New Veggies We are Trying Now

 We have been welcoming suggestions on what to grow, or I should say, try to grow. We surely aren’t experts when I comes to this, but we are willing to give it an honest attempt. 

So far, there have been plenty of new things for us, such as carrots and parsnips. And how about soybean and peanuts? Neither of us knew how to grow them, nor what they even looked like while they were growing. You talk about being complete newbies at this! What does a peanut plant look like? Well, we figured that out so far. When are peanuts ready to harvest? We haven’t a clue. But we are learning. 

We had tried our hand at greenhouse tomatoes, but had so-so success. We felt we could use the greenhouse space better. So now we are trying greenhouse cucumbers and are actually harvesting some of the cukes right now. Wow! 

From time to time we get requests, and try to honor every one of them. We just ordered seed for marjoram, anise, and fennel. We’ve never grown any of these before, but we will give them a go.

We plan to introduce more new veggies…. sweet corn, edible gourds, more varieties of amaranth, spinach, kohlrabi, Portuguese cabbage, Chinese broccoli. We are checking other varieties of various Asian greens, beets, greenhouse cucumbers.

New for us….potatoes! We planted four 100’ rows 2 weeks ago and Wayne announced that they are just now coming up. We planted a fingerling called La Ratte. And a purple one called Magic Molly. Then some white ones, and a red skinned boiler. And a pink one. So it’s going to be interesting when it’s time to harvest them. 

Farmers Market May 18

Wayne’s papayas are back with abundance once more. I’m glad to say that there were plenty to go around today.  

Two other abundant crops are the newly harvested sweet potatoes and the pumpkins. We were able to offer both white and purple sweet potatoes, and both mature and immature pumpkins. There were enough so that everyone interested in them had the opportunity to take some home. 

Today’s offerings included:

Fruits….. Wayne’s papayas, limes, and avocados. Longan season seems to be over. And the lemons that are the trees aren’t ripe yet. Neither are the bananas. 

Herbs…. Parsley, cilantro, dill, basil, spearmint, chocolate mint, stick oregano 

Veggies….. leaf lettuce mix, mixed greens as usual, Malabar spinach, New Zealand spinach, eggplant, tomatoes, sweet peppers, cucumbers, green and yellow snap beans, snow peas, pipinola, sweet potatoes (whites and purples), pumpkins, and new today—- Portuguese cabbage. 

Flowers…. Statice mixed colors

Farmers Market May 11

 Market day seems to get crazier and crazier. Today three of us showed up with the harvest around 7:30 , plus a local resident also arrived to donate limes and avocados. Then the feeding frenzy started. The word had  definitely gotten out that the OKK tent is the place to visit as early as possible. Within one hour, 80% of our produce was gone. By 9:30 I could have gone home but I still had a few things on a table, so I stayed until everything was completely sold out by 11. Yup, 100% sold out. No leftovers to drop off at the Hub this time around. 

Wayne and I are totally amazed at the success of this project so far. Wayne’s idea was to feed Ka’u, and it is happening! Thank you for your support!!

So what did we gave in the tables today? 

Fruits …

Wayne’s papayas, mountain apples, longan, limes, lemons, avocados, mangos

Herbs…

Parsley, oregano, dill, basil, spearmint, chocolate mint

Veggies…

New today— parsnips and the ugliest sweet potatoes you’ve ever seen! They are a white Hawaiian variety from Maui. Green beans, snow peas, young onions, spring mix leaf lettuce, tomatoes, sweet peppers, greenhouse cucumbers, malabar spinach, New Zealand spinach, pipinola, pumpkins, eggplant, and mixed greens (bok choys, mizuna, tatsoi, chard, beet, amaranth, sweet potato, cholesterol spinach, kale, arugula)

Farmers Market March 4

Selling was really crazy. I hadn't thought about it beforehand, but a lot of customers were buying extra because of Mothers Day coming up. As a result, we sold out of popular items by 9 am. i will keep that in mind for future holidays and be sure to pick extra if we have it. 

