Sonia Tastes Hawaii

The Edible Garden

Living a sustainable life should be more than one of the so-called political correct catch-phrases for anyone, anywhere; but when it comes to living in

Hawaii

it should be a way of life.

You hear the words sustainability, sustainable gardening, edible gardens, edible landscapes, “

Victory

Gardens

”, “Plant a Row to Fight Hunger” and other catchy names for what is basically planting an edible garden in your own yards.

Some people are starting to see where big business farming is taking our country and where it is also becoming a big concern due to the recent scares in tainted produce, meats and canned goods. 

These same people are ripping up their labor-intensive grass lawns and planting edibles even in their front yards.   After all, if you have to work so hard to have a pretty lawn that just sits there, isn’t it smarter to work just as hard and be able to reap an edible harvest in the same space?

If you take the time and care to think about ‘landscaping’ with your herbs and other edibles, your yard can look as pretty as if it was planted in masses of flowering bushes or trees.  Just make sure your flowering bushes are all growing edibles and your trees bear nuts or fruit.

If you don’t have much room to plant a big garden in your yard or you live in an apartment or condo, there is always a little balcony or small place to grow a few potted herbs, peppers or tomatoes… or you can always support your community by buying from local farmers and nearby farmer’s markets.

We live on islands in the middle of the ocean.  We are far, far away from most market sources.  In case of national or global emergencies we need to rely on our own resources.  Where else better than on our own bountiful island?

Prices of food have escalated quite a bit lately.  It used to be you could buy a butternut squash for a bit over $1 a pound…recently we noticed they were priced at $2.39 a pound.  When you purchase a 3 pound squash for $7.17, I would say that is a bit much, no matter how much we like them.....and milk is now called "White Gold"!

In the past, I have written several articles for this publication (*) on growing food in your garden or supporting your local farms.

 

If you keep copies of back issues of The Hamakua Times you can go back to reread “

Victory

Gardens

” (April 02); “Lucky Live

Hawaii

” (April 05); “Richard Ha – Tomato Farmer” (May 05) “The Bounty of

Hawaii

” (June 05) and “

Hawaii

…the Garden of the Pacific” (March 06) among others.

If you have read some of my articles in other publications, you by now know that I am a firm believer in “Eating Local” and helping sustain the local farmers.

Last September, my son Anthony and I started working on a little garden in the yard on the side of the house.  We live on a property that doesn’t have many level areas, and that was the ‘levelest’ place for one. 

This summer, we added more to the garden after it lay unattended for a couple of months when I was visiting the mainland.  It is now fully restored, producing and we are already planning on expanding it.

We are growing many herbs: sweet Italian basil, lemon basil, Thai basil, American blue basil, plain leaf and ruffled leaf purple basils, and a basil we can’t identify; Italian parsley, ruffled leaf parsley and Japanese Mitsuba parsley; 2 types of dill; spearmint, lemon mint, lemon balm, bay leaf, rosemaries, sage and pineapple sage; Mexican tarragon, 2 types of thyme, chives and garlic chives; lemon grass, mustard greens and mizuna greens; marjoram, stick oregano and Cuban or Caribbean oregano.

We have started growing a variety of peppers, some sweet and some hot.  Three varieties of small tomatoes; 4 varieties of eggplants; three varieties of spinach: Malabar, Okinawan and Dawn Dewa; long beans and a few edible flowers for salads and garnishing.

There are papaya trees, apple bananas, dwarf Brazilian banana plants, Cuban red banana, four varieties of avocadoes, coconuts,

Surinam

cherries, passion fruit vines, pineapples and a source for fresh bamboo shoots.  There are also several citrus planted throughout the property and a jaboticaba that needs to be moved.

There are many books to be found that can help you start your own small garden.  They will go a long way toward helping you supplement whatever you might have to buy at the grocery stores.

Start small.  The concept of ‘square foot gardening’ teaches you how much you can grow in just one little 4 foot square space when you combine taller plants in the center and placing graduating sized plants towards the edges, ending with your mounding herbs along the borders.

Don’t forget the foods that grow wild and can be foraged, such as coconuts, berries, guavas, bread fruit, fiddlehead ferns and even bamboo shoots, seaweed for salads, kukui nuts to make inamona paste for seasoning and there is always sea salt.

Recently harvested from the yard: avocadoes, eggplants, cherry tomatoes and peppers.

