It’s been a hot DRY summer … three months of no rain kind of dry. We’re fortunate that we have water from the Hamakua ditch to help keep the farm hydrated. But being a household dependent on rain for its personal use, it’s been a stretch.
This summer, we’ve seen a lot of plants fruiting well. Our mangoes are doing really well, the best they’ve ever done. We have a number of varieties: ahping, rapoza, keitt, mapulehu, r2d2, manzanilla, carrie, hayden, and fairchild, We have a few new varieties that are still too young to fruit, but all our larger trees are doing well. We’re still a few weeks away from real harvesting, but have had a couple to sample, and they’re delicious.
Our nectarine tree had numerous fruit on it this year. They were small, bite size, but we’re hopeful that this is the start of more productive years. We have two peaches on our tree. We had about five to begin with, but the rest dropped off early. Nectarines, peaches, and other stone fruits need a frost or chill to fruit, so it’s sometimes difficult to get these to fruit here. We live at 800 feet elevation, which adds to the difficulty, but it was a chilly winter this year, so I think that helped. Not that two peaches is a great harvest, but hey it’s better than none.
Our fig trees are going off, especially the white kadota. Usually the birds get to them before we can, but we have so many that this hasn’t been a problem. We’ve also tied reflective tape on the branches to help keep the birds away, and it seems to be doing the trick. We’ve been drying them, but I’ll think I’ll make some jam this weekend as well, just to try something different. 
We’re going to have a lot of dragon fruit this year. I thank the bees who have been busy pollinating all the flowers in the farm.
We’re also going to have a ton of avocados this year. We have 16 different varieties on our property, and most of the trees are loaded. We’re still about a month or so out from first harvest, but we’ll be taking these to market for sure. Our goal of year round avocados was almost met. The last avocados we harvested were a little over a month ago. With the number we’re going to have this year, I’m going to have to come up with some new recipes.
Our breadfruit trees are loaded with ulu. Not quite ready to pick, but we’ll have plenty soon. We also have lychee, oranges, lemons, tangerines, and bananas all fruiting as well. Our Anna apple tree has even given us a nice batch of apples this year – we’ve never had this many before. 
The only thing that isn’t doing well are the pineapples. We have a few, but not as many as years past.
And coffee, we’re going to have a lot of coffee. We’re just starting to pick. I feel like we just finished last season, and now we’re already into this year’s! We’ll be heavy picking in September/October this year. Thank goodness my parents are coming, they’re the best pickers around!
We’re excited for the next couple of months, and if all continues well, you’ll be seeing our produce at the local market!
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