Melons can grow in Hawaii!

In my past post (click here to read) I talked about my melon growing woes, and how my melon plants were infested with leaf miners. I found a solution to these pests, and managed to plant them successfully in the garden. I have not kept rosemary near these plants in the garden, but they have done fine none the less. Perhaps the leaf miners are more prone to potted plants because I just recently started sunflowers, lettuce, and more kale. They have all been infested with leaf miners.

You will know when your melon plant is doing well, when they grow wild and crazy with vines, and their pretty yellow flowers are abundant! You will also see a few bees flying around, pollinating the flowers. The bees love the melon flowers, just as much as the basil!

Usually I see many bees out in my yard, all fluttering and hovering around my basil plants. More recently though I see them near my melon plants. - Which is a good thing, because I want them to pollinate and help my melons grow! To my surprise this morning, I finally found a melon growing nicely!

Now, like in my previous post about melon growing, the thought still comes back to haunt me...FRUIT FLIES. I am going to be keeping an eye out for those nasty buggers, to ensure that this, my one and only melon does well and survives! This little guy is the size of a softball right now, and I hope it survives the next month to grow into a decent sized cantaloupe. - Without bee stings, and rotting or getting eaten by fruit flies.

Here are some precautionary measures that I will take...

1) Place my melon in a brown paper bag, to prevent bee stings and other bugs from getting to them.
2) Occasionally letting it out of the paper bag to breathe, and also spray with a non-chemical bug deterrent.

What do you think? Anyone have success growing melons and battling the same pests? Please let me know what you have encountered and other possible solutions to my melon growing obstacles.

Carrots SUCCESS!

In my last post, I wrote about how stressful it was for me to try and grow carrots from seed. I also said I would update my blog on if I have finally succeeded after waiting another month. Well, I have waited, and my carrots have gotten much bigger. I have harvested a few of them. Here they are!

     

Here are some of my carrots next to a batch of radishes, that I also harvested.

Growing Carrots in Hawaii

I have heard that carrots don't grow well in Hawaii. I am stubborn and always have to try things for myself to really believe what I hear...if I am that determined to de-bunk the myth. At first I tried growing carrots in the ground. They failed terribly, and didn't even sprout from seeds. Next I tried growing them in containers. That worked MUCH better. My only problem was, I grew them in short little containers. - Not a good idea if you are planning to grow long carrots!


So I purchased a taller container, round, and black. I put soil in it and spread the seeds out across the top. Then I sprinkled it with soil again to cover the seeds lightly. I water daily, morning and night. I also add fertilizer to it twice a week to ensure it is getting nutrients, since most of them wash out from the pot with each watering.

 
Well it has been 2 months so far and my carrots are doing great! I pulled one out early to see how it was doing. - Still a tiny thing. I know I need to give them at least one more month to grow longer. But so far, so good. Carrots do well in containers, here in Hawaii. As long as you water frequently and feed it fertilizer.

Oh...and Bobo just loves them!

Melon Growing in Hawaii - Lots of Problems...

I have read on the gardening forum for Hawaii gardeners, that melons do not do well here. Big tomatoes like beef steak, squash, and melons do not do well because of bugs. Fruit flies eat the fruit and damage it. I have encountered leaf problems with my melons this summer. They are tiny bugs that go into the plant from the soil and eat through the leaves from the inside out. When I looked up this problem, I found that the bugs are called leaf miners.

As you can see on the left leaf, there are tiny white lines going all over it. That is where the leaf miner bugs attacked. This happened to all four of my melons that I have been growing in these cups. To solve the problem, I pinched off the leaves that were eaten through, then I placed my melon plants next to my rosemary plant. I also took some sprigs from the rosemary and placed them in the cup, on top of the soil. The rosemary keeps bugs away! To further test my experiment, I grew about six new melon plants. I placed the rosemary in the cup from the time they were very little sprouts. It has been about three weeks, and so far there are no bugs or more specifically, no leaf miners, attacking my newly planted melon seeds. When I plant these babies into the garden, I will need to remember to place rosemary around them as well. A garden is a giant playground for all sorts of pests and bugs, and I don't want them ruining my newly grown melon plants. Now the next thing I have to worry about is the  pesky fruit flies. I don't want those things to start eating the melons once they start developing. I'm going to have to go do some research on keeping them away.

Beets

For me, beets are one of the easiest vegetables to grow, aside from tomatoes. I just love beets to death. They are so sweet and delicious. I can't get enough of them. I love them in salads, or just by themselves. It is safe to say that I am addicted to beets.

