Glad you could take time to make a quick visit to this new home garden on the island of Rota in the Mariana Islands. Already a month has flown by since the last post. With all the rain, the weeds and grass seem to grow much faster than the veggies in the garden.
Let's get started with the sweet basil. It was a good idea to plant the sweet basil right under the rainwater spout - a good idea if it was the dry season. Entirely too much water for the sweet basil seedlings. Somehow, they're growing really well despite the almost daily drowning of gallons of rainwater. Maybe the leaf-browning on many plants is a result of over watering. After harvest, sweet basil will get a new grow area, without all the water.
The tangerine tree in the front yard was mis-identified - oops! It's actually a mandarine orange tree. Lots of friends and neighbors loaded up on bags and bags of sweet mandarin oranges. Only a few remain in the highest branches. With so many sweet little mandarin oranges just literally outside my kitchen door, had to experiment and develope some yummy dishes - Chamarro Cake with Mandarin Orange Cream Sauce, Mandarin Orange Pork Belly with Green Beans, and my fav, crepes with Mandarin Orange Cream Sauce.
Looking forward to next year, when the tree bears fruit again.
The tomato seeds from University of Hawaii germinated so well, that more seedlings than expected were on hand. Started out thinking five tomato plants should be more than enough, then ended up extending the grow area, and planting an additional six seedlings. To date, there are 16 Hawaiian tomato plants, all doing quite well. Half of them have already started to flower. All 16 plants each have three stakes, to keep them growing up, not down on the ground.
Since childhood, we were always taught to pinch off the "suckers" on a tomato plant, to increase its yield. With this bunch, decided to not pinch off the suckers, and let them grow. Although the suckers become branches with only leaves, and no branches, their leaves gather sunlight for the whole plant.
The water spinach, or kang kong (what we call it here), is so easy and fun to grow. Started out with just five or six seedlings (grown from seeds I got from the states), planted them, and they took off like Jack and the Beanstalk. Had a couple of small harvests. Just cut off the long branches with all their leaves, fry them on high heat with a little salad oil and minced garlic, and drizzle just a little oyster sauce on top. So delicious - in my mind, it beats out fresh spinach, no problem. Spinach is hard to get here on Rota, but now I've got loads of kang kong - got to have my green veggies. Kang kong is undeterminant, meaning it just grows and grows, with no definite harvest time or vegetative period. Kang kong only needs water and sunlight, that's it. In this part of the world, many people grow kang kong in 5-gallon plastic buckets, with no soil, 12 months a year.
Love to eat kang kong so much, I expanded the kang kong grow area substantially. The garden now has about 16 kang kong plants.
There is one papaya tree in the backyard that's putting out sweet fruit. Ate one last month - was quite impressed with its sweetness, color, and texture. Dried and saved about 100 seeds. Four of the seeds germinated - four good seedlings now. Hoping to plant them next to the same papaya tree they came from.
The three hot pepper plants, from a good friend, are doing really well. Peppers are aleady coming out. Still not sure what kind of chili-peppers these are. Very definitely they aren't cayenne pepper, or Rota pepper - guessing they are probably jalepeno (yum).
For the last update - the white flowers from my apartment last year are thriving.
Thanks again for visiting. Hope you enjoyed it.