 Today's offerings included: 

 fruits-- 

banana

lime 

kaffir lime leaves

lemon 

longan 

 herbs-- 

parsley 

basil 

dill 

oregano 

spearment 

 veggies-- 

carrots 

mixed greens (several different bok choys, tatsoi, tokyo bekana, chard, mild mustards, mizuna, arugula, sweet potato leaf, new zealand spinach, malabar spinach, kale) 

mixed leaf lettuce 

eggplant 

sweet peppers 

snap peas 

green beans, both green romano type and yellow wax 

tomatoes 

soybeans 

young onions 

pumpkin 

tomatillo 

turmeric, the last of the harvest 

cucumber, our very first greenhouse grown cuke 

pipinola 

 flowers-- 

statice

Farmers Market April 27

 What did we bring to the the market tables today?

 

I didn’t have everything out on the tables yet when I snapped this photo, 
but I had to be quick because buyers were already showing up. 

Fruits: Wayne’s famous papayas, longan, limes, lemons, several varieties of oranges, avocados. The oranges were donated by my neighbor. And two community members donated limes to add to our tray of limes from the farm. Thank you all!!!

Herbs: parsley, basil, oregano, cilantro, dill, spearmint. 

Veggies: Romano style green beans, Korean radishes, soybean, eggplant, salad and paste tomatoes, sweet green peppers, spring mix leaf lettuce, Malabar spinach, New Zealand spinach, leafy greens mix (several varieties of bok choy, spinach, chard, beet greens, Chinese cabbage, amaranth, mild mustard, tatsoi, arugula, mizuna, other Asian greens), and carrots.

By noon we had sold out. We didn’t even have anything left over to take to the Hub this time. 

Speaking of the Hub, today they served a meal made from the marlin that John Masters had donated, along with a salad that came from the OKK garden. I walked into the kitchen after the market and was delighted by the aroma of cooking fish. The meal smelled marvelous. The kitchen volunteers deserve a long applause and a sincere thank you. They are doing a great service to our community. 

Meals being loaded into takeaway boxes. 

Donated Marlin

This OKK food project is not just about a vegetable garden. It’s about our community coming together to provide food for its community members. So let me tell you about what just happened. 

Looking down on the marlin laying on a long table. 

This week a large freshly caught fish, a marlin, was donated to the Hub by John Masters. John is the one who caught it. Wow!!! That jumbo fish fish dressed out about 140 lbs of meat. What a bonanza for the people of Ka’u. It is going to make a heck of a lot of meals. 

Volunteers cleaned and dressed out this fish. The waste was given to the OKK garden project for making fish emulsion fertilizer. I will be spending tomorrow processing the waste , and I’m thinking that I might need to buy a few more 5 gallon buckets to hold the waste. This fish was really huge and will fill up my current buckets pretty quickly. 

So this event was a win-win situation for everyone, except the marlin of course. And on top of it, it’s a no-waste endeavor. Zero waste to the dump. Every scrap gets used. 

Greenhouse Volunteers

This food project is a community effort, so we welcome volunteers to join in this project. I’m really enjoying the volunteers helping out in the greenhouse. They are amazing! 

Volunteers at work. 

It’s quite enjoyable to talk story while at the same time have busy fingers sowing seeds and transplanting baby seedlings. In just the two hours every Monday, this group gets a lot done…..a lot! 

All these baby lettuce seedlings hot transplanted in one morning session.

The greenhouse volunteers help out with a variety of greenhouse tasks. There’s always something to get done each week……preparing the potting soil, filling pots, filling seedling trays, sowing seeds, transplanting seedlings, making plant labels, watering, arranging the trays and pots in the greenhouse. 

I don’t know about other people, but I get a real kick out of watching the freshly sown seeds sprout, then watching the infant seedlings grow into robust plantlets ready to be moved to the main garden. It’s a true miracle seeing our future food go from teenie little seeds to big plants, knowing that it was us volunteers that made it happen.