Beans, plus status on the fish, chickens, bananas...

In my last seed order I'd figured to try dry beans again. I'd like to grow beans and make chili, I think it'd be cool. So I ordered some, calypso. I planted about a dozen, and each plant produced two, maybe three beans. Yep, that's it. Not very exciting.

Well, last weekend I planted about 50 of the home grown beans, and every single one sprouted. So yesterday I took the seedlings and transplanted them interspersed with the taro in the new taro bed. My figuring is that the beans are about a 3 month crop, and will fix nitrogen in the soil. Taro is a seven to eleven month crop, and can use that nitrogen. Because of the way the taro hulis are planted, with the corm at the bottom (at about 8 inches down), and the beans planted pretty much at the top, I figure it'll be a while before the two start interfering with each other. By then maybe I'll have harvested. At least, that's the plan...

Fish are still doing well. I have at least one 1.5" long tilapia in there, plus a lot of fry, though I'm not sure if the fry are guppies or tilapia. Since I started putting the taro hulis in tank with them the water has stayed amazingly clear.

Chickens are big and getting bigger. In three weeks they've eaten about 25 pounds of chick feed. It's pretty amazing. They're much bigger, and uglier. I think they've been pecking each other too. I've almost got the first of two chicken coops done.

Did I mention that the chickens provide a LOT of manure?

The bananas are still alive. One of the banana plants lost it's leaves, but now has grown new, bigger ones. I think I need to feed them. Unfortunately the remnants of my sweet potatoes seem to be doing just great, which I don't want them to do. I don't want to have to dig out sweet potatoes between the roots of the banana plants.

I've been getting tomatoes from the cherry tomato plants, and a few from the heirloom plant. Nothing to go crazy over, but it's nice, as tomatoes are incredibly expensive here.

The taro beds I set up, both the scenic one in the front yard and the "working" bed in the back, seem to be doing well.

I've got this idea for sweet potatoes. I'm thinking to find some sort of big, maybe 3ft diameter, 3ft tall tubing, in cross sections, put it down, fill it with dirt, newspaper, shredded cardboard, and plant the sweet potatoes in that. They seem to really like that kind of thing. I've just got to find the containers. We'll see.