Christmas Chocolate!

We've made some significant progress in the area of chocolate presentation and candy making.  In this shot are truffles, toffee, almond bark, and peanut butter cups.  These are for various friends and family we're seeing or sending to this year.  Shout out to http://www.cocoasupply.com for having great prices on beans and cocoa butter, that let us afford to make somewhere around 25lbs of chocolate this last month.  In fact, the chocolate pictured is only a portion of what we've made so far - the fancy looking part.

During this, we've made some new chocolate recipies and tried new things.  It's been a great chance to experiment.  I plan to write up our recipes later as a separate post.  For now, have a merry Christmas, happy holidays, and a great New Year!

Peanut picking

We got maybe 1/2gal of peanuts in shell when we pulled the plants out of the shed today, after drying for a month or two.  We skipped some nuts that looked moldy or bad, since I've read that peanuts can attract a certain mold that is carcinogenic if eaten O.o

I started shelling them, but it's taking a while...

Pecan harvest

The pan is 1 night of pecan harvesting (~20min) by 2 people.  It seems we only harvest at night because that's when we have time to wander around in the yard - outside looking at the ground with flashlights. :P

The bags are from previous nights this year.

Bring on the pink

We bought a nice LED grow light (Phlizon 'Newest 600W', though only uses ~110W) to supplement our cacao trees.  It's really bright and I'm optimistic that it will help our plants grow well even with shorter winter days.

One problem, though, is that the pink glow is quite visible, even from the street.  I have preemptively told the police department to call me if they have questions, as grow lights like this are not usually used for cacao plants.

On another note, it seems our heating system is keeping up in the inner greenhouse area, which is good!  This is our first winter with a greenhouse, so there's been a lot of work/anxiety on my part trying to get it ready and tuned properly.  I understand now why people use kits and predesigned greenhouse systems.

More greenhouse work

We carefully added a small space heater on a dedicated 12 gauge extension cord (and 2 smoke detectors), plastic shower curtains, an interior roof, the grow light we've been using inside, and other things to keep the cacao plants happy.  For a little while, we had mold in this area, so we added an above table fan to keep air moving well.  The fan under the table blows air over several very large bags of water, which we hope are working as a thermal mass to keep temperatures more stable.

We also moved a bunch of plants (banana, dragonfruit, strawberry, pineapple) into the outer area or the greenhouse to help protect them from upcoming frost this winter.  It seems like we're getting closer to keeping things alive this winter; wish us luck!

First plants in greenhouse!

Today, we built a platform for our cacao plants and moved the outdoor or into the green house.  We've got the misting system from before, a small fan, and an old phone turned WiFi camera.  I'm excited to see how things grow in here.  I'm also trying to figure out exactly how we'll keep this warm in the winter, though we have some ideas.

Indoor cacao doing well

The indoor plants are doing really well, benefiting from consistent temperatures and regular watering.

In the front is a Cinnamon tree we ordered online.

Rectangle watermelon!

We thought our watermelon was all done this season, but it had one last surprise!  While pulling out peanut and tomato plants, I noticed something green in one of the cinder blocks.  Growing inside of 2 blocks (top and bottom) was our last watermelon!

I broke the blocks apart to get it out and washed and cut it before this picture.  It tastes ok, though maybe a bit old, since we're not sure how long it's been there.

I may try this on purpose in the future with a smaller, sweeter watermelon variety.  Pixel watermelon FTW :)

Peat moss cross section

In preparation to move the blueberries into large grow bags and away from our house, I pulled away the blocks and found that peat moss holds together very well after some time.  I found lots of insects and even a little gecko in there.  I also found some yellow mold that I hope won't become a problem...

Greenhouse conversion

Some friends graciously spent 9 hours with me replacing a section of our metal shed roof with clear pvc roofing that I hope will let in enough light to make cacao and our other winter-sensitive plants happy.  There's still a lot of work to do in here for insulation, termite control (it's an old pole-barn-type shed with a gravel floor), and adding electricity for lighting, fans, and some of the heating.  I'm excited to try my first winter with a greenhouse!

Hanging harvest part 2

The rest of the peanuts.  I hope any pesticides used in the shed that stuck to the hanging bar don't get on the peanuts, though I'm comforted a bit by the fact that they have a shell...

Hanging harvest part 1

A bit less than half the peanuts, up drying in the shed.  They need to dry to avoid a dangerous carcinogenic mold that likes to grow on peanuts...

