Its that time again, the time to write a blog for you all from our remote island, Uoleva. However this time its a little different. We dont know when we will see anyone again…its a time of uncertainty here and worldwide. What are we doing here to deal with this situation? Not alot…this is an island peeps! An island in the middle of the South Pacific. Our borders have been closed and we have been cut off from the rest of the world. Is it bad? Is it awful? Are we starving? Are we going insane? The answer to those questions is NO, NO, NO, & KIND OF hahahahahahaha.

Before we start i just wanted to travel down memory lane to before we opened Kitesurf Tonga and give you a peek of how we made our dream possible on this little island . This video was created in 2014 by a very special friend of ours. Enjoy! We love you xxxx 

https://youtu.be/zm20egpaN5Q

 

Gardens

The question is just how sustainable on our little island can we become whilst this COVID 19 pandemic takes over the world? Can we actually build our gardens up so that we will never need to buy from another vegetable seller again? Probably not but boy oh boy we are going to give it our best shot! So for those of you that have visited us recently are probably aware of our new gardens. Well we have gone above and beyond those gardens and started new fabulous ones also. We have even finally irrigated our gardens! Would you believe no more endless hose holding each day at 4.30pm!!! Woohooo modern technology at its best guys! As a result of all our fine work we have started selling our veges!


House Garden

Fanifo Lofa Kitesurf Tonga Sweet Potato
Sweet Potato
Kitesurf Tonga Hydroponics
Hydroponics
Kitesurf Tonga Pumpkins
Pumpkin
Kitesurf Tonga Papaya
Stash of baby Papaya
House Garden
House Garden
Poor Lemon tree keeps getting trashed by cyclones on our remote island escape

We have the old garden next to our house, it has a hydroponics tent that grows mostly peppers, chillies, a few types of lettuce and corriander. The old garden has also been home to banana, lime and papaya trees since we first started building here, 6 years ago. These poor trees have been through some very rough weather. The first couple of years they did not get touched by the cyclones but for the last three years these poor trees have taken an utter beating. They are holding on but we are slowly but surely moving them away from this area until we get our fao tree hedge up and growing to block the nasty north western winds. This old garden also has the pumpkin vines that have been going for many years. Pumpkins are sometimes produced which is great, and sometimes not, which is annoying hahahahhaa..

Man Cave Garden

The man cave garden gets destroyed every cyclone season so we have decided to only put things in there that we grow for the season..except one part of it that i am going to use for herbs only…this part will be sealed off in the cyclone season. We are planting peas, broad beans, cucumbers, gourd, beetroot, rocket, lettuce, carrots, red onions, broccoli, bok choy, spring onion, green cabbage, red cabbage. These have all just sprouted and we hope will give us much joy in about 3 months lol.

The herb portion has fennel, dill, parsley, sweet basil, thai basil, corriander, thyme, oregano, and sage. I am hoping for lots of plentiful herbs. We actually have basil, fennel, corriander and parsley planted in a few spots around the place just in case.

Man Cave Garden
Seedlings getting bigger!
Kitesurf Tonga Gardens
Mr and Mrs Man Cave Garden

Tomato gardens

Glen has 2 dedicated tomato gardens…the first one we discovered is full of cherry tomatoes only DOH! hahahahahha and the second one has odd species of tomato plus a jalapeno plant to ward off evil tomato insects. This is our first time paying such attention to tomatoes so fingers crossed that these gardens produce enough!

Kitesurf Tonga Tomato Gardens
Tomato Gardens
Tomato Garden
Baby Tomatoes

Back Tent Garden 1

Well well well….glen got busy and put another tent up in this garden to germinate all the seeds that we want to grow. The idea is to grow them in the tent and then move them after wards. This has been working well. The rest of the garden is magnificent!!! It grows all our capsicums and eggplants. And holy hell does it grow them!!! WE produce ALOT, so much so as i mentioned we had to start selling them. Capsicums are well under way in this garden as are courgettes. YUM! We have wild ginger and more carrots growing also.

Back Tent Garden
Peppers and Aubergines are now huge bushes
Wild Ginger
Peppers
Fennel
Cucumbers
Pumpkin
Lemon Balm Mint
Peppers
Capsicum
Courgette

Back Tent Garden 2

Well if one wasn’t enough we are putting in a second hydroponics system in our newest garden out the back. Glen will be growing the hydro outdoors till summer time then he will cover it with the tent. We are trialling this for the first time so will let you know how it goes. Anyway this new area is massive…the fence is done and it looks like a yard we could keep horses in hahahhahaha…but our primary vege is going to be CORN! I am so excited…it takes 3 months to get the corn from when we plant it so we need to get a hurry on. I am excited….wait did i say that already? oh well…

Sorry i have just realised that i have been rambling again. Thats what happens when you are on an island all by yourselves. This iso time gives you alot of quiet time so any chance to talk, i do! What else have we done…maybe i should just list the things we have done instead of a sub heading for each otherwise this will be the longest blog in recorded history.

Bananas in the back tent garden

Other Iso Jobs

We have nearly completed the new outdoor eating area, new indoor and outdoor lighting in the fales, new kitchen in our house, new office and day bed in our house, sanded common fale dining table and varnished, sanded coconut splashback in the kitchen and varnished, sanded old extension table and varnished, sanded all shelving in fales and varnished including sink vanities, collected shell decorations for each fales, replaced all fale & house steps, and i have forgotten the rest…I am sure there is more…The weather has been great for the past while….windy windy windy…so we have been making the most of it. But i must say today the temperature is down to 23degrees! COLD BRRRRRRRR

Lastly lets look at our promo video to get you all frothing!

https://vimeo.com/181726688

Okay till next time everyone…lets hope we see someone soon?? otherwise the whole resort may become a plantation HAHAHAHAHAHAH