Photography by Guhui Lin

After around 6 months, we believe it is about time to see at least a couple of asparagus shoots.  Sure enough, the shoots are blossoming and will soon be part of our salads and daily meal!

After the planning as to just where the slab will be placed, the form must be made.  With the materials of the 1X4 inch boards and a level, one can be assured that the final product will be flat and fairly close to being level.  The next step was to spread some loose gravel in the area where the cement was to be placed and tamp it down to form a fairly flat, firm base.  Then comes the mixing and pouring of the cement.  As there was no wheel barrel available, the cement was  mixed in a large pot with the use of a power drill and a hoe.  Pouring the cement was no issue as long as it was loose enough (had sufficient water content).  After the pour came the smoothing of the top,  as a final step a 1/8 th pre-cut piece of wood was wedged into the poured slab.  The reason for the piece of wood was to prevent cracking after cured. With the placement of the piece of wood, there was no need to use a concrete circular saw blade to generate a spacing after curing.  The 1/8 th piece of wood should eventually rot away.

Okra nutrition benefits:
http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/okra.html

At the end of each season, we save some seed pods so we are ready for the next season.  Okra for the salad will grow very quickly after flowering.  Harvest is basically once a week when having 6 plants producing. This is a good addition for every salad.

The rainy season has finally arrived.  With that, sweet potato leaves are  growing quite well. Also, the more you cut it the more they grow.

Sweet potato leaves are extremely nutritious and a tasty green leafy vegetable. It is another green that one can grow and eat rather than spending money on spinach.

Nutritional benefits:
http://ifitandhealthy.com/eating-healthy-sweet-potato-leaves/

How to cook:
http://nymag.com/restaurants/recipes/inseason/sweet-potato-leaves-2011-9/

The irrigation pump needed new gaskets and seals after 10 years of use. In order to check repair work needed to devise a test setup which consisted of mounting pump on wood base, wiring pump through a test 220 Vac set up to a portable generator.  Water was then pumped out of two 25 gallon rain barrels.  In order to keep up with the volume of water being pumped out, a second pump connected to the well was filling the rain barrel.  Results of test, no leaks. Pump is now in storage as a backup to replace the one currently being used when it fails.

Water from rain barrel was used to water garden. There was in fact a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!

There is nothing better than the taste of fresh broccoli for home made salad.

More information on organic garden: http://www.jnlyman.com/blog/CompostBin.htm

Great for colorful dinner salad, red, green and yellow mild peppers.