Home at last, after all

Aloha to all/anyone reading this blog. It has been a very long and boring slog to get out of Orange County and move home to Maui. The disasters and delays are over, but the household effects are somewhere not around here. Shoulda used a PODS container ONLY!

I changed the background picture for this blog, to show everyone the teeny 4X4 foot plots, all 9 of them, all overgrown with weeds, impossible-to-remove Okinawan yam runners, long-spent stalks of broccoli, partially disassembled supports, and generally not much left.

Rooting about in those squares reveals some remaining peanut plants, some resprouted Yukon Gold potatoes (some were even on the top of the soil, all greened out), some scattered Candy onions, some clumps of garlic that got hidden and then sprouted from the bulbs, a bedraggled stump of an artichoke, and one healthy sage bush, which had been cut to stubs at my last visit about 8 months ago. I have much to do! I have found a few amazingly vigorous yellow pear tomato plants in the front yard, from a volunteer that popped up in the rose bed, then was running rampantly over them - it was cut down by a miscreant, but I think a few seeds managed to sprout in the lawn, so I am giving them some TLC before I move them to a better spot.

I'm surprised to see how quickly soil amendments disappear over a few months, but then, it has been essentially fallow, while the plants from earlier have grown and faded away. I plan to really tear into the squares to weed, amend, and start some plants, since I won't have any seed-starting stuff that I had packed and shipped over yet. That is OK, I have some little lettuces and tomatoes from Walmart, and the yellow tomato volunteers to give me a jump start. I'll have a lot more to do over the next few months, when I can start composting, testing the soil, da kine.

The winds will get another chance to challenge my support designs (they always lose, but not as fast as before). The grassy areas need just as much help, or more, it seems, but again, what has been lacking is a bit of feeding, some topdressing, and some hands-and-knees weeding, and some regular watering and mowing. At last I am here to do all that!

I will try to have some more pictures next posting, too, since I got my little netbook working now, and I can maybe show some progress on the back 144 (square feet, that is).

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!

Spring is making a late arrival

Our wet winter is soon to be over. The avocado trees are trying to throw millions of blooms, with a few dozen fruits that make it to, well, fruition.

Nice to have last year's "crop" still hanging on. The job of finding them gets easier when the trees shed the old leaves, with new leaves popping out to shade the new avo's.

Orange blossoms are at hand now, with some already turning into teeny green promises.

I still have fresh OJ whenever I feel a need to remind myself just how good that stuff really is. I'll have to plant more in Maui when I'm moved for good. The 9 trees here are wonderful. I'm going to miss them!

I'm amazed at how fast the broccoli ran to seed. I had the center head, then several side shoots, but with all the rain and two, not just one, trips to Maui, I didn't even look at them until this week. I have no other "cole" crops near, so I think these seed pods are likely to make similar plants if I save them. I have no idea if they were "heirloom" or open-pollinated, or hybrid, but it will be fun to see what sprouts once I get the seeds out. I'm not sure when I should pull the plants up and hang them in the shed to dry. They are still green, but I suspect they should not be allowed to get dry or brown before I hang them up. I'm looking for my seed savers book but it is probably going in one of my media-mail cartons to Maui. I really look forward to getting there this year, so I can build my greenhouse/wind protector (60mph gusts this month!); the tomatoes get really thrashed even with lots of support. One bright note, the garlic plants have held on, and I think they are getting very close to harvest, which I will teach my wife how to do by Skype, I think. She's done a great job keeping the little garden beds going without my being there. I KNOW she can't wait for me to be the full-time gardener!

