my garden on Rota 13

Welcome welcome to my home garden on the island of Rota, in the Mariana Islands.

Many changes in the garden this month - tomatoes harvested, cukes harvested, and there has been a continual steady production of eggplant and kangkong.

The Hawaiian tomatoes turned out to be fairly successful - myself, friends, and neighbors harvested loads of tomatoes. Want to take a break from those, and for the rest of the year just plant Roma tomatoes.

All around best performance has come from the eggplants, especially the first two planted in this garden.
 

Most all the cucumber vines planted have finished their growth cycles - got lots of delicious cukes. This is a Japanese variety (by way of Taiwan), and have almost no seeds and don't need to be peeled to taste good. Really like these cucumbers and decided to grow more. Here's six new vines.

The first cuke vines planted produced loads and loads of cucumbers. Also got 3 giant ones - two were one and a half pounds each, and one was two pounds (huge).

People like and eat pickles here, but most of the stores rarely have sweet pickles. So I buy the dill pickles, add my own spices (along with sugar), and came up with a very yummy sweet and spicy pickle from the garden using the pickle juice from the store-bought pickles.

The lemon basil bush has been producing seeds for the past two months. Will cut off all the brown tips (seed pods), and sprinkle them onto a fresh grow bed.  Maybe two or three small grow beds all around the garden will be better than just one big one.

The two oldest eggplants in the garden (one, 1 year old, and the other, 9 months old), this past month, produced so much fruit. Decided to prune them both, for even better production.

Unfortunately one of them didn't survive the pruning. But Eggplant #1, is sprouting leaves and getting ready to make a comeback.

Eggplant #2, the one that did die, is not completely lost. The other 4 eggplants in the garden were all cloned from #2, and they have all matured and are producing fruit.

 

The four cayenne pepper seedlings are almost ready to go in the ground.

 

Got my first bunch of bananas from this Macao banana tree (lots of smoothies). The tree will dry up and die. Two new trees are already coming out. Once a tree makes a bunch of bananas, its done. Waiting on the other banana trees in the garden for another bunch.

Almost lost the sole surviving Rota jungle hot pepper plant. It almost dried up and died after ant infestation. Prunned it, fed it better, and piled up its base with lots of rich soil. It's already started flowering and looks like new.

Moon over the Sasanhaya Bay.

Hope you enjoyed the blog post this time. Really glad for your visit. 😎

what a good Seed

Here on the Island of Rota, in the Marianas, we celebrate Good Friday, as the day that our Lord, and Savior, Jesus Christ, died on the cross some two thousand years ago.

God, in His great mercy and kindness, planted His best Seed into the earth to give new life to His creation. This New Planting started some two thousand years ago. It has flourished amazingly through the centuries and ushers us into the kingdom of God, before God's very throne.

As a home gardener on Rota, I want the best seeds for my veggy garden. It's the good seeds that produce the best plants - just like the seeds used for eggplants and cucumbers in the garden. Every month there are so many eggplants and cukes harvested.

So, Jesus went into the ground on this day, and three days later, He germinated. About two thousand years later, He is the Vine and we are His branches.

my garden on Rota 12

Welcome, welcome to my garden on Rota. Glad you stopped by to visit. Let's get started with some of the flowers.  

 

The hibiscus started blooming. Drumroll, please - Not purple!

 

March 14, 2021, 7:23 am

 

Same flower: March 14, 2021, 12:49 pm

 

Really love these flowers. The blossoms form on the tips of these long blades of grass. They popped up in the front yard in random places. Decided to protect them and help their propagation. Hope to find out their name some day.

Lemon grass, just planted, from cuttings a friend gave me. It's used a lot in Thai cuisine, but here on Rota, it's stuffed inside roasted pigs (like stuffing in a turkey), to give extra flavor. Hoping to experiment and learn how to cook with it. Most homes that have gardens on Rota, all have lemon grass.

 

 Lemon Grass

 

 

 

 

Sorry, don't know the name of this wild flower. Got some Florida wild flower seeds, and this flower or weed, must have snuck into the pack of seeds. It's huge - almost 5 feet tall. That pink thing, hanging down, is a huge tassle, almost like a giant pink dreadlock. 

Getting a little excited to see the 1st bunch of bananas ripen. Not sure how much longer before tasting their sweetness. Good thing the forked-stick is working well to keep the entire banana tree from falling over. That bunch of bananas has got to be pretty heavy.

First eggplant planted. It's been pumping out fruit for 8 months. Have harvested as many as 10-12 eggplants at one time. Already lost count of the number of fruit harvested.

Now have six eggplants in the garden, five are producing fruit, and one, just got planted this week. Three of them are clones of the best eggplant in the garden. The eggplants have been the most rewarding of all, for the least amount of effort.

This is the one that produces the most eggplants - that's why I got clones from it. As long as I water it twice a day, eggplants keep pumpin' out  super fast - flavor's good, too. Haven't had any need for bug spray - only Rota mountain spring water, good soil, simple plant food, and cow poop (whenever I can get it).

Planted this week. It already has one flower.

The green onions are coming along quite nicely.

