Tomatoes coming in

Our 21(?) tomato plants are starting to produce nicely.  Here's most of what we've gathered so far.  We've spent some time tying up the vines to the T posts, since they're splaying out everywhere!

Cacao sprouts

After some time in a high humidity, high temperature environment, the sprouts are growing!  We try to keep it around 70% humidity and 70-80°F.

We use a fan and grow light during the day, a reptile enclosure humidifier as needed, a heating pad occasionally, a temperature and humidity monitor from SensorPush.  We mist + water twice a day.

When we first planted them, we mixed up a high drainage mix of 50% Perlite and 50% potting soil (kids helped).  Initially, we covered them with Spanish moss to help keep things moist.

Sprouting cacao seeds!

Lots of potential chocolate trees!

Got cacao/cocoa(?) pod from Montoso gardens in Puerto Rico via priority mail :)

Garden status early may

Chocolate Making Supplies

We learned how to make great chocolate from scratch from chocolatealchemy.com

We've got a special occasion coming up, so I bought enough cacao beans (20 lb!) to make several batches (shipping was expensive).  I'll try to post pictures of the process and/or product(s) later.

Grape Trellis

Yesterday, we started building a 2-line grape trellis from t posts.  The top line is ready, but we need more parts to pull the slack in the bottom line.  The line is coated steel cable.  When complete, we'll try to train our grapes onto the lines.  We decided against growing them on the fence because grapes need to have old branches removed each year, which would be a pain to pull out of fencing.

Garden status

We have several peanuts sprouting (top, near the white rocks).  Our pea plants are mostly doing ok, though we're still waiting for the lentils to sprout (in the trays). The strawberries are doing well and the lettuce keeps making good lunch material for the missus... We're starting to see Bermuda grass coming up through the weed fabric and into the cups :(