Broccoli beats the cool weather blues

Oh, fooey, I put in the wrong shot - oh, well, now y'all know I have a huge clump of rosemary. Actually, there are two big clumps, with the droopy trailing stuff competing alongside the stiff spiky kind, which makes for some ono seasoning when I'm grilling. It blooms all the time, and I love to stomp by it to get that great aroma going. Some stuff is just "fall off the log" easy to grow. I have one of these bushes in Maui, too, so I'll be able to grill with it there, too. Yum!
OK, so here's what I meant to put in... The cool days have made it easy to beat the bugs that would have chewed up the broccoli, which is great for me. These past weeks have been too hectic for any conscientious gardening. I'm so grateful for all the neat posts from all those more diligent bloggers, whetting my appetite for much more gardening later this year. I put in my broc's in November , and mulched them very heavily with my homegrown compost. That's it. No feeding, no watering, just hoped for rain (and got it!). The broccoli plants were doused regularly with our wet winter, allowing me to harvest the central heads, then collect the secondaries, and even some tertiary shoots before I totally neglected the patch and the rest ran to seed. Yes, I forgot to take some pictures of those first heads, but they were really big and tight, looking like something off the pages of those snazzy seed catalogs. We'll see if I manage to glean some seeds later, but I've had some terrific broccoli soup and steamed broccoli along with some raw broccoli for snacking. Geez, I feel so virtuous with this totally organic goodness!

In a few weeks, I'm going to go "home" to Maui again, and maybe there's some peanuts, onion, garlic, and da kine in my little patch of heaven - I'm still not free to move permanently to the Upcountry, but "real soon now" I'll be home for good. I can't wait!

My Favorite Garden Tools

If I were make a list of all the garden tools, gimmicks, contraptions,and da kine that I have accumulated, I would be bored and embarrassed to admit I must have thought so many of them were of some worth to me.
We all know, the cheap tools are going to fail. The good stuff has to be watched closely, lest we leave it out where it "makes a new friend", never to be seen again. Some of the tools we like get used intermittently, but think about the ones you generally always reach for, and the list shrinks a lot. I have just three tools on that list, and one of those is even an optional one.

I am always amazed by those rugged old Felco pruners (OK, secateurs), with the easy to grip handles and easy to sharpen blade. I used to have the kind with the rolly lower handle, but it just didn't work for me. I don't consider a Speedy Sharp as a tool, but it helps to keep an edge on tools, so it sits in the tool cart, and I can touch up the pruner or whatever when I take a rest break.
The best tool I have is the hori-hori, by far. I know, the name means "dig-dig", but this solid stainless steel tool has been a delight since I got it. The handle is easy to hold, and the length of this mini-sword is just right. The serrated edge makes short work of even really tough vines, and you can put enough of a sharp edge on the opposite side to use it to cut a tomato from the vine, or cut through string easily. Weeds, the one thing I excel at growing, don't stand a chance. You can run this thing underneath to sever the roots, or plunge it into the dirt next to a big taprooted weed and work that weed out in no time. I've pried rocks up, hammered garden stakes in (I was in a hurry!), and used it as a quick string-holder to line up my planting. This leather scabbard is great, making it so easy to whip that hori-hori out when needed, then it slips right in again so I don't have to stumble all over the place to find where I laid it down. It makes transplanting a ton easier, holding the planting hole open, then neatly presses the soil back into place. That stainless steel is really quick to clean up. Yup, you gotta get one.

The third tool I like is the Felco folding pruning saw, which has been able to cut a 7-inch diameter tree branch for me when I couldn't find the old (and presumably highjacked) bowsaw. It still is really sharp, even after hundreds of pruning cuts on the roses the citrus trees. Clean cuts ever time make it well worth getting one. It has been reliable for years, which surprises me, since I don't baby any of the tools. What are your favorites?

Sunset Red Horizon -Harvest time!

Harvest Time!

I watched every day to see the full coloration develop - then, it was time. I clipped the stem and cleaned it off. Wrapped in a bit of paper, I took it to the postoffice and weighed it, when no one was there.

It weighed in at 1 lb 8.9 oz, so I had to make a huge hamburger to do it justice. Alas, I didn't pause to take a picture - but it was delicious! Several nice salads and tomato and avocado sandwiches followed. I saw some red deeper in the bush - if you look back at the title pic of the blog, it was already ripening then. I poked about some more. Another giant was at the back! OK, I'm loving this!

I added the dollar to give it some scale -then we made more great meals, and I haven't even gotten to BLTA's! Hmm, I need to look for more out there. I did put some peaches into the freezer, but I was tired of the blanching, skinning, slicing, da kine. Several times, I just wolfed them down, other times I added some ice cream. I should prune that tree just to burn off the calories. We will miss that tree after next year, when I finally get to come home to stay. I think it might be another 12 or 14 months, but I'm making lots of plans to try out in Maui.

