Journal 5-01-08

Happy May day!

I just came in from the garden and have a feeling of hopefulness.

The eggplant is doing well and has a nice big flower on it. The pepper is also producing!

Everything in the porch bed is doing really well. There are lots of little shoots coming up that are interesting and exciting, though I know that most of them are weeds. I can't tell what is what at the moment (except the clover, which is easy to spot AND quite prolific) so I think that I'll leave it alone and see what develops. I have come to the realization that "weed" is in the eye of the beholder. Some of the things that are prized here are weeds in Alaska, and vice versa. I think that this is the true definition of a weed: "A plant or shrub that grows without help or care, and therefore cannot be fully appreciated." Some of the things coming up are rather nice. Maybe I'll just take a natural approach and let grow what will grow (except grass--grass irritates me!)

The peas are growing like gang-busters, and I'm going to have to start training them up the porch pretty soon.

Well, that does it for the happy side of the yard. Now we move over to the ghetto. The wall bed is still providing the same challenges as before. The Nasturtiums, Lavender. and sunflowers are doing very well. The rose is hanging on. The begonia and the tomato are (alas) cradled in the bosom of their creator. Here is a Memento mori for the Tomato (in case you can't tell, it is the shrivelly brown thing next to the happy sunflower seedling):

I have decided that I must cut my losses with the wall bed and leave it to the nasturtiums and sunflowers. There is still lots of room in the porch bed. All-in-all, things are coming along very nicely.

Yesterday when I got home Mrs. L was here cutting and trimming and (GASP!) spraying weed killer. She has, to this point, left my little effort alone, but I don't really like the idea of lots of poisons back there. It IS her house, and my garden grows thanks to her tolerance, so I had better just keep my mouth shut.

Mum's the word.

BB

Journal 4-27-08

Just an update:

I haven't done much more than normal maintenance lately. I've been tending, and watering, and weeding. I am more convinced than ever that the wall bed must be left to the nasturtiums--everything else is doing badly.

Happily, the porch bed is doing very well. The peas are coming up quickly.

The weather has been hot, humid, and the air has been filled with vog. It's really oppressive and unpleasant. I can only imagine what life is like on the Big Island! This morning the sky looks more clear than it has for a week. Perhaps things will get back to normal.

Journal 4-20-08

It's been raining pretty hard all night, but the sky is clear at the moment and the stars and the full moon are out.

I surveyed the garden yesterday and experienced a mix of joy and chagrin. The eggplant has TWO! healthy purple flowers on it, and the pepper is growing little buds.

In the bed, things are not so rosy. The begonia, which I put where the pepper had been, is dying. The sunflower that was near that spot is dead [click on the pictures to see better detail].

The rose seems burned and the tomato is rather crusty too. Only the nasturtiums and lavender are ok (though something has been eating holes in the nasturtium leaves--no biggie, at the moment). Zach and I were puzzling over it and we had an idea. The "blight" that seems to be sweeping the wall bed looks rather like burning. The dogs up above pee near the edge of the wall. I'm wondering if it either seeps down the wall and comes out in the bed (the wall being stacked volcanic rock) or if Kekoa--the male--may spray a little and get some on my flower bed. In the photo I've included you can see the area above where the dogs pee and the area below where my flowers are trying to grow.

The rosemary that grows above the wall has a huge brown spot of burn, and I often smell urine from up there, so it seems plausible. The sickness seems to be most concentrated on the one end and becomes less pronounced further down the bed.
If this is the case, I think that I may have to abandon that bed and move everything--perhaps to the bed under the stairs. That would be ok, as everything over there is thriving. Maybe I can just leave the nasturtiums, which seem to be unaffected, and let them take over the wall bed. If they can survive, it would end up being very pretty when they flower.

Gardening seems to be an exercise in patience, faith, and hope--three things that I have in small supply most of the time--I perhaps I'll end up growing with my flowers.

Journal 4-13-08

Well, this was an eventful garden day. I decided, rather late in the afternoon, to do something about the compost. I went to Star Market's nursery and bought a box of compost activator made up up blood meal, bone meal, and chicken manure. I also bought an orange begonia.

When I came home we looked at the compost and found that it was moldy, very wet, and had a smell slightly reminicent of the breath of Beelzebub. It was unanimously decided that the batch I had should be scrapped and we would start over. This time Zach and I poked holes in the bin and we are going to do a better job of balancing the brown and the green. The problem is that I have much more green than brown material most of the time, so I'll have to be a bit more scrupulous about saving leaves and newspaper, etc. This photo is the new and improved compost (brown only at the mo')

I would really like to get composting worms, and I'm going to get down to looking into it tomorrow.

Everything is doing pretty well.The tomato has two babies now, but it also seems to have a sickness that worries me.

The leaves on the top of the plant are turning a bit black and looks kind of dry. It has been really really wet over the last couple of days, and I'm wondering if some of the plants in the wall bed have become a bit waterlogged. The seedlings are growing like gangbusters, so the rain isn't all bad! I am going to do a little research on the tomato problem and see if I can diagnose it.

Green gardener's guide by Joe Lamp'l

Cool Springs Press, 2008

This is a really informative, readable book--I think that I might like to add it to my library.

Journal 4-10-08

It's still rainy and wet, so i didn't do much in the garden today except survey everything. I DID pull up the Goji berry bush. It was worse than ever, and the sources I consulted suggested that it would be better for the other plants in the bed to get rid of it. I was very sorry, but I would hate to have everything else get sick and die.

On a happier note, the habenero is doing better than it ever has! I guess that not having millions of bugs living in its roots is a relief! The seedlings are ROBUST thanks to all the rain, and the eggplant is looking very happy. Everything else is doing fine, so I feel heartened, even though I was forced to perform some tough love.

Tomorrow I plan to get a thermometer so that I can take accurate temperature readings.

[Photos will be added to this post tomorrow--it was wet and a little dark when I was out there earlier. ]

Journal 4-09-08

Wx 553a: 71 degrees, 79% humidity, NE 8 mph, Mostly cloudy

It rained most of today. I did some research at the library and determined that the Goji Berry may be suffering from powdery mildew, which is a fungus. I found a recipe for an anti-fungal made from garlic minced and mixed with water. I made some and sprayed it on the leaves. I hope that it's not too late, since all the leaves look sick and many have fallen off. I'll just have to wait and see.

It's too wet to do any other work outside--I don't want to spread any diseases to any of the other children.