What are Hawaii folks planting and harvesting?

Ukeman and Momi, Welcome to the Forum from California!

I would use weed cloth or card board. You can also use perlite to supplement the vermiculite. When you replenish the beds with new compost (after this crop), you can mix it in.

So glad Rosina has company!

glad to see new members in the Hawaii group!

cardboard is a great weed barrier to put down .....worms LOVE cardboard

happy gardening
rose

Hi Ukeman and Momi!  Welcome from Atlanta, GA.

I'm glad you've decided to join us on the forum.

from South Dakota Ukeman & Momi Usually at this time of year we are still covered in snow and ice, but with an early warming trend, snow is gone and most of my boxes are now thawed. I love your octobox and look forward to seeing it green.

Susan and I planted 3 kinds of beets, Lutz, Early Wonder, and Chiogga as well as three kinds of carrots - Yaya, Baltimore and Napa.

We have been harvesting enough lettuce for salad bars for eight of us for dinner for several nights.  We try to estimate whether to buy at the market or use our garden produce.  We  have had lots and lots of kale and unfortunately some of it has some kind of nasty stuff on the back of the leaves that we have to rinse off.  Mostly the closely planted White Russian. The Red Russian and curly kale doesn't seem to be as affected.  We expect lots more problems as it gets warmer. 

I hope I managed to get this into the Hawaii puka.  Getting dumber every day about remembering stuff.

My store-bought yellow cherry tomato plant has stopped enlarging the tomatoes and one is almost ripe.  Instead of having a real cherry tomato, the tomatoes are about 2" in diameter.  Wish the "volunteer" tomato plants were in my yard again.  They were a max of 1/2" in diameter.  Just right for salads and my bird.

My purchased strawberry plant is almost dead - brown leaves beginning at the edges and moving in.  The other smaller strawberry plants have something attacking them - white spots on leaves.  I need to look at the book "What's wrong with my plant?" to find out what to do.  Guess my main problem is learning how to water them.

As for planted seeds,  The red cherry tomatoes are now about 3" tall.  After a second planting (first planting probably too deep) the broccoli, watermelon, cucumber, spinach, and manoa lettuce are up.  No sign of the carrots, red leaf lettuce, or green onions yet.

Have been wanting to display a picture of my garden, but ... things happen.

In response to problems with strawberries:  You do have to be sure to plant them high, not deep.  They don't like dirt right up close.  I'm having success (so far) with bone meal and straw under the lovelies to keep the critters that nibble at them at bay.  We'll see how that all goes as the season gets warmer.

We have been harvesting gorgeous cauliflower  and broccoli.  Lots of lettuce and kale also.  We had so much pak choy that it went to flower and I figure maybe the bees will enjoy the flowers.

Also harvesting lovely cabbage for the sauerkraut for which it was intended. How satisfying!  And the kraut is wonderful.  We are just learning all this.

Glad to have other Hawaii folks on this thread. Hope there will be more and, of course we love comments from out friends around the world.

Thank you for the advice on the strawberries.  I'll if the soil is too high.

I mentioned that I wanted to find the "volunteer" tomato plant that used to be in my yard.  Well, yesterday I visited a friend's garden.  Guess what I saw - the "volunteer" tomato plant.  I brought home a few ripe tomatoes.  Now to learn how to save the seeds.  Learning like housework is never done.

Cauliflower? Broccoli? Tomatoes growing in Hawaii? Please try to post photos. We would love to see your gardens.

Dog gone it all.  Even my akamai guru (akamai means "smart" in Hawaii) was unsuccessful trying to post a picture.  However, I have been diligently taking pictures and one of thee days....

Rosina sends me the photos to post.