My priority for the garden will be to shield it from the trades that whomp it regularly, so I have been thinking of putting up a big PVC frame and covering it with some fabric that won't shred apart. I probably should see how the pro's do it, so I don't have to do it all trial and error. We'll see if I can devise some steps to get around the steep slope orchard, too, as it is too hard - and dangerous - to scooch along in the clumped grass there. Maybe I get some climbing gear, ropes and safety belt just to play it safe. The previous owner had planted fig, mango, and citrus, but the drip system doesn't seem to work. I gotta get back!

More on learning to garden in paradise:Yams & Roses

1. 1.Maui's climate encourages prodigious growth of everything. Some things grow better at different times of the year, but I know: Everything grows! Take the example of some sort of an Okinawan sweet potato/yam: a pale-skinned tuber withe a thin halo of purple inside one pale white flesh, when first "explanted" as I cleared the vines from one of my squares, was the size of a lumpy soccerball. ( I wish I had taken a picture!) I sheet-composted the vines. I dug deeply to uproot to chase every remaining root. 3 years later, it still mocks me, popping up in some kind of vegetating whack-a-mole game, taking hours of probing and digging each sprout to declare a temporary victory. Whatever possessed a previous gardener to plant it,I can't know. Another case in point: miniature roses planted in the wonderful Maui soil - BAD idea on the previous owner's part! I spend hours carefully digging down to every terminal root. When I come back on the next trip, a few shoots are back, but because they are right near the crotons, I can't use an herbicide - I strive to be an organic gardener, after all!

2. There are some tolerable self-propagaters in the soil, like cilantro, which manages to bolt and then scatter its seeds, becoming like green Doritos in my garden, along with the Thai basil, which stands up to the shredding winds. I also have several Sunrise papayas, including two that popped up right next the front entry, so we can just step out the front door for a nice sweet fruit anytime we want. I'm saving some seeds, but mostly I just pull the little plants that try to grow amongst the roses. I think the birds have been tossing those seeds around.

3. On the leeward side of the house, the tea roses are fun to tease into blooming all year. They had a terrible unrestrained upbringing. I have been patiently teaching them to grow into a semi-somewhat -almost open-vase form. They are so silly! They'll shoot blooms out, then scraggle about, but I've been giving them the lessons my OC roses grew up with: stand up, stand out, don't crowd your neighbors, and be strong. I try to prune them to 4 or 5 canes if I can, taking out the crossing ones and ones trying to get into the center. I follow the old rule of cutting the roses at 1/4" above the second outfacing 5-petal leaf, so the next blooms come outward as well. I'm planning to stuff some alfalfa pellets (horse feed), bone meal, da kine into the soil to keep them healthy. I think they'll like that. I treat them to a snack of Epsom salts, which makes them pop out a passel of pretty flowers. Works every time.

Meanwhile, back in the OC, I'm going to harvest a bumper crop of peaches that toppled the branches over. I'm going to be pruning the tree pretty hard later, but that's probably a good thing. I'll be blanching, slipping skins, and trying both wet and dry packing them for freezing, to see which works best. I never knew one tree could yield so much!

I'm guarding that big Sunset Red Horizon tomato, which is finally starting to color up. Hopefully, I can add some pics to this post. I put a dollar bill under it, to give you an idea how big that puppy has become. Since I don't have a kitchen scale, I'm gonna take to the post office and put it on the postage scale (hee hee!). You can be sure, I will save seeds, both the lazy way (spread to dry on paper towels) and the fermented way, to skim out the duds. One way is a lot easier and simpler. I'm just sayin'.

Finally, just so everyone knows, I do not care a fig for the rules for growing strawberries, since they up and die even when I follow all the rules. I'm trying to train the runners to root into the pockets on that multiloculated pot supposedly made for strawberries. I've been humiliated by so many times by failed plantings in it, it's a wonder that I haven 't stress-tested it with a sledge hammer. But - like it's like the saying about gardening: To plant is to always have hope. ( Or is it to believe in the future?)

Mahalo for reading my blog.