March 27: Three days later:
Full Article…Author: Roland
New Shoots
It occurred to me today that counting new shoots might be a good way to monitor the flowering potential of the vanillery. I was inspecting the vines and thinking about ways to quantify the success of each planting. For each cutting we planted, most sprouted one new shoot, a few more than one. Enough time has passed so that some of the original new shoots have thrown off new shoots themselves. Since each node of the vanilla plant can either grow a new shoot or flower once (if at all), it is necessary to keep the vines constantly growing. Maintaining a good number of growing tips means more potential flowering locations for the next season. First year vines are smooth and soft to the… (read)
Full Article…First vanilla buds of the year
While the first vanilla pods of the season are coming in, the first flower buds are also appearing. Some of these spurts of new growth will result in new vines, branching off of the mature vines, but most of these will form the flowering racemes. The early spring is when a lot of new growth occurs, and the vanilla farmer (me) watches with some apprehension as the flowering racemes appear (or not!) determining the size of the new season’s crop. In a week or so, the morning ritual of the hand pollination will begin. The flowering season of 2014 was light for us, several areas never went to flower, so the 2015 harvest season will be small. One of the things we’ve… (read)
Full Article…Vanilla Seedlings
Last year, I noticed a couple of very small vanilla shoots in the bed under one of my vanilla trellises. Looking closer, I realized that these were clearly the almost miraculous appearance of vanilla seedlings! I tried several internet searches to find out: was this common, had other vanilla growers reported this? I found no reports, nothing about finding or successfully producing a vanilla seedling or that a vanilla seed had germinated naturally. All I found was that it could be done artificially using a general technique for starting orchid seeds called “flasking,” which is basically creating sterile conditions for an orchid seed to grow. And yet, here they were, 3 vanilla seedlings that had started spontaneously in the mulch under some of my vanilla plants.… (read)
Full Article…Hand-Cured Vanilla Beans and Extract from Kauaʻi
Today we’re rolling out our first products for sale! Over the years, we’ve sold these beans through friends, at local farmer’s markets and to local culinary professionals, and though we always intended to make our beans widely available, we always seemed to be too busy to make that happen. Well, now it’s time to offer our unique product to everyone on the internet. Our first offerings will be very simple: Grade A and Grade B whole vanilla beans and 2‑ounce bottles of our homemade Kauaʻi rum vanilla extract.
Full Article…Vanilla Flavor and Edible Geography
Anyone interested in cuisine who has poked around the Internet has learned that there is a staggeringly huge number of food blogs out there! I’m certainly in favor of it in general, it’s made information about foods and their preparation accessible. You can type in the name of an ingredient or preparation and get an encyclopedia of information and opinions…not to mention photography ranging from too-beautiful to “what were they thinking?” but you can learn a lot. I certainly do. Part of my reason for posting is to present an interesting food blog I came across in my research, Edible Geography, which is blowing me away in it’s thoroughness and energy in exploring a wide range of food-related topics. Looking for anything… (read)
Full Article…Vanillery Construction
The Vanillery has been Built!
On APRIL 23, 2014 our vanillery was completed. The 20′ x 50′ shadehouse was constructed with the help of jonathan jay, Roland Barker, Lisa Parker and Dave Kasimoff. In the cool, moist mulch of the trellis rows, the vanilla cuttings are slowly sprouting root-like filaments that will anchor the vines and draw in moisture and nutrients. For now, they are protected from the sun and kept moist while they grow in to their new home, the vanillery.
Full Article…