You can read a bit more about our garden by visiting my blog site at www.soniatasteshawaii.com – if you look on the right hand side, you can click on “How Does My Garden Grow” or even on “Fruits From the Garden” and several pages will open up about the garden and some recipes using the harvest from our garden and yard.

(*) The Edible Garden by Sonia Martinez -Originally published in the Hamakua Times of Honoka'a - August 2007 issue.

Garden Journal - Summer Update

A few weeks ago I reported on the dreadful condition of the garden and how we started taming it.  I can now say that even though we have been without any rain of consequence for several weeks and needed to water the plants at least twice a day, the garden is now making great progress.

Finally the rains came, a bit here and a bit there, in the last few days, but as of last night we have had a steady, soft, drenching rain and the garden looked very happy this morning!

As we stated in the begining of the Garden Journal, our garden beds are enclosed with recycled wood slats, layered inside with newspapers for weed control and then filled with mulch.  We make pockets in the mulch where we fill with organic soil and then plant our herbs and veggies in the pockets.

Since the garden is organic, we are using lots of Marigolds all over to deter pests and we have been spraying a homemade organic weed control close to the beds and around the new stepping stones.  See recipe below.

Laurel (bay leaf) in the rain... the laurel sits in the middle of the assorted parsley bed.

Pineapple Sage and Golden Marigolds in the back, Sweet Basil in front.  I'm getting ready to trim the basil down so it can bush out and I will be making pesto with the cuttings.

Malabar Spinach, a type of vining spinach, these are almost ready to start climbing the wire frame.  Mizuna greens, Rosemary and more Golden Marigolds.

Gold and Orange Marigolds, Roma Tomatoes and Lemon Basil - the little paper cups around the tomato stems are to discourage pests such as cutworms.

Overview of several beds, include Rosemaries, Orange and Golden Marigolds, Mizuna Greens, Red and Yellow Bell Pepper plants - you can also see a few of the Dwarf Banana plants in the background.

Baby Purple Japanese Eggplant growing in the lower branches and a cluster of blooms at the top of the plant.  Both Purple Japanese Long Eggplants and both of the Japanese Round Green Eggplant plants are blooming.

A future project will be to fill in the paths with creeping Oregano and plant it all around the stepping stones.  I have started the plugs of creeping Oregano in the beds as fillers and will be taking them from there.

Ripening Hawaiian Chile Peppers.

Recipe for the Organic Weed Spray

4 cups white vinegar

1/4 cup salt

2 teaspoons dish detergent

Mix all ingredients well and spray on weeds.  Watch them go Bye Bye!....As the weeds die, I will be pulling them by the roots to make room for the creeping Oregano to take over.

.......and this is how my garden is growing at this moment

The taming of our garden...

Our garden got sort of wild (to say the least) while I was away on my recent trip to the mainland.  There are days when my son, Anthony is in so much pain (Fibromyalgia) that I told him to not bother with it while I was gone.

On my return, I found the 'long bean' plant had grown so huge it had toppled over the wire cage we had put around it...and 'spilled over' to the nearby beds, where the viney tendrils were taking over, rooting and even choking other plants.

This past Saturday and Sunday we dedicated to cleaning the garden.  Weeding, pulling out dead stuff, clearing, and of course, hacking back the bean plant to a more manageable 'one stalk'.

Photo: Bay laurel in center of this bed - assortment of parsleys, sage and marigolds

We were in town Friday and in preparation for the weekend garden project stocked up on several plants - cherry tomatoes, 3 kinds of basil, more parsley, 2 kinds of eggplants and lots of marigolds.

 

Photo: I was told by the farmer who sold these to the nursery that this was called Japanese Parsley.  I planted it in our garden last November and it is now 'budding out' with tiny little white flower buds.  I would love to know the actual name of the plant.

Photo: 'Monster' mizuna tuber and green shoots - the mizuna was part of a mixture of meslun and other lettuces we planted in this bed last September.  Everything else is now gone except for the mizuna which is still providing us greens for our salads!

A couple of weeks ago, our church held their annual bazaar and I was able to pick up 3 rosemaries in 1 gallon pots - each was about 1-1/2 to 2 feet tall.

Photo: Looking across one bed to three other different beds - marigolds, mizuna, rosemary,  amustard plant....and you can see the beginnings of the "jungle" in the background....(our next project)

As we cleaned and cleared each bed of the dead stuff, we started planting the new to replace whatever we were taking out.  The new rosemaries were planted in the center of the different beds and we now have a total of 5 rosemaries!

