organic pot yesterday with Leisure cilantro. I don't know how old the seeds were, so I will find out if they are still good. I have some Santo coming so if it does not take, I will have fresher seeds. Today, I fed the main garden with nitrogen. The beans are starting to flower and the bok choy and lettuce are half grown. The broccoli is over a foot tall. The swiss chard and perpetual spinach are ready to eat.
I have three zucchini fruit about 4 inches long. Funny, they seem to be growing much slower than when I don't pay attention to them.

I caught two big snails in my onion pots yesterday, so I put out more slug bait around the pots. Some of the seeded pots are starting to sprout. No papaya yet. It may be too cold for it.

[imafan26]

I am slowly cleaning up the back yard. I harvested a few of the tendergreen bush beans and planted cutting celery, English and French thyme, and strawberries that I got from Walmart. The strawberries were added to the strawberry bowl I just weeded. The thyme were also planted in herb bowls. The cutting celery went into the main garden. Contender beans are flowering now. One of the zucchini dried up, two are still good. I planted the second organic tub with Provider bush beans.
Some of the seeds I planted are starting to sprout. I am not sure if the papaya are coming up or if it is just weeds. It will take a little longer for the leaves to be big enough to tell what they are.

I emptied a few pots that were scattered around. I had 3 bags of soil to recycle, so I potted up the rosemary and ti cuttings. There are a few more pots I need to renovate. I finally got the pineapple mint in a pot. I have some glads that I still have to plant in the front yard. I need to find a place to relocate the green onions soon. I have more of them that are about ready to go into gallons.

Tomorrow, I have to work on filling the rest of the green can. It is 75% full now. It should not take long, I still have some big weeds to take care of, and a couple of roses to cut back.

It is in the 60-79 degree temperature range now. It is sunny. Except for my cold fingers, it is nice to be working out in the yard. It isn't muddy. I don't have to water everything every day now. The cool weather isn't drying out the soil very fast. I still have to water the smaller pots, and the cuttings, but other things only need light watering or I can skip them altogether. My water usage has dropped from 8K gallons to 5k. I have been able to get down as low as 2K for a month, but it would have to be raining much more.

[applestar]

Don’t forget bokashi as possible microbe foodweb suppliers
— if you have ready access to natto, they are good source of beneficial microbes as well. I can get miso easily, but I would have to go to specialty store/market for natto — not quite the same.

It’s also not easy to get large quantities of the ingredients in raw state — such as rice hulls and rice bran, fish meal, crustacean meal, soybean and mustard seed meal, etc. I’m going to try with horse feed and possibly dog food that use them as main ingredients.

This is the recipe I’m referencing to work from right now.

It’s too cold for me atm but I’ve tried experimenting making some adapted liquid starter and mixed into potting mix, other mixes to try. I also bought dehydrated natto powder to play with later….

[imafan26]

Yesterday, I finally hired a tree service to cut down the McArthur palms. It kinda looks weird now, but I will get used to them not being there eventually. They also cleaned up the weeds and weedy trees under the plumeria. I was very tired. It made more work for me since I had to relocate most of the orchids and succulents that live on the trees. I still have a small section where my succulents are to pull out the remaining weeds and sanseveria.

They left the palm stump, but that won't regrow and it will decay over the next two years. Now, I can actually, work on planting that area out. I started to plant it, but the chicken kept digging it up. I can fence it for now. I can also plant without worrying that what I plant will be trampled on now that the trees are gone. The area in the back was cleared, but the crew did not really kill all the roots, so I will have to do some digging and weeding since those weedy trees, allspice, fukien ti, sanseveria,and asparagus fern will all grow back from the roots. I did put tryclopir on the tree stumps they cut. They were very close to the plumeria. The plumeria may be affected as well. I will have to wait and see what happens. The plumeria are over 40 years old and I would like to keep them since they are orchid friendly. If they don't make it, that is o.k. too. There really is no other practical way to kill the roots of the fukien tea. After I check to see what other roots I can dig out, I will put down weed block. I cannot put the orchids back on the trees now. There is too much light now that all the weedy trees are gone and the plumeria is bald right now. The orchids would burn. The renanthera is attached to one of the trees and could not be removed without ripping it off the tree. It may still burn because it is now exposed to even more light. I put most of the other vandas around the other vandas I have by the west wall. The rest of the orchids I put on the fence under shade cloth where I did have orchids before.
I have fewer orchids now. They used to cover the entire 100 ft length of the fence.
Yesterday, I harvested some baby bok thinnings for lunch.

Today, I harvested some herbs (applemint, rosemary, and Jamaican oregano.) I picked a few semposai leaves to make a stir fry with bacon, garlic and a hot dog. I used shiratake for the noodles since it has zero carbs.

It looks like I will have to try to hand pollinate the zucchini. Another one of the zucchini is starting to wither. The male and female blossoms are not opening at the same time so it is a bit of a problem even if I did want try to hand pollinate them.

The bush beans are starting to flower. The lettuce seems to be taking forever to grow. The komatsuna and the other patch of bok choy in the main garden as well as the two broccoli are getting bigger every day.

[imafan26]

I replanted some of the Tokyo Bekana seedlings. I had to thin the ones in the tower. I planted some in containers and some in the main garden. I do not expect them all to survive, some of them had very tiny roots. I have more replacements in any case.

I thought I planted bok choy in the main garden. Actually I planted it with my cucumber. I actually planted chijimisai in the main garden. It is a cross between komatsuna and tatsoi and is a spinach substitute. I do have to thin them, so I will have enough baby greens for one meal.

The new Soarer cucumber has its' first fruit.

Some of the peppers are starting to show peppers.

I have two cabbage butterflies and one monarch I need to catch.

I harvested a few of the Kuroda carrots. The ones that were on the outside of the pot where it was driest were bigger. They are just right now and are still sweet. I have a few more to harvest from the old Cucumber pot. That old Soarer is still making cucumbers.

I dug out my oldest roses. I planted them around 1989. They are supposed to be Simplicity roses but they have not bloomed in years. I think the top rose died and all that is growing is root stock. I did make cuttings from this rose and it bloomed once and it does not look like Simplicity. It is a single rose and it has never bloomed again. There isn't enough sun there for roses. I was going to replace them with my other roses, but it is getting too much shade from the neighbors' Palms and hibiscus. The nasturtiums are happy there. They did not even die out in summer like they usually do. I will need to find more shade tolerant plants for that space. Unfortunately for me, St. Augustine grass also does not mind the shade and it likes water, so I have to keep digging it out.

I have to find something to amend the soil with there.

[imafan26]

The things Planted by seed Sept 20, 2021 and other planted January 2,2022 are finally at their harvest stage. The Tokyo Bekana transplanted to the eggplant pot January 2, is ready to harvest. I have a cucumber that is hiding in the pot from the old Soarer that is ready to pick.

The contender beans, bok choy, and chjimisai are ready to pick. The Asian greens are to the point where they need to be thinned, but the thinnings will make a good meal.

The new Soarer only has two plants. I have made multiple attempts to add a third without success. The larger plant has flowers and inch long fruit now.

The provider beans in the organic pot looks ok. I think one did not germinate. The coriander did not germinate in the middle. The water piles up there so I may not be able to do much about that. I started the pots with 3 lbs of organic starter fertilizer and they are now getting weekly fish emulsion. I ordered more organic fertilizer from amazon. One came a day late. The other one lost tracking on Feb 3. It left the Arizona facility It never arrived at the next stop. Tomorrow, I can request a replacement from Amazon. This will be the second time an order got lost in transit.
It isn't a big deal, that fertilizer is for potassium and I don't need that until the plants are ready to bloom.

The broccoli heads will have to be harvested. I don't think they will get any bigger. De Cicco does not make a large head, but it will produce side shoots for months to come.

The komatsuna is big enough to harvest leaves. I have been harvesting Swiss Chard, perpetual spinach, and semposai leaves for awhile. I can also harvest the mizuna as it will come back as well.

I did get more of the Burpee Experimental #5 peppers. I had one in my salad yesterday and there are a couple of green ones in the garden.

Most of the Tokyo Bekana transplants are still alive.

The zucchini has two fruit that I can pick. They have a funny shape like they have been pollinated. It should not have happened under cover, but I will see what it is like after I pick them.

