In the Garden

As there appears to be a longish break in the incessant rain (meaning rain just part of the day). we've made incursions into the garden areas.  My husband wants to move the entire manure pile to the garden (there has to be 20+ cubic yards of composted manure there) because it is causing water flow problems in the sheep stall in its present location. The thought is to layer it thick on the "new garden" - which is two years old - because the soil is not as good as we'd like it there. 

Those plans meant that I had to get out into the garden and pull up all the sweet potato slips and dig out any tubers.  Considering I started with 6-8 small slips from my niece, I was impressed with what I pulled - a 5 gallon bucket packed with slips and about 5 lbs of sweet potatoes.  I cut up about a pound of them this morning to throw in the crock pot with beans and chicken.  I had two or three different varieties of slips to begin with and some of them have crossbred so I had some really unique mixtures of the Hawaiian sweet potato and the Okinawan purple sweet potato.  I am looking forward to seeing how they taste tonight. 

We wanted to get the sheep into the taro bed, so my husband made a corridor of emergency fence to the fenced bed - a lot of the taro got smothered by the thick grass, which is a huge shame, but the sheep should clean out the grass and we can see what's left and get it pulled and replanted.  Taro and sweet potatoes are so great, because you can pull the roots and replant the tops (if you can resist eating them - I love both lau and sweet potato leaves). 

My husband also cleared out the area where he wants to put a bigger greenhouse, burning a lot of the brush he'd cut down.  We bought a huge load of six inch minus cinder to layer in the sheep stall for drainage, too.  Hopefully, all this work can lead to greater food production.  I think we're going to need it as gas prices rise.  85% of the food on island shelves, I've read, is imported from elsewhere.  Fuel increases mean food cost increases so the more I can grow, the better it is for us. 

I just wish there were more hours in a day.  Maybe if we put lights in the greenhouses I can spend more hours out there after work.