Photo: Lemon basil (back of the grid area) was planted last September - the new tomato plants can be seen inside their little "cup collars" to prevent slugs or other critters from getting to them before they have a chance to grow.

Photo: Cuban aka Caribbean Oregano.  The leaves are slightly fuzzy and succulent and hard to digest - To use them I crush a handfull in a 4" SS mesh tea ball and dip it into the soup, stew, beans or pasta sauce, then just "fish" the tea ball out.  I'm getting ready to move this to another area of the garden, since it loves to just take over.

Surprisingly, enough of the original plants from last year were salvageable....and I have been watering early mornings and late afternoon to make sure everything makes it.... while praying over each plant as I water them and telling them how much I love them and asking them to please not die on me!

Photo: This eggplant was growing in spite of all the weeds and the 'monster long bean' vines that were covering it.

I also bought 3 packs different varities of nasturtium seeds and we will be planting them as soon as we can get an area ready for them.

Photo: Stick Oregano.  We have one huge plant and several smaller ones at different stages of growth in several areas of the yard some in pots and some in the ground.  All we have had to do is take a small piece and stick it in the ground and they root easily!

This afternoon , the young man who helps with the yard will be coming over and bringing a friend.    They will be cleaning a whole new area and claiming it back from the weeds and "jungle".....this is the area that starts at the line just where we have the dwarf banana trees and goes beyond to the edge of a gulch, where we had never cleared before... As it is, you can barely see the banana plants through the 'cane weeds'.

Photo: You can barely see the dwarf banana trees among the "weed canes and jungle" growing beyond them.  This is the area we will be reclaiming starting today.

We plan to plant more bananas, papaya trees and a pomegranate in this new area.   I started taking pics of before and will follow up with during and after on that little project!

I'm very excited about the garden again....but don't even look at my hands and nails!!!

A walk through the yard....

On returning from my mainland trip, one of the first things I did the next day was take a little walk around the yard..... This is what I found

Coral shaded anthurium by the driveway

Yellow bearded with brown throat orchids on a tree almost by our house

Velvety white gardenias in my flower bed

Coral bouganviliea (or paper flower) down by the Buddha Garden

Heliconia Bihai (I believe it is also known as Kamehameha), also by the driveway

Shell pink anthurium growing among the coral ones

Varigated Cuban oregano in our veggie and herb garden

A mini purple eggplant, also in our veggie and herb garden

A miniature pineapple.  These are not edible but I love to use them in arrangements.

........and our very first cacao pod, on a tree by our house. 

And that is how our garden is growing at the moment.  I will be writing about our cacao soon. 

 

Garden Journal - The First Month

It is so amazing to see the garden developing day by day, week by week.  It has been just a month and a week since we started working in it and already we have some sucesses and some failures.

We've had quite a bit of rain, so except for the very first week, we haven't had to worry about keeping it watered. 

The biggest failure has been the corn.  Not one little seed sprouted, but we will not give up.  We will just wait for a better time.  Another failure has been some of the sweet Italian basil.  For some reason a couple of the plants just would not respond to any TLC, yet a couple of others are doing beautifully!

The bush beans and snap peas are growing by leaps and bounds.  The bush beans already have blooms.  The tomatoes are also doing well and blooming.

The mesclun and other greens have not done much, but they are still there, just about a couple of inches high.  However, the carrots and beets which were planted almost two weeks later seem to be doing fine and are catching up to the greens in size..

Italian Sweet Basil

The speamint is amazing, it has taken over the clay container and we will be able to start tucking little pieces of it in other areas of the yard or start using it fast or else give some away, because it looks like it wants to take over... We love spearmint and I have started using some in iced tea and even crushing a sprig or two in a glass of ice cold water!

Spearmint

The long green Japanese eggplant and the Millionaire eggplant are doing well.  We found out that this last one is long and purple, but at the moment we have just a little eggplant and some blooms.  The long green has several blooms and one already fairly large eggplant, as you can see in the picture below.  Unfortunately the third eggplant, the round green Japanese, was cut by our yard helper, Colin when he was trying to weedwack between the beds.  We already decided that we would not weedwack  (or is it weedwhack?)  again in that area!

I love a salad made with mesclun, marinated and grilled eggplants with herbed goat cheese and I think that will be what I will be making with this particular eggplant when we harvest it.

Long Green Japanese Eggplant

The Mexican tarragon looks beautiful and full of blooms.  It seems to have loved the change from where we had it before.   The two types of parsley in the same area are also doing well and spreading.