This is why peanuts need hilling

Several of our peanut plants had a lot of shoots(?) reaching down to the ground, but never made it because we didn't add extra soil around them.  Thankfully the shoots near the base made peanuts, but the hanging shots are a lost opportunity for extra peanuts.

This year, I meant to add extra dirt, but wasn't sure when to do it.  An online source says to do it when the plants get 6 inches tall.  This is also a good reason to plant peanuts in rows instead of checkerboard.

Peanut harvest

The plants are yellowing, so it's time to harvest our peanut crop!  We've tried some smaller scale plantings before, but hopefully we get enough for peanut butter this time...

Garden status late September (before work)

As harvesting has slowed, so have our weeding efforts.  The grass is currently winning the battle in multiple beds.  However, today we're going to start working on cleaning things up in preparation for fall and winter.  If we're lucky, we'll get some wheat planted in the main bed.

Chocolate Bananas

I removed the roofing from our shed overhang today in preparation for our shed to greenhouse conversion project (yay!).  However, this sent the temperature in the tiny greenhouse skyrocketing over 107 F!  I got the mister running continuously which shaved off about 9 degrees, but the temp started rising again!

I've heard that some farms use banana trees to shade cacao trees, so I'm trying that now!  Banana and chocolate, together like they should be ;)

First mold :/

We had the fan off on our indoor greenhouse more than usual lately.  As a result, we've got some mold.  Since it's on the soil instead of the leaves, it's probably not a huge deal, but we're going to take some measures just in case.  The garden employees suggested corn meal and using a fan.  We've got the fan and light on an auto timer now to keep things consistent.

Cinnamon tree!

We bought a cinnamon tree on Amazon.com from wellspring gardens.  It's pretty small for now, but hopefully some time with the cacao trees in the indoor greenhouse will help it out.

Cacao fertilizer time

It's time for the first fertilizer for the cacao trees!  I'm using 1 tsp of slow release fertilizer for each blue cup, or 3 tsp for the much larger pots.  For now, we're only fertilizing the indoor plants, in case this burns them or something.  Hopefully it goes well!

Water from thin air!

After a recent A/C emergency, we had some work done including rerouting our condensation line to go directly out of the house.   The water that goes through this line is whatever collects on the coils in our indoor air handler unit. What's neat is that we can pull water directly out of the air just by using our A/C!  In an emergency, this could possibly be boiled for drinking water.  Or, for the ultimate made-on-site PBJ sandwich, we could distill it and even have our *water* produced locally.

On a hot and humid day, our A/C pulled out several gallons of water.  Pictured is a single day (morning to night) of accumulation.  My estimate is 7-12 gallons.

I feel a bit like Luke Skywalker on Tatooine in Star Wars Episode IV

Sugarcane planting

We recently found a place to buy sugarcane (Hana World market in Austin) and discovered what seems to be a not-terribly-expensive sugarcane press (~$200) on Amazon.  So, we decided to give it a try!  Planting is pretty simple - cut up the can to leave one or more joints on each piece, and plant in a trench.  Our kids helped, which was fun for them.  We hope to see sprouts in under a month, some growth before it dies back at the next frost, then a real harvest sometime next summer/fall.

 

The goal is to produce a sugar we can use in chocolate production and PBJ jam.  We've tried sugar beets before, but I'm hoping sugarcane is easier to process...

Cacao repotting and small outdoor greenhouse

Our cacao trees have been growing up and getting taller, so it's time to move them out of their tiny cups.  Following the advice on the Montoso gardens site, we moved them to larger pots (large cups in our case) and used a ~ 1:1:1 mix of perlite, compost, and peat moss. (picture only shows perlite and compost in the mixing bin)

We also needed to split out the plants to another little greenhouse, since they wouldn't fit.  We decided to try putting some of them outside.  We looked around for the right location (the mini greenhouse gets to 135F in all-day full sun!) and settled on a corner under an overhang near our shed.  The goal is to give the greenhouse full sun for either the morning or evening, where the sunlight will be less intense and the heat less of an issue.  Also, we've set up an automatic watering system with 2 misters to keep the humidity high and take the edge off the outside temperature.  100+ degree F temperature might be a challenge for cacao, as it seems they're not normally grown in weather that hot.

