Hawaii Growers

Plumeria's looking good!

Thanks!

I didn't want to post my plumeria pictures here. Figured that you guys would laugh at me!






Cheers,
Mo

Mohican said:

Thanks!

I didn't want to post my plumeria pictures here. Figured that you guys would laugh at me!






Cheers,
Mo

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Nah it's good. They look so different grown over there. The leaves are huge on that girl!

Sun Farmer said:

I have a question for anybody that knows. It kind of relates to the subject except I live in southern Florida where it rarely freezes. If I started a regular photo flower plant, say white widow right now at what time would that plant flower? It wouldn't actually grow and not flower until next fall would it?

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Howzit Sun Farmer? If you put plants out now they will go through a quick vegetative phase (around 2 or 3 weeks) and go straight to flower. They will be finished long before next fall, more like December or January.

kaloconnection said:

I was wrong it was actually a 7 gallon, granted the roots are guaranteed growing though the bottom of the pot its still pretty impressive.
Here's the pics from Instagram

and the caption: "I've seen some crazy things up here in the emerald triangle and this is another towards the top of the list... 7' tall extremely healthy extremely bushy plant in a 7 gallon pot hahaha and look close it's starting to bud fat!! He's got it on a constant flow drip.... Lol wtf right?"

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Looks like we should be loading up on 7 gallon smartpots and drip systems, ha ha ha. Thanks for sharing kalo.

Hey Mohican, looks like you got things set up pretty good over there. How many plants do you get to grow in your county? And what are you going to use for the greenhouse roof?

well gang, might as well drop your quiksilvers, and grab your ankles. We are gonna get reemed once again by our state polititcians. Cause even though they claim to be Democrats, they are to the right of most California Republicans! These lawmakers need to grow some papaya size balls! AS the legislative season approaches Hawaii once again are we gonna be teased & left broken hearted once again by the cowards who supposedly represent us?

So, how do WE CHANGE the LAWS? Right now it's an up hill fight. But being that this is a democratic controlled state. I gotta ask why Hawaii doesn't allow "Ballot Initiatives"? ,in our state? You guys know what that is, right? Well, in case you don't. It's were volunteers go out and collect signatures to have their issue put on the coming election ballot. All democratic states have this law except Hawaii, and maybe one other democratic state. Why do you suppose our lawmakers won't allow it? Could it be that they are afraid that we would make them irrelevant thru controlling our own destiny? Most of the state now that have either medical cannabis or recreational cannabis laws in place got there thru "ballot initiatives"! So we must find a way to have this part of our law. We now have a Democratic controlled everything politically in Hawaii. Yet our politicians have "spanish peanuts", for balls.
All I'm saying is get ready for major disappointment once again, especially if you're waiting on the next guy to get the ball rolling. We got to move on it now gang!
http://releaf.co/?p=6046

Are you allowed to have recalls of politicians? That will grow them some balls very quickly

Also while I'm talking about medical marijuana. There is another subject that I'd like to touch on, especially if you live on either Kauai or the Big Island? To me the single greatest thing for us to survive as a race is keeping our food system going. But we need checks & balances too. Without them we, our children, and their children could pay the price in the form of food that doesn't even resemble the food our grandparents use to grow in their garden. Both Kauai & the Big Island are about to go head to head agains the likes of Monsanto & biotech companies that have opened up shop in the all to easy to corrupt,Hawaii. For as little as $4k each, plenty of our lawmakers have sold out to these companies. AS it stands our local grocery stores are loaded with processed foods and not much else!
Are you aware that 90% of our GMO Papaya are sold rich here in Hawaii. Seems nobody else wants them. Understand this, it wasn't some papaya disease that almost wiped out the Papaya Industry here, but the GMO Papaya! That's right. The price of GMO papaya is so cheap it killed off half of the Papaya Farms on the Big Island! The majority of the rest joined up with the GMO Papaya. WE have a real fight on or hands coming up. Plus, on top of that 80% of the watersheds in America are stressed right now. Meaning our water supply is in real jeopardy too! But that writing has been on the wall for some time now as Coke & Pepsi already are in the process of building plants that will make water. I forgot the term for that

If you liver on Oahu and really have no ties to there. I'd seriously consider moving ASAP to one of the outer island so you can grow your own food! Please gang, don't give in to the Biotech nonsense these companies are spewing in the media. Cause biotech is very dangerous to our health ,and the last thing we need is our ohana's becoming mutant warriors!?

Aloha everyone. It's great to see everyone still jammin'... I post here today in hopes of encountering someone with knowledge pertaining to building a layer of soil over rock/red cinder/pahoehoe rock (although I have SO many more questions concerning native Hawaiian habitat...). Soon I will have an acre in Puna to pursue my sustainable agriculture/soil building/plant feasting dreams and I wanted to seek out those whom may be familiar with this kind of thing so that I may learn more from them.