Mexican Tarragon in full bloom

The little red Hawaiian chile peppers keep on producing without any end in sight.  I will be harvesting some more this coming week to make chile pepper sauce and will also just freeze some for later use.

A couple of months ago I made a delicious hot pepper jelly using the little Hawaiian peppers and  liliko'i (passion fruit)  as the base.  Unfortunately I didn't take any photos, but will next time.

Little red hot Hawaiian Chile Peppers

..........and that is how my garden is growing after the first month!

Garden Journal - The First Week

We have started thinking about the new little garden as ‘our recycled garden’

As I mentioned before, the beds are enclosed in recycled wooden window slats; the bottoms covered with recycled newspapers; the mulch is recycled green waste; the tomato climbing screens are made from sections of an old dog pen; some of the pots we are placing around the garden area are being brought in from our front yard, including an old wheelbarrow where I had planted some herbs; and we will be using pieces of bamboo recycled from another area where we are thinning it to make plant supports.  The little paper cups being used to sprout some seedlings in the beds are some we couldn't use due to their being too small for the cup dispenser we already had....so they have been put to another use.

Bed #1 detail of dog pen screening on left - this is the tomatoes and basil bed - garlic cloves and garlic chives have also been planted here. (Click on each photo for larger versions)

We will be using some more sections of the old dog pen screening as supports for climbing beans and chayote squash but this will be done in a few weeks. In the meantime, we have been busy adding to what we already started.

Day 6 - Thursday, September 7, 2006

Would you believe there is already green coming up in bed #3 - the lettuces and greens and in Bed #8 the snap peas and bush beans?…. We just planted these on Day 3!

Bed #8 on right with the bush beans and snap peas already coming up!

On this day we picked up the plants we had reserved at the garden store plus added a few more to our stash.

Late afternoon Anthony started cleaning up the weeds and junk growing all around the already established banana plants. We have 4 Brazilian Dwarf bananas (2 of them are bearing racks of bananas and one is 'throwing out' a bloom!) and are surrounded by little banana keiki (baby volunteer plants) and we also have one Cuban Red banana which has been planted for 4 years and hasn’t done anything yet. Read an article I wrote about bananas and try the delicious banana bread pudding recipe

Day 7 - Friday, September 8, 2006

Bed # 6 - We planted 3 eggplants - the varieties are called Long Green Japanese, Round Green and Millionaire. We have no idea what color, shape or size is this last one, but the name sounded interesting!

In the same bed we planted two varieties of parsley - Italian and curly leaf. Later we will add something else low growing to this bed.

Bed #1 - We planted 2 Roma tomatoes and cuttings from grape and cherry tomatoes. I also planted 2 Italian basil and cuttings from an already established lemon basil located somewhere else in the yard.

Bed #7 on right - Anthony planted a zucchini and 2 red bell peppers.  We will be planting other low growing herbs here later.  You can see a bit of Bed #6 beyond this bed, where the Mexican tarragon, eggplants and parsleys have been planted

I planted several garlic chives and two heads of garlic cloves in different beds throughout the garden.

We also moved over one of the potted Hawaiian chile peppers to this garden site and planted some spearmint in a clay container to give it room to grow without letting it take over in any of the other beds.

On left is the Hawaiian chile peppers in a pot and the pot of speamint sitting below, next to the spearmint you can see a small pot of varigated Cuban (sometimes also called Caribbean) oregano which will be divided and planted in the bare area right behind the chile pepper pot..  The long, scraggly green plants you see in the back to the left are the pineapple tops, waiting to be trimmed and planted in the new pineapple bed.

Spearmint is called Yerbabuena (good herb) in Spanish and it's a key ingredient for Cuban mojito drinks.  If no spearmint is available, regular mint can be substituted.

Classic Cuban Mojito

Sugar, lime juice, Spearmint (Yerbabuena), white rum, sparkling soda water and ice cubes.

Using a tall highball glass, crush a generous sprig of spearmint with the sugar and lime juice.  Add the rum, ice cubes and fill the glass with sparkling soda water.  Add a fresh sprig of spearmint as garnish.  Cool, refreshing and wonderful on a hot day!

Close-up detail of Hawaiian Chile Peppers on right

Day 8 - Saturday, September 9, 2006

A week today since we started the garden and already you can see progress and changes.

