Category Archives: Garden

Hole drilling with tractor augur 2026-07-12

Even the tractor augur took a while to dig that deep.

[Movie: Auguring (9.3M)]
Movie: Auguring (9.3M)

The drought means dry ground, hard to dig. I never would have had the patience to dig that deep by hand.

The hole is for a six-foot 4×4, to which I then screwed the 2×6 you see lying there. The 2×6 had ironically enough rotted off at the ground. It’s a mast to hold the electric fence wire from the fence charger up above the drive path.

Here’s a video snippet.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/796414230160200/

https://youtu.be/Pyw62CiPFyM?si=wbvFs9zW1Silsl7k

-jsq

Sugar cane in bed and rows to plant it 2026-03-22

Update 2026-03-26: Sugarcane planted 2026-03-24.

With a little shovel and hoe work, we got the insulating dirt off the sugarcane bed.

[Anna's father, Bob Gronko, Anna Stange, Gretchen Quarterman, sugar cane]
Anna’s father, Bob Gronko, Anna Stange, Gretchen Quarterman, sugar cane

Inside, the cane is in good shape, much of it already sprouting.

So I used the tractor to make rows to plant it. Continue reading →

Banana plants after the freeze 2025-11-23

Banana plants do this when frozen.

[Gretchen with her banana plants]
Gretchen with her banana plants

Not to worry. They’ll come back in the spring.

Meanwhile, Gretchen will lop their heads off with a machete. She says that makes them grow back better.

We did get some bananas to eat with breakfast.

-jsq

Two kinds of persimmons 2025-10-09

Evidently we’ve been mis-identifying our persimmons.

[Two kinds of persimmons]
Two kinds of persimmons

The prolific persimmon tree has acorn-shaped fruit like the red one here. Those are apparently Hachiya persimmons.

The younger tree with only a few fruit not yet ripe has flat-bottom persimmons like this yellow one. Those appear to be Fuyu persimmons.

See, for example, this GrubMarket blog post, Fuyu vs. Hachiya: How to Use California Persimmons.

They’re both varieties of the Oriental persimmon, Diospyros kaki.

-jsq

Okra flower and vegetable 2025-07-01

Ants open the blooms, and bees pollinate them.

Then we get okra pods.

[Okra bloom and pods]
Okra bloom and pods

Then we pick them and eat them.

No, we don’t know why the yellow leaves.

Also, some blooms don’t open and fall off.

Many snails lately; maybe that’s the problem.

-jsq