I have a few lemons and limes that need to be picked as well.

[imafan26]

Harvested the contender beans from the main garden and carrots from the container. I found a very large cucumber hidden in the fronds of the carrots, but it was way over the hill to eat it. The cucumber and carrot tops went to the worms. I thinned more of the chijimisai yesterday and harvested another Tokyo bekana.

I guess it is warming up a bit. Everything seems to have made more progress growing in the last month than the period between November and January.

The lettuce in the garden is almost ready to pick. The ones in with the zucchini though are really unhappy, so is the zucchini. It has managed to hold on to the last two fruit. I need to pick those soon.

The cucumbers and lettuce that I am growing organically look pale. I gave them more fish emulsion today. The parsley and the beans in the larger organic tubs are doing o,k. The seedling pots are sickly. I will try to transplant them out into larger pots and see what happens. At least the larger pots can hold a larger soil community.

The seeds of Revolution bell peppers and the seeds of the Thai pepper came up. The Hawaiian chili finally appears to be breaking the surface. The Thai pepper seedlings were old enough to transplant into 3 inch pots. I have two trays. I will see in a week or so, how many survived the transplanting. Potted up the cilantro from 3 inch to 6 inch pots. My soil mix is too wet. It is green.

I am slowly redistributing the mess in the back yard. My friend came over yesterday and helped clear the path. My pot pile is higher but is more compact. There are some of the nasty weeds that need to be hit with round up again. The asparagus fern, some of the weedy tree seedlings, and the mother in law's tongue need to be dug up or sprayed. I have Meyer's fern to dig up on the other side of the yard. I got the pots and trays moved over to the back wall from that section and I shoveled out the loose dirt and old potting mixes and used it as fill around the yard. That will probably come back to bite me since they probably have weed seeds in them too.

I still need to plant the glads. I haven't done that yet.

I did manage to dig out the old roses that haven't bloomed for years and put down some garden soil. I planted impatiens and seeds of alyssum and some shady flowers. It does not get a lot of sun there. It is why I could not plant my potted roses there as I originally intended. At least the feral chicken has not been back. Something is already sprouting among the impatiens. I think it is the alyssum. I also planted hollyhock, zinnia, cosmos, rudbeckia, sunflower, and salvia seeds on the
sunnier side along my fence. Only the palms have popped up and I have to pull those out.

I did have to pull the bird netting off the roses and the flower and nectar garden. It ripped up a few alyssum in the process, but at least I could take out most of the bigger weeds and now the cosmos and zinnia will have room to grow. I have seen the hover flies around, but they were staying outside the netting, so now they will have more access to the flowers.

The bonanza marigolds are looking tired. I reseeded and pulled out the dry plants.

The weeds I sprayed earlier are starting to die off. I will need to spray again since I did not really get all around the whole yard and somethings like the papyrus will take more than one shot.

At least one bin is 3/4 full. So, I have a good start. I still have some big weeds to tackle. My friend asked me for more carrot tops for her worms. I will take down the remainder of the carrots and the old Soarer cucumber so I can recycle the soil and clean the pot for the next planting. I have some small inch long cucumbers already on the replacement Soarer cucumber. I need to get those sickly seedlings in the big pots soon. I hope I have enough vermicast to seed the pots. Cucumbers are heavier feeders than beans and herbs. I put too much fish emulsion in my watering can by accident last week so I have been only using half and diluting it again. It seems that the fish emulsion has been fermenting in the can between those times. I wonder if that is a good or bad thing? It certainly smells bad, but it is fish.

I finally got the organic starter fertilizer and langbenite (This is a replacement for the first package that was lost in transit on Feb 3) from amazon. I needed the starter fertilizer to start the next 3 organic container experiments. I should be getting the second tower garden in a few days. That can be set up organically, so I will try that one. I still have the fertilizer the company sent with the first one that I never used. I even have the bean seeds they sent. I just need to find room for it all.

Yesterday, I potted up the koba onions into gallons. So now, I have even less space.

It looks like 3 papaya may have sprouted out of 10.

The mizuna in the tower is very big. Hard to imagine it has come back so well after the tower fell twice. The leaves are really big, but it might be too big and tough. I know I could still cook it but, except for ozoni, I have never had it any other way. Anybody got any mizuna recipes? I can cut it and give the leaves to the worms, I think. I have grown mizuna before and it is perennial, like chives and it will keep coming back if I keep chopping the tops back.

[applestar]

You’ve been busy!

About mizuna, I can’t say for sure but, most older greens can be parboiled and prepared as ohitashi or aemono.

I don’t even have precise recipes, but maybe this helps?

I used to like shiro-ae a lot — mix the parboiled and chopped greens with tofu and grated ginger, a little ponzu and bonito flakes. A little miso, toasted ground sesame and dashi is good too. Can’t now because of soy allergy . I’ve learned to make do with tahini and or peanut butter or avocado.

…as for the stinky fish emulsion — it might have stayed less stinky if you had aerated it. At this point, to tweak it a bit and improve the smell, you could start aerating and supplement with aerobic microbes, or forget the air pump and go with anaerobic beneficial microbes instead (lactobacilli like yogurt or yeast —kimchee, or rice bran pickles … natto or miso, etc.).

Oh! At simplest, try adding rice washing water, esp. effective with organic brown rice — this will add a small amount of bran to inoculate. If you have ready access to non-heattreated rice bran (for making pickles) that will work too.

[pepperhead212]

Mizuna is a favorite green of mine, but it has to be green! The marbled, purple, and other varieties I've tried bolted quickly, even indoors! The green variety lasts about 5-6 months in the hydro, but it eventually bolts outside when it gets into the 90s for a length of time. It's the "cut and come again" type of green, and it comes back quickly. I never thought of it as a perennial, but it does re-seed itself, though I never save them, as all those brassicas I have out there will cross!

It is a mild mustard green, and I sometimes use them raw in salads. I also use it a lot in Indian dishes, in place of spinach (spinach just doesn't like me, as it bolts as soon as it sees me in the garden! ), and it is delicious in many of those dishes that call for spinach or Malabar spinach.

[imafan26]

I have grown mizuna before. It is perennial for me, and it has never bloomed. I do have the green one. The leaves are over a foot long and look like very big Italian parsley. The younger leaves, I know can be used in salads. I did have a friend who asked to harvest the mizuna I had grown in the herb garden and that is what he used it for. I have to look for some Indian dishes to try the mizuna or as you said, if it can be used as a spinach replacement, I might look for those kinds of dishes.

Applestar, my savior. Your recipe sounds perfect. I happen to have tofu in the refrigerator and I was going to make tofu steak, but I can make a tofu salad instead. I also have ponzu, bonito flakes, white miso, toasted sesame, pickled ginger (from my yard), and dashi. These are pretty much staples. I also have lemons, limes, calamondin, green onions so they can sub for the ponzu ( I have a very old bottle), and garnish.

It was not my intention to aerate it. The fish emulsion is years old and it was very thick so it came out in a glug. It was too concentrated to use it that way, so that is why it has been fermenting between watering. I did actually use rain water from my rain barrel to mix it. I don't have an aerator, but maybe I will think about getting one. I always made non aerated tea in the past. It takes a bit longer but has a greater shelf life. I did think about tossing some vermicast in with the fish emulsion, but I never thought about yogurt. Lactobacilli are anaerobes so it would actually work out better and it would dissolve better as well. I have non sulfured molasses that I used when I made non aerated tea. It will make a good carb source to feed the effective mirco organisms. I wasn't planning on getting back into making compost tea, but with the price and the difficulty getting the products, I could do that. I would have to time it better if I use an aerator. The problem with aerated tea is that the population peaks faster, but declines rapidly once the food sources are gone and needs to be used within 4 hours of the aerator being turned off. I'll have to find a place to put the bucket. It is drawing flies to my back door.

We actually ran a compost tea experiment aerated, vs non-aerated and the non aerated won. However, it was one experiment, we did not repeat the trials to test if the results would be consistent.

Of all the teas we trialed. Vermicast tea was the most effective in terms of leaf growth. Especially if the vermicast had been fed chicken manure. We were testing compost for a different study on snails, and we did that experiment 5 times. We did not get the result we were looking for. What we did find was that our control vermicast that did not have any snails always grew bigger lettuce leaves.