Bed #2 - Anthony planted carrots, beets and onions. These carrots are supposed to be short and stubby. This is the bed where I had planted a row of regular chives on Monday. Later on I had to trim them all down to about 1 inch above the soil line to give them a spurt of encouragement.

He also started a seedling tray with several varieties of seeds. These will be transplanted into the garden beds later on if they do ok.

I mentioned last week about offering the Surinam cherry keiki (seedlings) from under our tree at the Freecycle site and had a few people come and dig up quite a bit of them. It’s always fun to get to meet other plant people. One person brought us three delicious avocados from her own trees…. I will share what I did with some of them next week!

I have posted a request for plantain keiki at FreecycleBigIsland….I hope someone can share with us!

After reading last week's blog entry one of our friends contacted me about how to find the FreecycleBigIsland group.  I have highlighted it above for those of you who live in Hawaii and for those everywhere else you can find a local group by clicking Freecycle.org

……….and that is how my garden grows today!

Garden Journal - Intro

I have always been fascinated with the concept of the “Victory Gardens” that were a mainstay in supplying fresh vegetables and fruit for the home front during both World Wars. The idea of growing food for our own use in a small scale in our own yard has always appealed to me.

Through the years, wherever we have lived, we have had little gardens and big gardens ….but have always had something edible growing in our yard.

The smallest garden was something similar to what the French call a ‘potager’ since I had no yard when living in a first floor condo in Miami, but had a sunny area outside my front door where I had a few herbs and tomatoes growing in large pots.

The largest garden was while living in South Carolina and my husband decided to plant a couple of acres in an area between his office and the plant we owned. The kids called it ‘the truck farm‘ and hated to help harvest the resulting ‘bounty’. Needless to say, we had more than enough to share with the employees, friends and neighbors and anyone with whom we were remotely acquainted!

Since moving to this property 4 and a half years ago, we have planted edibles here and there, but never had an area that was completely devoted to an edible garden….until now.

This past Labor Day weekend we decided it was time.

A few weeks ago the bottom sections of our living room windows were converted from rough, dark cedar wooden panels to clear glass jalousies. The wooden panels are approximately 4 feet long and about 6 inches wide. Loath to get rid of the now discarded wooden panels, we decided to use them in the garden as edges and borders for our beds.

My son Anthony has what I call ten green thumbs. One of his three university degrees is in tropical agriculture and we are now putting to good use whatever he learned at UH-Hilo

I hope you enjoy following our gardening adventures, even though in the beginning it might be a bit boring.

Day 1- Saturday, September 2, 2006

The perimeters of the garden are enclosed on the SW side by our cottage. The NW side is lined with several dwarf banana trees we planted when we first moved here. The NE side is bordered with a large palm, a Caribbean papaya and a Surinam cherry bush that has grown into a small tree.

The SE side is the walking path that ties the upper part of the property where our cottage sits with the car port and main house in the lower section. A large mango tree, another Surinam cherry, a small jaboticaba tree, a patch of yellow heliconia and a traveling palm draped with yellow passion fruit vines line up this last boundary.

Colin, the son of a friend of ours was contracted to bring two pickup loads of ripe compost available for the taking from the Hilo Transfer Station (aka da dump)

The garden area was mowed close to the ground and we mapped out the sites for the beds.

We built a large 8 x 4 bed for the tomatoes and basil and 7 beds that are 4x4 squares. Another area was heavily mulched for our new pineapple bed and we left the little fig where it was originally planted, since it finally decided to start producing fruit….it is now showing two figs!

Photo #1 - Anthony soaking the newspaper padding Bed #1 - (click on each photo for larger versions)

Since we decided it would be an organic garden, we did not use chemicals to get rid of weeds or grass inside the bed areas. Instead, we have been saving newspapers for a couple of months and lined the bottom inside of each bed with several thick layers of newspapers, then hosed them down to thoroughly soak them all the way through.

Colin filled each bed with as much mulch as they would hold and I went behind him with the hose to soak it down so that it would settle as much as possible.

Photo #2 - Colin spreading mulch

The use of mainly mulch in each bed will help with weed control. By planting each plant or seedling in pockets of soil carved out of the mulch, each bed is technically it’s own composting pile. The mixture of soil we are using is approximately equal amounts of organic dirt, pro-mix and garden soil.

After the seeds come up, we will side-dress with organic manure and afterwards side-dress again with soil since the original soil with which we started will have ideally decomposed somewhat. Later when our plants star producing and vegetables start to form, we will side-dress yet again with a weak manure mix or weak manure ‘tea’ to give it a good start-up kick.