The cucumbers have exceeded all expectations. Have harvested a lot already, most of which, are pickling in large jars in the fridge. Don't know how to make pickles, nor do I have all the spices and equipment needed to make good ones. Do have many glass jars (even 1-gallon glass jars). Using all the leftover pickle juice, adding my own spices, like garlic and cayenne pepper, to pickle newly harvested cucumbers (delicious).

 

 

The only bad thing about growing cucumbers (in my opinion) - they need lots of attention, and loads of water,  like, drenched twice a day, or it's dry up and die super fast.

 

The tomatoes are beginning to make the garden look like a war zone, or something. There are now 26 tomato plants in the garden - at least three different strains: Hawaiian, Roma, and cherry tomatoes. Mother nature came through -  loads and loads of green tomatoes are  on the vine ripening. Had to sneak a taste - cooked  fried green tomatoes (yummy), and have also made some delicious salsa.

 

 

 

This week, set up a small grow area and planted six Roma tomato plants. Roma tomatoes can grow without a trelis.

 

 

Here are some cayenne pepper seedlings. Perhaps in another week or two, they will be planted. 

 

Since FSU, about 35 years ago, have wanted to grow some cayenne peppers again, from seed to harvest. Made a good attempt when first arriving on Rota two years ago, and again last year - have yet to grow them exactly as before. There's just something special about the flavor of fresh cayenne peppers along with Chinese dumplings, or just about any Asian cuisine.

That does it for this time. Thanks again for popping by and checking out this garden, right below Wedding Cake Mountain, on the Pacific Island of Rota, in Micronesia.

Peace.

my garden on Rota 11

 

Welcome, welcome, welcome!

My garden has gradually increased in size. At last count, there are 19 Hawaiian tomato plants, 17 Taiwan cucumber vines, and five Eggplants (long skinny, purple kind). Aside from those, also have oregano, basil, a local spinach, water spinach (aka, kangkong), sweet papaya, lemon grass, local chili peppers, and banana.

 

 

The Taiwan cucumbers have been great fun to grow. If they don't get watered early in the morning and right after sunset, they dry up super fast and die.

 

Been harvesting the cucumbers almost two weeks now, and tossing them into glass jars, and pickling them.

 

 

The cucumbers grow super fast, and they love to climb for more sunshine. Asked my local friends what kind of trelis is commonly used here, on the Island of Rota. The easiest for me has been a "tee-pee" type trelis. It's been working well. Instead of going to hardware store to buy materials to build a trelis for each cucumber plant, went into the jungle with a good machette, and cut down tang-en tang-en (a plant endemic to Rota, good to use for poles).

 

 

The four sweet papaya trees, in the back yard, are coming along very well. They are still young, so we still don't know which of the four new trees are female.

 

Was having doubts about the Hawaiian tomato seeds - no longer. A small hive of bees moved to my area. Plus, many honey bees have also been visiting from the jungle. There are some butterflies from time to time, but the bees are often around.

 

 

 

To help the tomato pollination process, every day, around 3 o'clock, when the sun is usually at its brightest, I tap the main stem (quickly and strongly, for one minute) of each tomato plant with a stick. Surprisingly,  it actually works. One day, when there was almost no breeze at all, started tapping the first tomato plant - a small cloud of pollen poofs out from the plant. 

So, the tomato plants that are flowering, all have tomatoes. Of all the 19 tomato plants in the garden, two of them are out-performing the rest - 21+ tomatoes on the same plant at the same time. 

 

Love to walk in the garden, early in the morning, and count how many tomatoes are on the vine, soon to be harvested.

 

 

This is Eggplant #1, already about 8 months old, just keeps pumping out eggplant.

 

 

Here's Eggplant #2, also from the same pack of seeds as #1, but for some reason, its fruit are all darker purple, and much tastier. For that reason, started cloning the #2 plant. Now have 5 mature Purple Long Skinny Eggplants, two of which are clones of #2 (cloning is very easy with this species of eggplant).

 

This is the banana tree that is making a new bunch of bananas. The weight of a new bunch of bananas, can easily cause the entire banana tree to fall over. So, you have to get a strong forked-stick (from the jungle) and prop up the banana tree to suppot the new bunch of bananas. Perhaps in another two or three weeks, fresh banana bread will be baking in the oven.

A friend gave me some oregano, green onion, and local soinach cuttings. Planted them close to the kitchen window.

Never realized how beautiful oregano leaves are in their natural state.

Only starting with 4 green-onion plants. Hoping, with time, the green onions will multiply on their own.

 

 

This local spinach is still a mystery to me.  It might turn out even yummier than kangkong. Regardless, the more green leafy veggies, the better.

February and March 2021 at my garden on the island of Rota, in the Marianas, is a time of continual harvesting - all the cucumber, eggplant, and tomato plants are mature and bearing fruit.

A little overwhelmed with all the help from friends and  fellow Rota gardeners - very grateful for them and to them. 

Behind the scenes, God continues to  bless the garden - wanted to be sure to acknowledge that.

Hope you enjoyed the post. Thanks for visiting. You're always welcome.