We found it had nothing to do with the snails. We tested the vermicast. The control we were using came from someone who had chickens and she added the used bedding and manure to the vermicast, so her vermicast tested with a much higher nitrogen than the vermicast that was made using lawn clippings, leaves, and kitchen waste. That turned out to be the main reason why the control looked better than the experimental pots.

[imafan26]

I guess it must be harvest time in my garden. Most of the planting was done in November and just about everything is pickable. I harvested the broccoli main heads and I harvested the side shoots yesterday. I will get more side shoots until May. I harvested the contender beans. It is already producing more flowers.

The komatsuna, chijimisai, swiss chard, perpetual spinach, semposai, and peppers are also ready to pick. Even if I don't get to them, many of these are cut and come again. The lettuce I transplanted into the garden is also finally ready. A month ago, I thought they were never going to grow.

I harvested the last of the carrots and had the last cucumber from the old Soarer pot. I got another tower garden on Feb. 15. Yesterday, I went to buy the compost I need to fill it. I just have to make sure this time. I set the base first, so it is level and cannot sink.

[imafan26]

It just started raining. A good rain, it lasted about an hour. It is three days late, but better late than never. Actually according to the map. This is just a pocket of heavy rain and it is an isolated shower. Most of the rain is still falling on the Windward side.
I did not water this morning, so I may not have to. I did Round up some weeds at 8 am at the herb garden. The rain is headed that way. It should be dry enough, so it should still work. The weeds I rounded up the other day at my house are already dead. This is from a different bottle. It usually takes longer than a couple of days for this effect. I think I can probably decrease the amount I use from this bottle, since I prefer the slow kill.

[imafan26]

I did better in not planting too much of any one thing. I still have to work on timing so all of them aren't ready at the same time. I got side shoots twice from the two brocoli. Enough for a nuked sided dish for dinner. I harvested the second harvest of the contender beans yesterday for dinner and I had steamed bok choy for lunch. I have another container of bok choy to harvest and the lettuce, Tokyo Bekana, komatsuna, Swiss chard, zucchini, perpetual spinach all need to be harvested soon. I got the first cucumber off the new Soarer cucumber. I have to start using the cilantro before it decides to bolt.

I planted 3 more containers of Soarer cucumber in the organic mix with organic fertilizer. I double cropped some of them with Tokyo bekana, and some with lettuce. I seeded the pots with freshly harvested vermicompost to jump start the microbes. I also used an organic fertilizer with micorrhizzae. I don't know how effective it is since I don't know how well those things survive in the package. It certainly cost more than conventional fertilizer and I still have to do the fish emulsion. I am going to add some yogurt to the fish emulsion and let it ferment for at least a day or two and see if the lactobacilli help. It should not hurt. I also got some vermicast from my friend but it is 8 months old, so I am going to put that in a sock and make compost tea with it. I have to find a bucket with a lid. Fermenting fish fertilizer in an open bucket is drawing way too many flies. I am using the water from my rain barrel for the fermentation. I might try bokashi, right now, I have too much work to do to set that up. I only have white rice, so I have to get some brown rice. Although, white rice will ferment too. That's happened unplanned. I have to mark these containers so I know which ones are organic and which ones are not.

I spent a couple of hours today helping my friend prune her citrus tree. She is afraid to prune the tree herself and she waits too long to feed and cut it. It will take hours to unravel the mess of spindly shoots she should have cut off earlier. The tree is also fruiting now, which is not the best time to prune or feed it. It is hard to explain to her why I make certain cuts. It is a lot like bonsai, you have to think about what you goal is and keep the tree even and still open up the center.

[imafan26]

Today is March 1,2022. Usually this is my transition day where I can start summer crops. However, it has been a warm winter and it is still 68 degrees right now. Night temperatures are still forecast to be in the mid to low 60's. It rained briefly today, but It did not last long. There was still plenty of sunshine. I pulled out the remnants of the beans in the main garden, added another layer of newspaper and some potting soil. I did add some lime and some potassium and some citrus food. The main garden does not need a lot, but I added spent soil from my pot, so I did add a little. I transplanted Tokyo Bekana seedlings and a couple of left over cilantro into the garden. I will see what survives over the next few days.

Some of the cucumbers I transplanted don't look too happy, but I did plant at least four in a container so hopefully, I won't lose that many. I fed the organic pots with fish emulsion and yogurt. The yogurt was becoming a science project in the frig, and I looked it up and apparently it is o.k .to use it in the garden, so I am trying it out. I have not done this before. The lactobacilli are supposed to be good for the garden. I did forget to use the rain water and used the tap water instead.

I have never tried this before, but I could not put it in with the worms. After I read this articles, I thought I would try it out.
https://www.gardenguides.com/137151-lac ... rowth.html
https://www.emnz.com/article/the-promin ... ure-and-em
https://thenutrientcompany.com/blogs/ho ... ltural-use

I have cleaned up another section of the yard. I weeded it again today, and I have to get more weed block to layer over it. Hopefully, I will be able to fit a few more pots there. I want to try to make space for three more determinate tomatoes. They have to be short or TYLCV resistant to fit onto the short trellises and in the tree bags. I probably have to get a few more trellises as well. I had to throw away one of the older ones and a couple of them are marginal. I prefer the four sided folding cages, but I only have one left. The others are three sided. I have to stack the same size cages on top of each other to gain more height.

Out in the front yard, the flower seeds are sprouting and the glads are coming up.

I am getting better with the butterfly net. I managed to catch 4 cabbage butterflies today. I saw a mejiro poking around the aloe flowers. I also have some damage to the Toscano. It is probably from the finches. It looks similar to the damage from before. I will have to see what I can do to put a barrier over the Toscano kale. The birds don't bother the blue kale they just go after the Toscano. I am seeing monarchs almost every day.

I have a few phalaenopsis in bud and starting to bloom now. It is their peak season. Last week, I bought another Marfitch. It is blooming now. I hope I can keep this one alive. This will be the third or fourth one that I have had. Some of the oncidiums have started to bloom as well. They are definitely early.

[imafan26]

I reseeded one of the organic cucumber (Soarer pots) 4 out of 5 of the transplants are looking worse. One is still standing, but that is the best thing I can say about it. Since the other pots have about the same mix, I am going to re seed this one pot directly. It may be that that particular compot was not doing as well as the rest. If these perk up, and the seeds sprout, I can transplant the smaller ones out later.

It was 59 degrees last night and it is 67 degrees now. I am going to try to plant some of the roselle and pepper seeds. It is not ideal since they do better when it is warmer. I will wait on the shiso, super hot chilies and eggplant which don't like to do anything when it is cold. I will try to seed more papaya even though I know it is still very cold and papaya don't like that. I can start some tomatoes. They are less fussy and will germinate at these colder temperatures.

addendum: I did not water the plants this morning because they looked "wet". I should have checked on them sooner. By this afternoon, there was a definite wilt settling in on some of the smaller pots and now a second cucumber pot is looking badly withered. I over seeded the two organic cucumber pots just in case these don't make it. Only one pot, the one without any compost was still o.k. I guess with the new transplants, I should water them everyday, at least until they are well established.

I did harvest my second Soarer, from the conventional pot for dinner.

[imafan26]

I made three more of the organic pots yesterday replacing half the peat moss with Kellogg's garden soil (forest fines). It makes the perlite look dirty and I have to figure out if I have to change the way I water the pot.

The only pot that did not have the cucumbers dry up was the one that I had my regular peatlite mix. That happened because I ran out of the compost. Some of the seedlings did recover in the other two pots, but I have over seeded the pots just in case and I am on a daily watering schedule.

The beans in the new tower with the same organic mix were direct seeded and they are coming up now. I ran out of provider seeds, so half the tower has Maxibel haricot vert beans. They are not coming up evenly, but it just started so I will have to wait a few days more.

My mix is now per 18 gallon pot = 8 parts peat moss 8 parts Kellogg's garden soil, 8 parts perlite. The peat moss is OMRI and has no wetting agents, so it is hard to wet evenly. 2 tablespoons langebeinite (potash + magnesium), Biotone with micorrhizzae. It has a low npk (4-3-4) I found two local organic fertilizers. I am using the anthurium and orchid organic food 8-8-8 for the most part. As a backup I am using another organic plant food that is 4-6-4 and it is probably another name for Sustane. Because these are sterile potting soils, there aren't any microbes so the organic fertilizer won't be very effective since it cannot be converted. So, I have seeded the pots with a cup of my vermicast freshly harvested from my worm bin. I am also fermenting yogurt for the lactobacilli with the fish emulsion to boost the bacterial content as fast as I can.

