Learning how to garden in Paradise

Bumbye, a never-tested windbreak will get built, but for now, the wind wins.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Nothing to see here, folks.

I wandered around the old place to see what I might want to photograph for visual interest, but it wasn't fruitful. Oh, sure, I have lots of grapefruit, oranges, da kine, but I'm thinking of what I am missing in Maui. That's going to change in just a few short weeks as I wrap up my day job and pack up the remaining stuff here in California and finally take a one-way ticket to Kahului airport, tonly 4 years off my original plan. It's all good, I will not likely miss the crazy pace of life in the OC. My wife has recently decided that we need more garden space, so she says I can take up the front lawn area - Yay! I am thinking about everything from bananas to sweet corn to container fruit trees to even a black pepper vine (anyone ever try that?).
I guess I could have snapped pictures of the compost bin, the worm farm, the little shredder, and other things I've collected, all still sealed up and ready for a container to ship to Maui. I've got boxes of gloves, seed starter trays, seeds, tie wraps, tools, and who knows what more. It will fun just organizing it all. There's a few cartons of books to take to the PO, media mail rate. I have taken years of Organic Gardening magazines, old "mainland" garden books, da kine to our little branch library, along with at least several hundred other books I know I won't need in Maui.
I wish I had talked my wife into taking pictures of the great bulbs of garlic I coaxed out of my little Maui garden (she plucked them out easily), and a shot of the rampant yellow pear tomato vine that rambled all over our row of roses at the front entry. No, I didn't plant it there, but I did feed it when I was there in April. Her description of how good the garlic tasted was the same one we all use when we contrast homegrown tomatoes to the store varieties. I hope I can find my planting notes on that garlic - I used plain old cloves from Foodland's bulbs, likely just Gilroy's commercial variety. I'll be looking to Kula Hardware to see what they bring in. She noted that the peanut plants "died", but she was loathe to try to pull one out (hey, that soil is so soft, I bet they'd come right out). More for me to catch up on when I get there!
Please check for my next post in a few weeks, when I hope I'm rolling in the paspalum and piggin' on figs!

9 comments:

  1. Wonderful news - I bet you and your wife are just elated! I have a black pepper and a vanilla plant and after 3 years they still haven't produced any pods. My plants can't handle the sun and do best in diffused light which is hard to come by in my yard in the summer months. Sometimes Lowes and Home Depot have black pepper plants and if not Lowes will special order for no additional charge. They can be grown at the base of a tree to use the tree for support.

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  2. Mahalo, Jane! I think maybe I could train a pepper vine and a vanilla bean to run up papaya trees, what you think? I'm thinking of making some "test panels" to see if Agribon 30 or 50 can withstand those windy blasts; I'm still planning a wind/shade structure for the back yard. I can't wait!

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