September 2017 Ocean View Hawaii

Everything is a bit wilted since I took the pictures mid day but you can see how well everything is doing!

Birdhouse gourd and zucchini

Watermelon

Pie Pumpkins (no olla) no pumpkins yet

Pie Pumpkin (small Olla) one small pumpkin

Pie Pumpkin (med Olla) this one really looks the best in a few hours it will be happy again you can kind of see the 4 pumpkins on here. One of them is already turning orange!

Cucumber there are a few babies on here. These are pickling cucumbers hopefully they do well!

Carrots and whats left of my radishes

Red raspberry going to need to build a support soon!

Red raspberry (center) I lost one plant likely due to over fertilizing

Black Raspberry these are absolutely flourishing!

Onion bed, You might be able to see a few bulbs starting to form! the leeks are doing really well though. 

Strawberries, not looking so good I think I over fertilized them a few weeks ago or maybe its just been too hot but the ones that are left look healthy!

Tomatoes! I have gotten more tomatoes than I expected off these 4 plants and they are still going strong! I have started 4 more more towards the center. hopefully I will be able to have a constant supply for all our tomato needs! You can also see my cinnamon basil there in the middle its pretty happy there! its about to flower it looks like. We tried it and it doesn't really taste like cinnamon at all to us. 

Finally got in all my greens from the Ka'u farm school several weeks ago. They are much happier in this shady bed then the little cups I had them in!

My cabbage is finally starting to come to a head it looks like! can't wait for more homemade eggrolls!

Ginger still trucking along making more shoots every week!

Ginger is getting ready to bloom! I'm excited to see what it will look like! I wasn't expecting blooms on my edible ginger!

Bananas still growing no buds yet though

Olla

Where we live is is HOT and DRY it only rains a few times a year and water can be hard to come by. So keeping our soil "evenly moist" as is required by SO many plants required me to think outside the box a bit so naturally I turned to the internet. I found Ollas: Unglazed Clay pots for garden irrigation. After that I set out to buy me some Olla's and was astonished at the price!$100 for something I bury in the dirt to hold water? No thanks! So then I was looking at ways to do it myself. And there were several other people who had already come up with the solution! terracotta pots blued together or to their bases. I use the glue them to their bases method Since I don't want to have to dig down so far as to accommodate the others. So far I have had great luck with my Ollas they have kept my tomatoes going strong for several months. I water usually once a week my filling my olla and thats all it takes to water my 4 plants.

The method is simple enough bury the olla with the "base" side down so the hole is at the soil level or just above it. This hole is where you will be adding your water!

You can see one of my buried ollas here with my watermelon. I place rocks on top of the holes to help keep critters and dust out.

I have heard that you can add soluble fertilizer straight to the olla but have not tried this for myself.