I plant my beets in starter trays, just like my tomatoes, lettuce, kale, and radishes. Once the two leaves appear, I spray the trays down every day to keep the soil moist. I keep the tray on the side of my house, where seedlings can get sun for most of the day, but not get a huge, brutal amount of the sun's rays. I have learned that beets grow quickly as tiny sprouts, but take longer as they mature. They could take up to two months to get big and round like a baseball. I try to pick my beets when they are not so big, because I have read that since they are younger, they will be sweeter too.

Zucchini FAIL

I started growing zucchini this summer. I was so excited, because I LOVE ZUCCHINI! I have been terribly disappointed with my growing results. I planted about ten zucchini seeds, not knowing how well they would germinate and grow. Well almost all of them grew! I had seven zucchini plants in my garden this summer.

My zucchini plants suffered greatly from powdery mildew. I blame myself mostly, because number one: I had 7 zucchini plants planted very close together, in my small garden. There was not enough room for them all to grow substantially. And number two: I didn't maintain a good mildew prevention spray schedule. When the air got humid, the mildew grew and spread quickly. I kept having to cut leaves off. I feel like this was the beginning of the end for my zucchini plants.

So I cut all the leaves and stems off that were affected by the mildew, and I kept a close eye on it. The mildew however, spread like wild fire, and attacked my zucchini plants horrendously. The leaves were all blotchy and white, I felt like I would never see flowers, let alone a zucchini. Three of my plants grew but did not look good at all from the chopping off of mildew covered leaves. So I dug them up and tossed them away. The fourth one died. I guess it was just too hot and I wasn't giving it enough water.

My last three zucchini plants were transplanted into the ground, and finally baby zucchinis were beginning to emerge. I was so happy, but the happiness did not last. All three zucchini plants had blossom end rot, AND powdery mildew.

I am afraid to try growing them again, because I don't want the same thing to happen to my new batch. I have read that blossom end rot is brought on by calcium deficiency in the soil. So I am looking for all kinds of solutions for this. I have a hunch that maybe this is what is really wrong here. - My bell pepper plants suffered the same fate. The peppers would grow to a small size, and then rot. The pepper bush did not grow very big and strong either, which leads me to further believe that I have a case of low calcium soil. I have heard from others to use egg shells, or ground up sea shells to add calcium to my soil. I have also heard that I could mix in a chemical - lime. But I am skeptical about adding chemicals to my garden. I do not want to do that at all really. If I absolutely have to, it would be my very last resolution to this problem I am facing.

Anyone else have suggestions for me on this zucchini growing problem?

Sunflowers

Another easy plant to grow in your containers, garden, or flower bed, is sunflowers! There are different types of sunflowers to choose from. Dwarf/short sunflowers, non-seed producing sunflowers, and also different colored sunflowers that range from light yellow, yellow, to red, and even darker maroon colored ones!

My sister and I started our sunflowers at the very beginning of our gardening journey. It was one of the first things we ever planted, along with tomatoes. They were wonderful and grew fast! They are strong plants and bees love them! We planted them near our tomato plants, which I'm sure was a great benefit, because there were always bees around them, which led them to our tomato plants.

These sunflowers were so gorgeous and easy to take care of. They love fertilizer, water, and sunshine. 3 things that we could provide for it everyday. By winter however, when muggy, wet, and humid weather came, they did not fair well. By that time we would find powdery mildew growing on the stems and leaves. Same thing happened to our zinnia flowers. At the time, I did not know about homemade sprays to fend off mildew, so this year I will definitely be whipping some up and using them on my plants.

We had beautiful flowers for our dining table at dinner time. The only irritating thing we had to deal with was the pollen would fall down and gather on the table, which was easily solved with a quick wipe down.

Cherry Tomatoes

These are the easiest vegetable to grow! They grow quickly and if you plant around 4 seeds and grow them till they are mature, healthy and strong, you will have an abundance of fruit for you, your family, and friends. There is no way you would be able to eat it all by yourself!

Just remember to feed them with fertilizer (every 2 - 3 weeks) as they are growing, and do not forget to water them everyday (either early morning before the sun is burning hot, or later in the evening when the sun has set).

As my 4 tomato plants grew taller and taller, I realized would have to use a stake to help them stand up, because the weight of the tomatoes kept pulling the leaves and branches down to the ground. This would not be good because bugs, slugs, and water would likely damage and kill the baby tomatoes.

Here you can see my 4 cherry tomato plants all bunched together (too close, I've learned, now that I've been growing them for awhile). I know that they would do much better with a trellis of some kind, to help with air circulation and to keep little bugs from swarming the plants.