I chose beans in the first pots because they are not heavy nitrogen fixers. They are doing ok with the weekly fish emulsion and so is the cilantro.

The cucumbers are heavy feeders and I started them in 4 inch pots with the organic soil, so they had only the fish emulsion supplements and they were yellow and sickly. I had to increase the fish emulsion from once a week to every three days to get them to green up. I transplanted them and because I thought they looked too wet, I did not water them for a day and only the pot with peat lite was fine. The ones with compost had seedlings that wilted. Some have recovered, but I don't know how they will do, so I over seeded those pots just in case.

The next pots are going to be even heavier feeders, tomatoes. So I am going to try to seed the pots with the vermicast and lactobacilli earlier. I am still debating if I should attempt to direct seed or start seeds in pots. They will have the same issues as the cucumber because the organic pots won't have any fertilizer to start with.

I harvested my second Soarer cucumber from my standard pot. One of the transplanted seedlings looks like it is holding on. I harvested out the bok choy that I underplanted in the cucumber pot.

I may have waited too long on the lettuce. They look like they are starting to spike.

It really is feast or famine. I am harvesting broccoli side shoots every week or so, enough for a side dish for dinner. I can't wait on that or they will bloom. The bok choy, swiss chard, komatsuna, Tokyo Bekana, perpetual spinach, and chijiminisai are also ready to start picking. The eggplant are also flowering and I still have to pick the zucchini. One of the older cilantro is trying to bolt. Did I mention I had a timing problem. I don't plant a lot of any one thing, but I still have problems with too much coming in at the same time.

The Provider beans in the organic pot is flowering so it will have beans soon. The cilantro in the other organic pot is probably big enough to start taking cuttings, and the mint needs to be cut back every couple of weeks.

I have a few tiny strawberries that have appeared in my strawberry bowl.

The peppers are flowering. I have some Thai and a lot of them are the Burpee experimental #5.

[imafan26]

Of the three organic cucumber pots I made only the one that did not have the added compost is surviving. The others are looking worse. Even the cucumbers that survived continue to struggle. I made three more of those pots. I have not planted them yet. It is an expensive lesson. I am going to remix those pots and dilute them with peat lite. That should cut the compost component by at least one half. Since I don't know if that will be enough and I don't want to keep propagating expensive soil I cannot use, I will bag up the soil in two of the pots and remix one pot and plant it. If it works out I will at least know if the mix will work. If it doesn't, it is just one pot to fix.

The tower has the same mix, but I planted it directly with the bean seeds. The beans are sprouting but there isn't a spectacular response just yet. I will see how that goes, I need to give it another week. It is still in the 60's at night and beans may take longer to sprout.

No cabbage butterflies in the garden this morning although I have seen some flying in the front yard. A monarch visited. They are all over the place too. The bees seem to like to hang around the lavender more than any other plants.

The seeds I direct sowed of pollinator flowers and cilantro are sprouting. They are actually growing in the same garden soil that is in the pots. I just don't know why they behave differently in the pots and in the garden. It is not a moisture thing, the pots drain well. In fact the pots with the compost are drier than the ones with peatlite.

I gave the organic pots their fish emulsion today. I remembered to use the rain water.

I have remixed and replanted my two ginger pots and put them back out in the garden. One is in a different spot but it should be o.k. it is semi shady under the tree. I'll move it again if I can find a better place for it. It's old spot is occupied by snow peas at the moment.

I did check my supplies and I have enough peat moss, perlite, and fertilizer to remix these pots. I have to plant up some of the smaller pots. The bags of old soil are piling up.

The monarchs got into the orchid screened bench and there is some damage on the leaves. I did not see any caterpillars and the damage has not gotten any worse.

My seed order from Reimer seeds came today. I don't like to order from them but they have the largest selection of TYLCV resistant tomatoes. They used to be the most expensive, but there are other places that have worse prices. They are still expensive if you take into account the $ per seed. I don't like their return policy because they do not allow any changes or refunds and unless you order premium shipping, they don't even guarantee shipping. They have expensive shipping charges as well. But, I got the seeds within 10 days and they had some of the seeds I wanted. I ordered most of my seeds in November, so I don't have a lot of seeds I needed. A lot of the companies are already out of stock on some of the seeds I wanted.

[applestar]

Do you have holes drilled up the side of the containers? Since they are necessarily large, maybe there needs to be more aeration to the roots.

This year, I gave in and will be experimenting with some large cloth pots (I don’t like that they are made of synthetic fibers — I would rather use natural, but then they break down too quickly and I might as well stick to some kind of wooden containers) to see how they compare with 4 and 5 gallon buckets with holes up their sides.

For me, the question is more about keeping them from drying out.

[imafan26]

I actually drill multiple holes on the sides of the pot and they do drain well. I actually have some pots that I drill the drain holes 2 inches up from the bottom to keep them wetter on purpose. The only differences between the pots was the organic fertilizer and the garden soil which is mostly forest fines. The organic fertilizer is 7-13-7. I used 3 cups. I usually use 2 cups of 6-4-6. I added some potassium langbeinite 0-0-22, I have added 0-0-60 muriate of phosphate to my other synthetic fertilizer pots before and that has never been a problem.

The pots are the same type of pots that I regularly use and except for the fertilizer and the compost, I use the same base peat and perlite. The difference in the mix is that the normal pot has 50/50 or 60/40 peatlite and osmocote for starter fertilizer. 2 cups of 6-4-6 citrus food is used as a starter for 18 gallon pots. This has slow N and is synthetic. I have been using this for years and it meets requirements of even the heavy feeders for the first 30 days without needing supplements.

The organic mix uses equal parts of peat moss, perlite, and the garden soil. So, it is actually a little wetter, but it still drains well and it does not feel that wet. It does look dirtier. The perlite is not white with the garden soil in it.

I use the Kelloggs garden soil, because unlike other garden soils, I actually have been able to plant directly in this soil and the plants would still grow on the ground. In fact, I have impatiens, flower seeds, and cilantro planted in about 2 inches of this in my front yard and the plants are fine.

I always start Tomatoes, peppers in pots first. Cucumber, I have started in pots first or seeded directly. I did start the cucumber in peat/lite without fertilizer to keep it organic and I gave it fish emulsion. I had to increase the fish emulsion to twice weekly because after the first week, the seedlings were already looking pale and small. It greened up after that. It took only a matter of days for the seedlings to start to die after they got transplanted out. I redid the 3 newest pots that I had not planted yet. I did not take the other pots out. I just reseeded them. The seeds are sprouting in them now. I did reseed the pots a second time because all the seeds did not germinate and I wanted to have more rather than less. The true leaves are not out yet and I am giving them the fish emulsion weekly as well. I get bombarded by flies when I do that. I also reseeded the bean tower today. However, some of the beans I planted were Maxibel seeds from 2019 and I have planted them before, and they did not germinate that well then either. Beans are a lot less fussy than other plants.

This is not the first time I have had problems trying to add compost to pots or organic fertilizer to pots. This is actually what usually happens, either the seeds won't germinate, the plants drown because the media is too wet, or the seedlings die off.


The first two experimental organic pots I did were direct seeded, one with beans and the other with cilantro. The cilantro failed to germinate in the middle but that was a problem with the way the water pooled in the pot and not the media. The media was 50/50 peat lite with 3 cups of the organic fertilizer and about a cup of fresh vermicast to seed it. Those pots are actually ready to harvest and besides being a little smaller than they should be, they did not have a lot of problems. I did not use any compost or garden soil in those pots at all. They have been getting weekly fish emulsion for the nitrogen they need, but I doubt they have a large microbial population with only about a cup of fresh vermicast as a starter for the microbes and a single dose of fermented yogurt. I chose the beans because they have a low nitrogen requirement.

if the reseeded pots die off again, then I will have to redo the media in those pots too.

