my garden on Rota 3

Still rainy season in the Mariana Islands - love the brief but big downpours almost every other day. Of lately, whenever it starts coming down real hard, always think about the water spinach in the front garden, which thrive on water. Never have to worry about overwatering kangkong (aka, water spinach, water cress, swamp spinach). Only in its 6th week, made the first harvest the other day, "Yum,  fresh kong xin tsai in my instant noodles!" For sure, no pesticides in those veggies.

 

The lemon basil plants have all fully matured and are pretty much on auto pilot. Whenever a bud starts sprouting, on any of the 7 or 8 plants, is a signal to cut off the leaves just below the bud (otherwise, the plant will flower, produce seeds, and the leaves will not taste as good). Eventually, one of the lemon basil plants will be allowed to flower. In the mean time - collecting leaves and drying them (already harvested quite a bunch of leaves).

The overall health of the front garden is quite good - Tokyo green onions get harvested next week, cayenne peppers still need a few more weeks, the kangkong is mature and being harvested, and the lemon basil - you already know.

Really pleased with the progress on the calamansi tree (an eastern hemisphere species of lemon tree) and the tangerine tree in the front garden. When there's time, the calamansi tree will get aome creative pruning, so it'll look better in its small planter.

 

In the previous posting of, "my gardens on Rota," promised to show you the back garden. So, here goes -

The back garden was pretty rocky. Had to process the soil, which takes a lot of work to get topsoil, which is what garden vegetables need the most (unless you're doing hydroponics). Here's the tools I find most useful for vegetable garden preparation in the back garden - pickaxe, small shovel, and a DIY dirt sifter (made from a discarded termite infested window frame and wire mesh, larger than your ordinary window screen).

Perhaps the most useful of all is an old discarded clothes dryer - that's where all the good soil is stored, mixed with all the organic garbage from the kitchen (compost bin). Use the small shovel to mix up the organic garbage with the dirt, from time to time.

The only things in the back garden now are Tokyo green onions, cayenne peppers, 3 or 4 calamanai trees, and one kaffir lime tree.

You might be wondering, "Hey, what happened to all the papaya trees?" Finally realized, thanks to some friends, the jungle variety of papaya trees on this island are not sweet - major bubble burst. Not giving up on papaya - just need to order some good seeds, if they're not too expensive. Do wild papaya trees still have some use? Indeed they do - they look beautiful and provide some shade.

That's it for now. Laters. 🙂