As before, we're using our SensorPush humidity + temperature sensor (the tiny box in the top corner of the greenhouse) to track the environment carefully.  It really helps us profile the changes through the day to help keep our plants happy :)

Garden status late July

The tomatoes have stopped producing so much, the peanuts are getting large, and we've already harvested a couple of watermelons!  The watermelon plant is taking over everything!  It's climbing the fence, blanketing the yard corner, and sneaking into the strawberry bed!  There are several more watermelons growing, including one that's hanging on the fence! (look to the right in the picture)

The other plants seem to be doing about as well as usual, though the (relatively new) banana plants put out new (large) leaves about once a week, or possibly once every few days.  It's been pretty hot here, so we water every day, sometimes twice per day for some plants, to try to keep things alive during 100+ degree F afternoons.

Big leaves, all up!

The cacao plants are getting bigger; we're  almost ready to move them into larger pots and split their greenhouse.

Peanut flowers

The peanut plants have grown bigger and I'm starting to see some small yellow flowers on them.  Here's hoping they're able to get pollinated and "fruit".

Banana plants!

I found a couple of large banana plants at the nursery today and couldn't resist.  They cost $30 each.  Gardener says they'll produce fruit if we can keep them from freezing in the winter.  If we can't keep them from freezing, then they'll come back but not produce fruit.  I don't know what variety they are but gardener says they should be self fertile.

We go through a lot of bananas at home, so I hope these produce something good to eat.  If not, at least we'll get some good experience with banana plants, which seem to be hardier tropical plants than cacao.

Plants at attention!

The cacao plants are picking up their leaves.  It's odd that they start out pointing down, but I think they'll all be pointing out soon.

Before picture - cardboard sheet mulching

Here is a 'before' picture from January showing the paper, soil, cardboard layering we used to try to amend the soil and kill the weeds.  Over time, we added oat seeds in too as a green mulch.  They sprung up well, but died because they couldn't get through the cardboard and get water.  Note the T posts used to hold the cardboard down in fairly high winds.

There's also an in-between picture from February here:
http://pixelfarmsalpha.blogspot.com/2018/02/cover-oats-sprouting.html

Clover prep for wheat

We finally decided it was time to till in our cardboard mulch experiment in our (small) field.  The kids had a lot of fun playing in the mud, since we had to spray it down and mix it up to keep the paper from going everywhere.  The muddy part (pictured) was several days ago.  Tonight, we all went out and spread clover seeds to grow as a cover crop / green manure.  The ground here has tons of clay, so we're trying to prepare it as much as we can to be a successful wheat field later this year.

Suddenly, watermelon!

So, somehow we missed these and thought our giant watermelon plants were fruitless.  Today, I looked around the back and found 5 watermelon, with one almost grocery store sized!

We'll let them grow for a bit before harvesting them.

Outside the safe haven

We pulled out 2 cacao seedlings to see if they can survive in the much drier environment outside the little greenhouse.  Time will tell, but it would be nice to not have to baby these so much...

Big Cacao Leaves

The leaves are getting big now, probably over 4 inches on some plants.  What's strange is that they're all hanging down!

I hypothesize this is an adaptation to help them on a littered jungle floor to pull their leaves up through the brush before opening them on top.  Whether that's true or not, I think some of them are starting to angle their leaves out some, so they probably won't stay like this for long.

We're preparing another little greenhouse like this one so we can split the group up and give them more space.  They'll also need larger cups soon!

Tiny cacao leaves

The cacao plants are growing up and getting real leaves!

Mid-June Garden Status

Status post for mid-June 2018.  Our two apple trees (a Fuji and an Anna apple) are planted and seem to be doing well.  Our tomatoes are producing fairly well, though we tied them up a bit late, so they look scraggly.  Peanut plants are getting larger.  They used to have flowers but now don't - this worries me since that's happened before, but we'll have to see how it goes.  Our watermelon plants (3 of them) are going insane, flowing off the garden bed and several feet out into the yard.  We have at least 3 watermelons so far, with the largest about the size of a large tomato (?).  Our strawberry plants (forgot a picture) have been branching out, the lettuce and snap peas have died off.  The tiny lentil plants are still growing, but not making much progress.  The grapes are a mixed bag - some are attached to the wire, while others haven't made it yet.  Blackberries are doing well, but need some grass trimming done soon.  In the back yard, our large Pecan tree is putting on leaves, but, despite us hearing about this being a fruiting year for pecans, we can't see any signs of fruit just yet.  The blueberry patch is doing ok in the dedicated peat moss bed.  Finally, the cacao seeds are rising up and starting to get tiny leaves inside.  I think we only have 2 that haven't picked up their seed heads so far.

Sorry for the wall of text; I write these in a hurry these days....