[imafan26]

I caught a dove inside my orchid shade bench. I had to chase it out. There were a couple of other doves looking for seeds on the nursery bench. I do have peppers, so I will see, if any of them sprout. I may have to cover the trays to keep the birds out.

I found one very large African snail in the front yard.

The cilantro in the front yard is starting to put out leaves. Too bad, these cannot be eaten. They are primarily being grown for beneficial insects. I had to take the roses out because the neighbor's hibiscus and palms are casting too much shade in my yard for the roses to bloom. They also have to treat their hibiscus for erineum mites which is why, the cilantro is not being grown for consumption. I have more cilantro in the back yard anyway. I have to eat those because some of them are trying to bolt.

I made a version o Tinola today. I used the bones I saved from the Costco rotisserie chicken and used the upo my friend gave me. I did have two zucchini, but I waited too long and they were hard so, they went to the worm bin instead. I did harvest some string beans, komatsuna, and bok choy and added them to the soup. I also added sazon and no sodium bouillon which has Meditteranean herbs. So, definitely only Tinola inspired. The chicken and squash are about the only things here besides the bay leaves that are part of the Tinola recipe. It is not bad. It is different, but at least is is not the weirdest combination I have done. I put shiratake noodles in it because it is filling and I can't have rice. I miss rice for dishes like this.

I was hoping to harvest more of the vegetables, but I hardly made a dent in them. I still have eggplant, and more greens to harvest. At least, I can clean out the zuchhini container and plant something else.

The fruit flies are going after the cucumber, I bought some knee high stockings. Seriously, they were out at two stores. My fruit bags are too short for cucumber and zucchini so the nylons work better. Now that the zucchini is gone, it won't attract so many melon flies and I can cut the ti leaf and put out more of the cue lures. I think the one I have is from last summer. I did not catch that many fruit flies with the methyl eugenol bait. I will refresh that, now that it is getting warmer, they may start coming out more. I can spray the ti leaves as well. They are the most likely hosts.

It hasn't rained much, but it is time to weed whack what passes for the grass in my front yard.

[imafan26]

Since fertilizer is getting expensive and it is not that easy to find local sources of the organic ones. My worms can't put out enough for all the pots. I am looking for ways to build up the soil web a little faster. I found this publication on how to make bokashi. Luckily, it has sources for where I can find local ingredients. I can also get rice bran from amazon and walmart. I have EM1 already, and I am fermenting yogurt to get the lactobacilli. I have the unsulfured molasses too. I need that and yeast for fruit fly traps.
The natto will come in handy too.

https://kokuahawaiifoundation.org/image ... I_2019.pdf

I have started planting out more seeds of the warm crops. I planted more papaya, Giant alcongua pepper, Revolution bell pepper (that one may not have been the best choice. I did not read the small print. Its' main advantage is cold tolerance. I will do better with a heat tolerant variety. Well, I will find out. I potted up the seedlings.


I planted a few tomatoes. Most of them are TYLCV resistant, a couple are not and I am going to try to grow them in tree bags. Too make the most of my pot space. I will be under planting them like I do some other pots. This may come back to bite me, if I try to do this organically. I have to put out a fly trap. The fish emulsion is attracting swarms of flies.

I am harvesting the organic pot of Provider beans. When I renew that pot, I can use the mix to seed another pot with microbes. Hopefully that works out. I don't get great results with the reused mixes. I still have to tweak the recipe. Replacing 1/3 the volume does not work as well as replacing half the volume. This is generating a lot of extra soil, but for right now, I have more plants that I can pot up than places to put them.

Apparently most of the things I would under plant with pole beans, don't like pole beans. It is getting too hot to do lettuce. I can do more of the bekana and according to my research turnips and radishes should be able to pair with them as well. Pole beans seem to be a lot fussier who they are with than other plants.

For now, I am in a peak harvest season. I have side shoots of broccoli about every 10 days. I have to pick more today or they will bloom. I have to harvest more of the older cilantro. They are starting to bolt. The eggplant are starting to make eggplant. I have Diamond and a "Filipino" long skinny eggplant. It is not Pintung long, it is a lot longer. It is unfortunately also a purple variety so both of these have to be picked before they get too hard. It is why I prefer the green eggplant, it takes longer for them to get hard and seedy.

I harvested some bok choy, but I still have more. I have Tokyo bekana, it can go a little while longer. Thankfully, kale, komatsuna, perpetual spinach, Swiss chard, broccoli, mizuna and most of the herbs, other than the cilantro, are cut and come again plants that will keep producing until May for the broccoli and June-July for the komatsuna. The peppers are also starting to fruit. Just in time. I need to make more chili pepper water.

I do need to find a spot to plant the papaya tree.

I cut back the extra stems of the murraya koenigii. I did not realize how big the root was. It has been a long time since I've seen it.

I asked my neighbor if I could cut down one of his McArthur palms. Most of the fronds are on my side anyway and it is so tall, that the corner is in shade all day. He said, o.k., I would rather cut it down while it is still small enough for me to do it.

The black bamboo was trying to escape from the drain holes in both the pots, so I cut off the runners. That should keep it in check for a while. It gets water, but I starve it, so it does not get much fertilizer unless it starts to show signs of deficiency. Ficus and bamboo, are sneaky. So, are citrus, but I moved all my pots, except for the two that I have to cut down, the others are behaving.

I went to the Farmers' market today and got a small bag of tomatoes, some Thai peppers to make hot sauce (Mine are just starting to produce, but I don't have enough to make the hot sauce.) Okinawan sweet potatoes, I will save one to make slips to plant.

I moved the ginger out of the lanai and redid the pots, so they are back out in the garden again. They actually will grow better, if I just ignore them.

I found one more cabbage butterfly in the garden, that I will have to catch.

I have to start covering the cucumbers, the melon flies are back and they are stinging the fruit. I got rid of the zucchini and that should help. I will need to bait the fruit fly traps and spray the host plants again.

The tree bag protected the zucchini well from pests, but there were a lot fewer zucchini that survived and the plant was smaller. I think the bag blocks out a lot of the light, and it is harder to fertilize or harvest anything I have to use barriers on.

[pepperhead212]

imafan Question for you about the eggplants you grow - what is that green variety you grow, and does it have white blossoms? I have grown a number of green varieties, and one really good one - Hari - is the best one so far, and would grow to 12-13" x 2", and even though seeds might develop, they are not at all bitter. And they begin to flower at about 50 days, while many of the varieties were both smaller, and slower - 80 days or more, for some. And the company that carries the Hari, changed them, somehow, as the blossoms were light purple, last time I bought the seeds. I have some this year from a lady I shared them with, that saved Hari seeds, and they said they were the same. I'll find out...

[imafan26]

I actually cannot get seeds of the one I like. I liked Roleks, but Kitazawa no longer sells them. The other long green eggplant, including Louisiana green, and choryoku are not bitter and are less seedy than the purple eggplant but they are harder than Roleks. After cooking, it does not matter, but I could keep Roleks on the plant a lot longer and they would be softer than any other purple or green variety. Considering how prolific eggplant are once they get going, that helped a lot.

The closest I can get now are the Thai long eggplant. They are still harder than Roleks, but they still are mild and not bitter as long as the seeds are not brown. If the seeds are brown, it needed to be picked earlier. All of my green eggplant have white flowers. It is usually how I can tell the seedlings apart. Green eggplant seedlings have green stems and leaves. Purple eggplant or their crosses have darker stems and usually the leaves have purple veins. The purple varieties have purple flowers and so do some of the crosses with the green eggplant.

[imafan26]

I finally weed whacked the weeds in the front yard. The flowers are coming up and the chicken has not come back to dig things up. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

The provider beans can be picked, but I will try to hold off at least another day.

I fertilized the organic pots with fish emulsion. It is tiring to do this with a watering can. The last can, I used the tap water. I just did not want to haul the water from the rain barrel and I am not fermenting this batch anyway.

I found my old knee highs. I always find things when I don't need them. Any way, I have lots of them now.

The citrus trees are putting out new leaves and flowers. Some of them already are fruiting.

Now, that the days are a little longer and warmer, things are coming up faster except for the papaya (that that is not unusual, it is a slow germinator), and the beans. I will reseed it a third time with a green crop or tendergreen which usually do better in my climate. More beans did germinate from the second planting, but I still have a lot of empty spaces to fill.

