Welcome, welcome to my garden! There have been many changes in the garden this month.
As you can see in the picture, the long row of 16 Hawaiian Tomatoes is gone. How embarrassing to find out the time to plant tomatoes on Rota is January, after the rainy season. No wonder none of the tomato plants pollinated. Got 2 tomatoes (weren't even ripe) after all that effort, no crop. Hopefully this time around, we're going to see some juicy Hawaiian Tomatoes.
Here's my Eggplant #1. Not sure how it's survived these past two months, but it's pumping out the eggplants. This eggplant is called "Long Purple," especially suited for tropical climates. Have already harvested 5 eggplant fruit, and it has 4 still in the making.
This eggplant is about one month old. Found a quicker way to get Eggplant seedlings - cloning. Cut off the top of a main stem, stuck it into some potting soil, and it's growing (much faster than starting from a seed).
A local farmer-friend assured me that now is the time to plant tomatoes. Fortunately, 6 Hawaiian #2 Tomato seedlings were ready to plant in the garden. Wished I had more, but only 10 germinated, and four have already died.
So, there are now 4 very young Hawaiian #2 Tomato seedlings in the garden. Should be 5 but one didn't make it. And, two, of the same kind of tomatoes are in 5-gallon containers under the carport. Was very pleased to discover that tomatoes are even easier to clone than eggplants. Next post, hope to share my "tomato cloning" experience.
Had a nightmare with the kang kong, in the form of grasshoppers. The kang kong grew very beautifully, harvested many times, and enjoyed cooking and eating it often. After a short time with quite a few grasshoppers, all the kang kong was totally ravaged, and not eatable.
What to do? What to do?
A friend came by to visit one day, specifically to harvest some of my beautiful kang kong, but every leaf looked like Swiss cheese - no harvest.
Don't want that to happen again, so I removed every trace of kang kong in that grow area - right down to the bare soil. All the kang kong is gone, along with all the grasshoppers and their eggs. Three days later kang kong seedlings are popping up all over the place (no need to germinate any seeds).
Also added two more small grow sites for kang kong, one in the backyard and one right across from the main kang kong grow area.
Got some Taiwan cucumber seeds from a friend. Cucumbers seedlings don't like to be transplanted so had to be super gentle with the seedlings. The garden now has 9 young cucumber seedlings, three per mound.
Had to build mounds, then plant the three cucumber seedlings at the top of each mound. Then, cover the mound, and the dirt under each seedling, with dried grass (it keeps mud from splashing up to the plant, when it rains, which is how most plant diseases are spread). I added three stakes to each cuccumber mound, As it grows, each cucumber seedling will start to climb up the stake. Once the cucumber seedlings start climbing, a trellis will be built. Planning to just use tang-en tang-en poles (will cut down with machete in the jungle) and some cheap twine. It's going to be lots of fun with the cucumbers climbing all over the place.
The banana tree in my frontyard is getting ready to produce a bunch of bananas. To prep for that, had to remove all it's dead leaves, and heap loads of good soil around it's base.
The plan to have a small forest of sweet papaya trees in my backyard is slowly coming together.
Ate a papaya from the only sweet one in my back yard a few months ago. It was delicious and very sweet. After eating it, took as many seeds as I could, air dried them (not sun dried), and successfully germinated four. Planted the papaya seedlings right near their mother tree. They are already about three feet tall (in just a month). Hope to germinate more seeds to increase the sweet papaya trees in the backyard.
The lemon basil and sweet basil are thriving. Already harvested the leaves twice. Bundled up the stalks of leaves, and dried them in my kitchen. Haven't had the time to take the leaves and grind them into flakes or powder with a morter and pestle. Instead, I just grab as many dry leaves as I want, and throw them directly into whatever I'm cooking. Great flavor.
After clearing out all the kang kong, had to bag it up, and dispose of it at the Rota dump. Purchased a small bike trailer online through Walmart. The trailer is just big enough to carry all my trash from two weeks. The island trash dump is only four miles away - a scenic bike ride along the west coast of Rota. After two months of hauling my own trash to the dump, the bike trailer has already paid for itself, and I got some good exercise bike riding.
Really hope you enjoyed the post. Until next time. Take care.
