July 2014 Garden Update

Hey everyone, HAPPY JULY!  Here’s a tour of what my garden looked like when I returned.  Big thanks to Spencer and Madison for tending it and the fish while I was gone.

The fish are a lot bigger.  I think my pump is on its last leg though, I have to unplug it and plug it back in for it to work.  My lilikoi was overgrown and attaching on to everything it could.

My tomatoes are being eaten by birds!  When I was cleaning up yesterday, I had taken a piece of tomato off and threw it on the soil, and watched a bird start picking at it with his big beak.  When I came back later in the day this had happened to a tomato that was in tact before.   Maybe I should put a bird feeder out there next to the garden and then they will leave my garden alone?

I’m realizing that you probably need to plant about 8x what you think you’re going to want to eat.  Murphy, bugs and birds will get your garden.  I’m having fun with it though, and am grateful that I’m not relying on my garden to survive.

I took out all of the Okinowan spinach, it had grown like a weed in the aquaponics.  I’ve still got some of it in the ground and in a pot.  The lady that I bought my composting worms from gave me a cutting of it and it’s really taken off.

The chia seeds that are second generation are SO MUCH taller than the original bunch.  I wonder if thats because they seeds were spread further apart so that they did not choke one another out.

Also, my third or forth generation manoa lettuce does not seem to be growing as fast, but that could just be my imagination.  I don’t think I picked the seeds at the best time.

My black beans were producing beans, but I need to figure out some kind of trellis system so that they can really take off.    And my tomato plant is doing okay, it has one small piece of fruit on it, (well I thought it did yesterday, when I went out there this morning it didn’t) I hacked off some of the vine which must have been helping balance the whole plant, because now its leaning a lot, whoops.

And my composting worms are back.  A huge thank you to Alisa and MaryLou for caring for them when I was gone.  I need to harvest those as well.

Here’s a photo from this morning  after yesterdays work cleaning things up.

– Farmer Jim

Engage:  How is your garden doing this summer?  What’s doing well, what’s not?  Let us know in the comments!