[imafan26]

I harvested the first batch of Provider beans from the organic container. I got 1.7 lbs of beans from 28 plants. At the current market value, it probably would cover the cost of the fertilizer. Fertilizer cost $9.30 for 4 lbs, and it takes 3 cups or about half a bag to fertilize one 18 gallon container. It does not count the cost of the fish emulsion. I will be able to harvest again next week when the rest of the beans mature.

Fertilizer prices have quadrupled, but it would still be cheaper to have used the synthetic because it is half the price per pound and I would have used 2 cups instead of three in the pot and I would not have had to supplement the feedings for a short crop like this. I need to find a more cost effective fertilizer.

At least when the beans are done, I can reuse the soil. The estimated cost of the soil was about $17 ( 50/50 peat lite= $17 for 3 cu ft peat moss, $19 for 2 cu ft perlite. One 18 gallon pot takes about 2.3 cu ft of mix.) The soil should be infused with more soil bacteria and that will give the next batch a head start on breaking down the organic fertilizer. It is a disadvantage with new soil less mix since it contains no nutrients or soil organisms, to start with an organic fertilizer that needs to be broken down and seedlings that demand a lot of nitrogen in the beginning. There is definitely a stark difference between the organic and synthetic grown cucumber.

Thankfully, at least this is an older container. A new container now costs about $27. It used to cost less than $10 on sale.

[imafan26]

There was a little bit of rain this afternoon. It is a slow rain that starts and stops. It may last for the next couple of days. The new big dwarf came up and disappeared. I will have to start it again. At least I know the seeds are good. I have reseeded the cucumber pots three times and the beans three. This organic mix is definitely not the right recipe. Some of the cucumber beans did take but most of the seedlings came up and did not even produce true leaves before withering.

I need to plant the zucchini again. I bought another cue lure and I recharged the methyl eugenol trap. The methyl eugenol trap has caught over a dozen fruit flies in a couple of days. I need to make the protein bait next.

I am spraying the cucumbers with Bt. I bagged a cucumber, but it still had a hole in it so I had to pick it early to salvage it. At least the bug did not get away since it was trapped in the stocking.

A couple of the Tokyo bekana are starting to flower and so is the lettuce. I will try to salvage some seed from them.

Today, I made more chili pepper water with the hot peppers I got from the farmer's market last week. Some of the Thai peppers in the garden are starting to turn red. I can use that to recharge the pique sauce.

I have started pulling plants from the first tower garden. I may transplant the mizuna, peppers, and Mexican mint marigold to the main garden or pots so I can start over. I am thinking maybe I will plant Swiss chard, perpetual spinach, and Tokyo bekana in it. I can plant strawberries in it too. The strawberries are making runners now. I prefer to have smaller plants in the tower that I can get multiple harvests from.

The semposai will grow much larger in the main garden. It is very restricted in the tower. The peppers did o.k., but they are sparse and small, so they will do better in pots. The green onions are not liking where I put them. I have to find somewhere else for them.

[imafan26]

It is raining outside, so I have to grab pots to work on in the lanai when the rain stops. I found a few more pots with ground mealy bugs. Most of them I threw out. In the long run, it is easier to replace the plants and soil than to try to kill the soil mealy bugs. I did heat treat a few plants. The Nau gardenia is an endangered native. I have a big plant and I could make more cuttings, but I don't really want to lose any of the plants I have. I also treated the soil and the roots with diatomaceous earth and the last couple, I sprayed with alcohol on top of that. At least I am finding them in fewer pots. So, it is an improvement.

Today, I planted Poamoho dark eggplant, a newer UH cultivar, Black Beauty eggplant ( heirloom globe eggplant), Wailua pepper ( local jalapeno), X77 papaya ( low bearing papaya that is not resistant to PRSV = not GMO). Sometime the X77 will do o.k. sometimes not. I haven't planted papaya in a while (or the birds haven't planted one lately that I did not pull out), maybe it will be o.k. If not, then I will plant a PRSV resistant papaya or the birds will bring me one.

I also transplanted some of the Thai peppers into gallon pots.

I have been spraying the cucumber and crown flowers with Bt. It should be every 7 days, but I am doing it every other day. I mixed it up in a quart sprayer bottle. It still at this point lasts a few days. Since Bt does not keep for long, I may as well use it more often. So far, I see three new cucumbers that are over an inch long and so far they have not been attacked. Once the flowers fall off, I can bag them with the stocking. If they get infested at least I can trap the worms. If not, it will protect the cucumbers from being stung by fruit flies or being bored by the pickle worm. I actually have more problems with pickle worm than fruit flies.

[imafan26]

Now, is the tiime for most of the flowers on the mango, avocado, citrus and most other fruit and flowering trees to start to come out. This means it is peak bug time. The pickle worms are attacking the cucumbers so I am spraying with Bt every couple of days and bagging fruit after the flowers fall off.

The neighbors' hibiscus hedge started having problems in February with hibiscus erineum mites (they came early this year) and mealy bugs. I have treated my susceptible hibiscus ( Princess MIchiko) so I only had a couple of galls on three leaves. Thankfully, hibiscus mealy bugs do not like roses.

I had powdery mildew on the crepe myrtle. This is the first time I ever noticed it.

The white flies have been behaving themselves. I did have to treat the gardenia, but that is actually normal. The hibiscus so far is clean. It is my sentinel plant. The white flies will attack it first. I do see the hover flies and parasitic wasps looking under the leaves, so I guess they are keeping on top of things.

So far, I can hear the chickens in the morning but they have not come around the yard to dig things up again. The zinnias and marigolds are blooming in the flower and nectar garden. I may have to pull the sunflowers. It looks like it might have bacterial spot from the rain. It is not usually worth treating, so I usually start over instead.

I have taken apart half of a garden tower. I still have half to go. I worked on it when the rain stopped. It is not fun to work with wet tiers.

New Big Dwarf tomato seedling got too wet with the rain and died, so I have to plant another. I will use a lighter mix. The other two tomatoes I planted are o.k. I have two BHN 589 tomatoes, so I will see if I have room for both of them.

I scored some grape tomatoes and lettuce from the garden where I volunteer.

I also have more broccoli side shoots to harvest. It seems like I have to harvest those every 3-5 days.

I transplanted some Tokyo bekana from the tower. One does not look good, the other two look like they are o.k. for now. I still have to transplant out the mizuna and the Mexican mint marigold.

I have a little bit of thrip and leaf miner damage on the beans but nothing worth treating.

I have resistant zucchini, cucumber, beans to fungal and bacterial diseases. So far, I only sprayed the zucchini once, and the others have not needed to be sprayed with fungicides even with the prolonged rain. Knock on wood. It has not been three days yet.

I was going to transplant out the peppers in the tower, but they don't look that good, so maybe I will just start new ones instead.

Yesterday, I recycled the soil in the tower. It is only 6 months old or less, into the pot for the zucchini. I transplanted the zucchini yesterday. Since it is such a fruit fly magnet, I moved it from the back yard to the side yard. I don't expect that much zuchhini from it. but I want to use it as a trap plant for the fruit flies. If I get any fruit that isn't stung, it will be a bonus.

Someone asked me today what she should plant and when I said cucumbers, she said they were hard to grow. I don't know, I grow them year round. Since, I have found disease resistant Japanese cucumbers, I don't really find them a problem.
Except for now, when the pickle worms attack every cuke.

I have more problems with the tomatoes and peppers. I have disease resistant tomatoes, but the birds like large red fruit and even green ones after awhile, so I have to cover every fruit. I still have not figured out how to water the pots less and not get BER. I do grow resistant tomatoes, so they are not bred for flavor. I use them mostly for cooking because they taste like a market tomato. They are pretty much market varieties. But, I also realize that keeping them well hydrated prevents BER, it also dilutes the flavor. I heard some youtubers saying they only watered their tomatoes once or twice a week. It does not really work with them in containers. I can go a day or two in the cooler months, but it is nearly impossible to do that when daily temperature is averaging 88-91 degrees. Hot peppers are easy as long as they are big and hang down. Smaller peppers, like Hawaiian peppers need to be caged to keep the birds from only leaving the caps.