From Kauairosina's Garden.   6-8-15

This tomato plant is from last year.  I was planning to remove it but it has started producing lovely yellow tomatoes that go for $5 a pound in our stores.  Will send close up of leaf.
Close up of leaf from that plant.  Any idea of what problem is, besides old age?
Some of the tomatoes from that plant.  I think they are better this year than last.  I today have added more compost and straw in gratitude for its production.
A basket of lettuce.  About 4 or 5 or 6 kinds.  We are saving a lot of money and eating more salads with such production.

Lovely looking produce, Rosina.

More photos from Rosina

Our litchi tree in the middle of our square foot garden:
Litchi fruit.  A hard shell over a grape like very sweet fruit:
Can't see the grids.  The vegetation totally overwhelms them:
We have been making great sauerkraut with our cabbages.  Seeds were called Storage Cabbage:
We have too many coconuts to keep up with the harvest and resort to purchasing the coconut water in cans.  Go Figure.

What a beautiful garden!  What else grows in the SFG that has the lichi tree?  For the first time I've seen many lichi in the grocery stores on Oahu. 

Sorry to see your tomato plant like that.  I had to pull mine up because it was so bad.

Wow your stuff sure looks great. Interesting that you can grow cole crops so well in a tropical climate.

I think we have a break through!  I told Collin (grandson) I was going to look for lettuce starts at Home Depot and the local nursery because we have had two total failures with our seed start flats.  One the critters got, munched them down in their prime, and one too much sun combined with my over dose of fish and kelp.

He looks at the uncut  mesclun in the earth box and says "here are our starts!"...  Huzzay!  He and I pulled weeds and spent stuff out from our 4 x 8 sfg next to some banana trees where it is cooler than other sites, he fluffed up the Mels Mix and added some compost and last evening I planted over a hundred of those little babies.  Wish us luck!  I am so stoked!  We pay two dollars for a bag of three heads at the sunshine market and use lots of lettuce so I'm hoping this works.

Our old lady chicken, Gracie, whipped out a plant and I shooed her away and she stayed away.  Smart girl.  Pictures coming soon.

We are planning to create a nursery with shade cloth and/or a small greenhouse but haven't gotten to that yet in our many projects around here.

In case not everyone is familiar with mesclun, it is a mixture of lettuce and other seeds spread lightly over an area and cut down while very small.  Commands big prices in some venues.  Mesclun farmers have special equipment to mow it down.  I just use scissors.   You gotta have enough time to do it.

Three heads of lettuce for two dollars? Wow, that's a great price. Somebody must be growing lettuce very successfully in Hawaii to keep the prices that low.

Marc -  You're kidding me right?

The lettuce is from the Sunshine market, not the grocery store.  And yes, it is mostly pretty easy to grow lettuce here.

I don't understand what the kidding might be about; you've lost me there. I don't know what a sunshine store is supposed to be either. It sounds like it might be a cute personal term for the garden, but when you mention spending dollars per head, it doesn't sound like that anymore.

My apologies.  Sunshine markets are our farmer's markets.  Take place most days.  Fresh local produce.  Good prices.

No price as good as your own home grown but I purposefully decline to calculate how much we spend on amendments, etc.  I figure it is worth every penny.

Agreed. So you have a farmers market equivalent every day ... wow that is really nice. That kind of volume probably helps keep the prices so low.

Out here when we are exceptionally lucky, we have brief windows of time in the spring when lettuce is priced that low, say 80 cents a head. But it's only at one local store, and usually lasts only a few weeks, if that. But all the rest of our food markets are chain grocery stores that generally charge $1.50 per head and up to about $2.50/head as we move further from spring.

Oh yes, the mega conglomerates that are deciding what we will eat and how much we will pay.  I forgive Costco.  Somehow that chain seems a little more fair.  

And, of course, Hawaii prices are pretty outrageous and getting more so, but we would be in deep kim chee if dat boat don't come every week.

I just paid $3.69 on sale for 3 organic romaine hearts at the grocery store the other day. It's the first time I've had to buy lettuce in a couple months and hopefully the last for a while as I'm planting like crazy.

$2 for 3 heads sound heavenly. Are they organic?
CC