Day 2 - Sunday, September 3, 2006

The mulch beds got another thorough soaking in the early morning. The trellis for the tomato beds were set up and beds #4 and #5 were planted.

Bed #4 - A rosemary plant in the center, 4 butternut squash already showing some fruit and a lemon thyme. Shortly I will plant some garlic cloves around to help control pests.

Bed #5 - Hawaiian Sugar Sweet #9A corn planted in bottomless paper cups. We also planted some Rubeckia daisy seeds for color. The bottomless little paper cups are placed in pockets in the mulch to which some of the planting soil mixture has been added. Fill the cup 3/4 with soil, add the seeds and cover with ¼ inch soil.

The purpose for using the paper cups (not waxed so they will eventually decompose into the soil) is to discourage slugs and cut worms from getting to the seedlings when they start sprouting.

Photo #3 -

Everything was given a good hosing with the mist setting on the hose.

Day 3- Monday, September 4, 2006

I trimmed the bottom portion of the Surinam cherry and to be able to weed and discovered hundreds of keiki (babies). I placed an offer on Freecycle big Island to share the seedlings and had a great response.

We planted beds #3 and #8 and moved some existing potted herbs from other areas of the yard to a permanent place in our new garden.

Bed #3 - two French tarragon plants. Batchelor Button seeds, mesclun mix, mizuna, lettuce mix and Okame (Oriental) spinach

Anthony leveled the mulch as much as possible and covered it with 1 inch of soil mix. He scattered the 4 different lettuce and greens seeds and topped them with ½ inch of the soil mix.

Bed #8 - Bush Beans and Snap Peas - two rows of each

Anthony dug 4 shallow trenches in the mulch and filled with 2 inches of soil. The seeds were planted at a depth of 1 inch and about 2 inches apart. The trenches were then covered with 1 inch of the soil.

All the beds were watered with the mister.

I also started on bed #2 by digging a trench along one edge, filling with soil and transplanting a few dozen small chive plants moved from another area in the yard. Along with the chives, I had a few pieces of marjoram, so I know that soon we will have some more marjoram scattered in this bed.

An old wheel barrow we had used as a planter was moved to the new garden area. The wheelbarrow contains more marjoram, a bit more chives, a lemon balm, a small rosemary and several lemon basil I was rooting.

Moved the Mexican tarragon to a corner of bed #6

Day 4 - Tuesday, September 5, 2006

Did no work in the garden except to water everything early in the morning. While running errands in Hilo we bought some Japanese egg plants, parsley, garlic chives, Roma tomatoes, zucchini plant and an Italian basil. The plants were left at the store with our name on them since we could not come straight back home and were reluctant to leave them in a hot car.

Day 5 - Wednesday, September 6, 2006

Raining off and on most of the day. A good nice soft rain which the garden is gratefully drinking up.Tomorrow we will pick up the plants left in town and will try to get them all in the ground.

……….and that is how my garden grows... today!

Aloha and welcome!

Aloha and welcome to my brand new blog!

I’m new to the world of blogging, and this will be an adventure for me as I try to share my world of food, gardening and cookbooks with you.

Why a blog you ask? Well, I have been reading other people’s blogs and the idea appeals to me as I feel it is a friendlier format than a website…I love to write about food, cooking and cookbooks…..and would like to hear back from you on these and other subjects.

I have become friends with several foodies who have written excellent cookbooks and would like to introduce them to you. Please visit the links to their work on these pages.

You can also check out my cookbook Tropical Taste , which is a compilation of articles that appeared for several years in the Hamakua Times

My cookbook collection is quite large and I hope from time to time to share reviews with recipes I have tried from each.

Gardening and using the fruits from the garden go hand in hand with the whole experience for me, so there will also be bits on gardening and using my garden's harvest.

As we start on our newest garden project, I hope to share with you our ideas, triumphs and (hopefully not many) mistakes….!

I hope to write in this ‘journal’ at least once a week and depending on the subject matter, maybe more often, so feel free to drop in at anytime….or better yet, why don’t you take a minute to sign up to receive notices when something new is added?

Our island is a very exciting place in which to live and I can’t wait to share it with you, so please, grab a cup of your favorite morning beverage and sit with me a while. I would love to ‘talk story’ with you so anytime you feel like sending a comment I would be pleased to hear from you…

Mahalo…..and let the adventure begin!

Sonia