[imafan26]

Today is nice and sunny again. I had to fungicide the daylilies since they are showing signs of rust. I sprayed the Dunjia zucchini as well, since it is not as disease resistant as Partenon.

Somebody bought the whole pallet of peat moss from Lowe's. They said it may take another month to bring in more. I went to the ag supplier. They never answer the phone. However, I was surprised they were open on a holiday (its ' a state holiday). I actually have an account on record. I did not know that. I even have an agent. So, I was given his card so I can bypass the main phone and call him directly instead of having to drive 7 miles to find out what they have. They were out of peat moss too, with no idea when they would get more. I ended up buying sunshine mix, perlite, and 50 lbs of Sustane. It cost $146. I have to get perlite when it is available, since it also runs out and takes a while to get in. The sunshine mix will work. It is a 60/40 mix so it will work in the containers. Sustane is cheaper than buying the 4 lb bags of organic fertilizer retail or from amazon. I have a few more pots to fill. I just don't know if I have enough space for it all.

The Bt seems to be working on the cucumbers. I haven't had to bag anymore and well, its been raining for the past three days so the moths have not been coming around. I have 4 cucumbers in one conventional pot. And one cucumber in one organic pot. I have a couple of other vines that have just started flowering so they will have cucumbers soon. Most of the cucumbers are curling. The ones that are sitting on the soil in the pot, it can't be helped. The ones hanging could be straighter.

I spent the morning making vegetable soup trying to use up the veggies in the frig (cabbage, zucchini, carrots, sweet potato, onion, garlic, bell pepper, celery (I just bought that yesterday to make the soup). I even threw in some parsley from the yard.

I still have more celery, potatoes, carrots, eggplant, beans, swiss chard, kale, komatsuna, Tokyo bekana, chijiminsai, perpetual spinach, and a few broccoli side shoots need to be harvested just about every 5 days.

The parsley was dying. It was rotting at the base. I suspect it may have had nematodes as well. I am probably going to plant the Mexican mint marigold there. It should not be bothered by nematodes and may deter them a bit.

I repotted the roselle and now that I have more soil mix, I can pot up more of the seedlings and repot some other things that need to move out.

There is always something that has to get done in the garden. I keeps me busy and it is a better view than watching the grass grow.

[imafan26]

I have been trying to find some dwarf french marigolds, tangerine, bolero, single gold, petite harmony, goldie, bonita, and scarlett Sophia. Most of these are sold out online, so I will have to check the seed racks at the local stores to see if they have any of these. I can plant the crackerjack. I have a lot of those seeds and I have some nemagone left although those seeds are quite old. I did have bolero, but I used them all. I have bonanza now, but it is not the one I wanted.

I have had kale, culantro, Italian parsley and ajaka basil in that corner of the garden now for 4-5 years. It did have nematodes before and I dug the soil out, covered the bottom with cardboard and put fresh soil on top. So, I guess the nematodes have made their way back up again. After I find enough seeds, I will take out the remaining plants and dig out the soil again and do a hot water treatment. then I will replace the soil and plant the marigolds as a cover crop and then it should be good for another few years. Tools will need to be cleaned and bleached after use. The last time I did that the tip of the shovel corroded. I left it in the bleach for a week. I could plant the asparagus there instead as it actually repels nematodes and I don't have a permanent place for the asparagus yet. They have been in pots for a couple of years already.

Today, I took out the remainder of the beans in the organic pot. There were a few beans I missed, but they are too old to eat now. The soil was new about 90 days ago, and I found at least one worm. It probably came from the vermicompost. I added 2 cups of organic fertilizer/18 gal container. Usually, it should be 3 cups but this fertilizer is 8-8-8 so it is comparable to the 6-4-6 synthetic I normally use in pots. I'll still supplement with the fish emulsion so I think it will be enough. I also added about a tablespoon of langbeinite for additional potassium. It has an npk of 0-0-22 but contains sulfur and magnesium as well.

Some of the pots are staying too wet with all the rain. I have a few wilted branches from the peas that are probably from root rot. It is a problem when I use pots with reused soil. I need to add more new soil and use less of the older mix. I have more peppers to pot up, but I am not going to make all of them organic. For myself, they don't have to be and peppers are such heavy feeders it is not practical for me to be feeding so many pots with fish emulsion. I have the organic ones labeled and have grouped them together to make it easier to tell them apart.

I will replant with beets and chives

[imafan26]

I am going to add some coffee grounds to my organic pot before planting the beets. I could not get an amount. All I could find was add a little. What is a little? I know that I have had boron deficiency in the beets before because I have had beets that had black rings in the root before. The beets seem to be the most sensitive plants to micro mineral deficiencies. I checked the fertilizers. The organic fertilizers don't really have much minerals listed except for magnesium, sulfur, and calcium. I haven't seen any kelp at the stores. I could get it from the beach, but I haven't gone there in a while and the kelp would have to be washed to get the salt out. I may have to get that online as well. I do have a 5 gallon bucket of coffee grounds and that is supposed to be a source of boron. I could not find out how much of that to use so I will use a "little" maybe a cup in my 18 gallon pot.

https://www.highmowingseeds.com/blog/th ... nutrition/

[imafan26]

I planted out the three tomato seedlings. Two BHN 589 were planted into the pots with the tree netting because they are not resistant to TYLCV. I did not put a net on Sun King. I found one reference that it was resistant to TYLCV. I guess I will find out soon enough. These are in organic pots. I put 1/4 of the compost media on the bottom and 3/4 on top is peat lite. with 3 cups of organic fertilizer in each pot. I think I forgot to add the vermicast. I will see how that goes. I am fermenting more fish emulsion and yogurt now. I have underplanted the tomatoes with a second crop. Koba green onions under the Sun King, buttercrunch lettuce in another pot and minowase daikon radish in the last pot. The netting may block some light. I will see how the tomatoes do. So far, the cilantro did not mind the netting, but it does not need much light.

I over seeded the cilantro.

In the pot I had the organic beans, I added 2 cups of organic 8-8-8 fertilizer. The soil is only about 100 days old, so I just took out the roots and fluffed the soil, added the fertilizer and made new drainage passages with a bamboo stick. I have replanted it with Detroit dark red beets (seeds are from 2018) and garden chives.

I watered today. It looks like rain, but it doesn't look like it is going to rain a lot. I haven't watered much for a couple of days. The zucchini pot is still really wet, so I am skipping that one another day. The zucchini seems to be doubling every day. Once it is big enough, then it will be able to use up all the water in the soil faster. I have not double cropped that pot. The last time I grew lettuce with the zucchini, the lettuce quickly got covered by the leaves.

The crepe myrtle has some powdery mildew. It is strange this is the first powdery mildew I have seen that washes off so easily. The powdery mildew on the roses are another story. I will be pruning those branches off. I took off more leaves from the sunflower that had black spots and a couple of pepper seedlings may have to go as well because they have black spot.

I picked three Soarer cucumbers from the conventional pot. The cucumbers were all off grade and had skin scarring and one did have pickle worm damage but it is still edible. I just cut out the damaged part. The total wt of the three cucumbers were1347 grams or about 2.14 lbs. Bt is helping, but not eliminating all of the damage. Only one cucumber was bored by the pickle worm, the other two were not.
I had one of them for lunch.

[imafan26]

I have been checking out the weeds in my yard. I have a couple of tomato volunteers. They are probably the red currant tomato the birds left behind. Why is it that the ones that the birds plant look better than the ones that I plant? Too bad, I can't train those birds to plant stuff where I actually want it to grow.

[imafan26]

I bought more seeds today. I am trying MI gardener for the first time. There is not a big selection but the prices are good and shipping is included. I got seeds from Kitazawa at their new location (the company has been sold) in Utah. The shipping is worse from that location, but not unexpected.

I needed to get more of the Soarer cucumber seeds. There are not that many suppliers. I also got more semposai and Tokyo bekana seeds. I am letting 2 of my Tokyo bekana go to seed, so maybe I will have more seed for the future. I also got more contender bean seeds. I can get them at the box store, but I could get a better deal on a bulk order. I am not particularly partial to this bean but it is a nematode resistant bush bean and I need things I can plant where I know I have nematodes. I got chiltepin pepper, alpha beit cucumber, Tokyo bekana, and Italian parsley from MI gardener. These were the best selections they had for heat tolerant varieties. I only need one Italian parsley, but I actually could not find seeds at three places and I haven't seen any plants either. My Italian parsley was attacked by nematodes so it practically declined overnight, actually over a period of a week. It was two years old.

I was reading up on beans and cucumbers. I have always considered them to be summer plants. I was surprised to find that they are not normally heat tolerant. I just have heat tolerant varieties. Now, I understand why bean prices double in late summer. Snap beans are not as tolerant as Asian beans. I grow locally developed pole beans, Poamoho, which is nematode and resistant to common diseases like rust. Kentucky wonder is not resistant to rust. The U.H. is always running out of these seeds, so I buy a few packets when they are in and I have saved seeds of both Poamoho and long beans and they keep very well. I might grow Italian or lima beans in summer instead of snap beans. I have grown them before, just not a lot of them.

Cucumbers are similar to beans in that they are grown mainly in the shoulder season Spring and late summer. I actually have always been able to grow them year round by selecting cultivars for disease and heat tolerance. It is why I grow Soarer in the rainy season since it has better PM and DM resistance than Suyo. I plant Suyo in summer because it is more heat tolerant. Diva is another favorite, but the Japanese cucumbers are more popular than the American type like diva which people associate with being seedy and bitter. The above cucumbers are parthenocarpic. They are not as productive as cucumbers that are gynoecious or those that produce both male and female flowers, but they have no or very small seeds unless they get pollinated. Yeah, even parthenocarpic varieties produce a few male flowers and can be pollinated. Or, they have a monoecious variety included in the packet to improve the fruit set. It makes the fruit look fat on one end and seedy. The fruit is nicer if it is not pollinated.

I hear people saying all the time how hard cucumbers are to grow. These same people plant tomatoes, and I find good tomato is really hard to grow.

This is the first year I am heavily planting beans. I don't really like beans, but it is once of the crops that is nutrient dense and stores well frozen, pickled, or canned. It is one of the crops I am growing for food security. My sister likes beans, so it does not go to waste. I have to come up with more ways to eat beans, maybe it will grow on me. I have lots of beano tabs on hand.

I weeded the main garden and cut back the komatsuna, broccoli, and pulled out a couple of the older Swiss chard. I planted a couple of more peppers into the garden and found to my surprise under the bushes, that I still have some baby bok left. Enough for at least another good sized meal or two if I put it in a soup or stir fry.

I still have a little more weeding to do. It rained last night so I don't need to water. It is breezy today and there has been some light drizzles.

The zucchini I planted and have not watered since, has almost doubled everyday. Today I even found very tiny fruit on the Dunja. Let's see if they can get past the fruit flies.

The bean tower has a few empty spots still after 4 reseeding, but the beans are starting to flower. The media did have compost in it, and it is not a good soil recipe for me. I will have to redo the tower soil again.

I am glad I overseeded the cilantro. I was not going to, but my mom and sister have been raiding it, so it is getting used up.

I have a few cucumber flowers and fruit from 1-3 inches on multiple vines. A couple of the organic cucumber pots continue to struggle, I may just redo them instead of letting them struggle. These are the pots that have 1/3 of the soil mix = compost. Not happy.

I finally took down the last tier of my first green garden tower. Now, I just have to refill it and figure out what I will plant in it this time.

[imafan26]

My beans are being eaten, by bulbuls. I caught the birds yesterday afternoon snacking on the bean leaves and flowers.

I thought I would not need to get more seeds this year. I still have a big bag of seeds taking up a shelf in the refrigerator. However, I did run out of some seeds. Perusing the websites, many of the sites are already out of stock in some seeds. Of course, those are the ones I wanted for the most part. Even the local University seeds have quite a few more that are out of stock. At least the box stores, have expanded their seed racks this year. There are still seeds left. It just is limiting since they don't have the specific cultivars I am looking for, but I did find a few anyway. The price of the seeds and shipping are also up and seed counts are down. For the parthenocarpic cucumbers and squash the seeds cost 30 cents each. It was almost $6 dollars for each seed packet after taking shipping into account. That made a packet of 10-15 seeds about $0.40-$0.60 each. I need to save more of the seeds of things I can. Unfortunately, I can't save these expensive seeds because they are parthenocarpic hybrids and are not easy to source.

More people took up gardening during the pandemic and the trend is still growing especially now with people being mindful of food shortages at the store. Garden soils and seeds disappear fast. They still have a few starts but you have to get there on their delivery days to get the best plants. A lot of the plants are over grown and expensive. Especially for things like lettuce or leaf crops. The seedlings are so old and when you figure the cost to buy the plant, soil, fertilizer, water, etc, you come out ahead just buying the lettuce from the store. A starter vegetable averages $1.66-$1.98 now. Organic starters are about a dollar more. The growers aren't making that much more money as their costs have gone up as well especially for gas, labor, media, pots, and fertilizer.

[applestar]

Ah, I read your other post first. I see you are experiencing the down side of gardening — frustrations and other issues that are out of your control.

I hear you. I feel you.

I do think that’s when I start thinking about pros and cons. But I miss it when I’m not gardening.

I garden “by the seat of my pants” and am not always “staying inside the lines”. I have old and more than old seeds that I’ll still try to grow — just sow more or try different treatments to encourage them to sprout. I’ll save seeds from hybrids and see what they grow. I’ll not clean up the garden beds as attentively as I should, and end up with bolted and gone to seed crops and then I have to save those seeds.

Sometimes they can surprise you.

I don’t like being dependent on seed companies and furtilizer and potting mix companies, so I try different things, and I don’t mind if things aren’t as productive or pretty as the pictures.

Hope you find ways around your present difficulties. Don’t forget to try birdscares and such — try whirly windmills made of plastic bottles or aluminum pans or CD’s … mylar tapes … noisemakers and wind chimes, etc.

[imafan26]

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I actually have stockpiled a lot of stuff and I do have a lot of seeds that are old. I have been culling some since once they get past 5 years most of them won't pass a germination test. I do save some of my own seeds and friends have given me seeds as well. I have a few Thai peppers that I am transplanting now from a pepper my sister gave me.

I do enjoy trying new things and sometimes they don't work out. Right now, I am trying to grow more organic things in pots and I have not got the soil mix right. I kinda know where the problem is, so I am correcting it. It is just a very expensive lesson.

As far as the bulbuls go, only the mejiro scares them. They like to go for fruit. It is why I have to lock up the tomatoes in netting all of the time and pick papaya when it just starts to turn yellow. It is why I grow large hot peppers. Hawaiian chilies have to be kept in a cage, otherwise there will only be caps, the birds will eat all of the peppers. The birds are probably going after the beans because right now, there isn't better fruit to go after. Bulbuls also like to eat orchid buds and flowers.

I do agree that there are other benefits to gardening. There are some things that I feel embarrassed when I have to buy them, like green onions, because I almost always have them around. Other things like the Tokyo bekana, komatsuna, and semposai, aren't even available in the market. I don't know about the health benefits. I have to say, the Soarer that I grow organically and the ones that I grow in synthetic pots taste the same. They are so much better than cucumbers in the stores. It is much easier to grow them with conventional fertilizer and soil. Of course the organic recipe for basically 1/3 compost in the media caused issues and the failure of the cucumbers to thrive. I have redo those pots with a mix that does not contain the compost and it should work better. The one organic container that I did not put any compost in, is the only one that actually has a cucumber that is producing fruit. Although the plant is shorter and most of the flowers are concentrated at the base of the plant. Strangely, I am using that same compost in the ground, and the plants there are doing fine.

It is true that with fewer people handling the produce and knowing that except for the type of fertilizer I am using, I rarely have to spray anything for pests. I probably use less pesticides than the organic produce in the market, because, I never use neem on anything. Besides the snail bait, I have switched to sulfur because the birds eat the sluggo, I have only used the Bt for the caterpillars. It was a good suggestion on your part. I actually used 3 in 1 and Bt on the cucumbers and it has greatly reduced the damage from the pickle worms. I even see fewer cabbage butterflies too. That is only used as a spot treatment and only when the cucumber flowers first come out. I also use the Bt on the squash and crown flowers. The rest of the edibles are primarily just sprayed with water and I depend on predators to take care of the pests.
I actually save a lot, except for the slug bait, by having predators and cultural controls to take care of pests.