The property has a rough, rocky terrain and the front/back yard is covered in about a foot of red cinder (underneath which are more rocks/lava rocks). A good portion of the property has a pahoehoe flow covering it and everything surrounding the back/front yard is heavy vegetation (couple 20-40 ft Albizia, waiwi forests, few Ohia and overall dense vegetation).

My question is, where does one get started? I'll do most clearing myself (using everything for compost/mulch except native Hawaiian plants, which I plan on keeping) but the big Albizia pose problems. They are growing in a thin layer of soil and a D9 (or any vehicle, for that matter) won't be able to get to the trees from the road without either falling in a 6 foot ditch or climbing a 5 foot rock shelf.

Above all of that, I'm looking for ways to speed up the composting processes that are going to be taking place. From BIM solutions, chipping the wood, biochar burning, to consistent turning of piles- I'm trying to literally build my own soil and your help would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully one day I may share the fruits of my labor with everyone and may that fruit be delectable and nutritious...

Try some U of HI agriculture websites. They should have some good soil ideas. Sounds like you may need to do some road building

Start with some truck loads of free mulch from the county dump. Mushroom waste from the Hamakua mushroom farm is also cheap. Other than straight up buying soil, I think composting and using IMO's/BIM's are the fastest way to build topsoil. My friend runs the natural farming hawaii website and they have free classes in Hilo a couple times a month. Good place to learn from others and get some advice.

I've also seen someone selling soil on craigslist in Mountain View that wasnt too expensive. I would just start with several raised garden beds instead of trying to build soil on the entire acre. At least you can start producing food while waiting for your compost to finish.

Good luck man, pursuing the dream!

Both awesome responses. Thank you kindly.

University of Hawaii has all kinds of great articles, studies, links etc. that I've been reading through for the past month or so! Great suggestion!

That free mulch sounds like a great deal if I could find out where the mulch came from. Mushroom waste also sounds top notch. I may end up buying a bit of soil if I can get it at a reasonable price, but it will take me a while to clear out the forest in my backyard... Raised garden beds are definitely something I'm looking into, along with aquaponics given the large amount of red cinder sitting around here.

Thanks again gentlemen (or ladies), your help is appreciated!

HiloReign said:

Aloha everyone. It's great to see everyone still jammin'... I post here today in hopes of encountering someone with knowledge pertaining to building a layer of soil over rock/red cinder/pahoehoe rock (although I have SO many more questions concerning native Hawaiian habitat...). Soon I will have an acre in Puna to pursue my sustainable agriculture/soil building/plant feasting dreams and I wanted to seek out those whom may be familiar with this kind of thing so that I may learn more from them.

The property has a rough, rocky terrain and the front/back yard is covered in about a foot of red cinder (underneath which are more rocks/lava rocks). A good portion of the property has a pahoehoe flow covering it and everything surrounding the back/front yard is heavy vegetation (couple 20-40 ft Albizia, waiwi forests, few Ohia and overall dense vegetation).

My question is, where does one get started? I'll do most clearing myself (using everything for compost/mulch except native Hawaiian plants, which I plan on keeping) but the big Albizia pose problems. They are growing in a thin layer of soil and a D9 (or any vehicle, for that matter) won't be able to get to the trees from the road without either falling in a 6 foot ditch or climbing a 5 foot rock shelf.

Above all of that, I'm looking for ways to speed up the composting processes that are going to be taking place. From BIM solutions, chipping the wood, biochar burning, to consistent turning of piles- I'm trying to literally build my own soil and your help would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully one day I may share the fruits of my labor with everyone and may that fruit be delectable and nutritious...

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Look into biochar, its very interesting and is especially helpful for soils with high acidity/high rainfall. Results last for decades.

The free mulch comes from the public. You can check out the greenwaste pile to see if it is up to your standards. I know they have a big pile for supposedly "untreated" pallets, but i bet some of it is treated wood. I'm not sure what they do with the pallets, I've never seen them putting it through the shredder.

I've been dropping off literally tons of greenwaste there from our yard this last month. The mulch program is much better than it was previously minus the inconvenience of going to the scale house before and after. They will load your truck up for free though with their tractor.

You can make biochar with the wood from clearing your land. Biochar and BIMs/IMO's go hand in hand. Coconut husks are good too. I also get big trash bags of free coffee grounds from starbucks on occasion to add to my compost pile.

Oh, you also should make your own EM-1/Lactic Acid Bacteria Serum to use as a compost accelerant .

Priceless advice! Guarantee checking the dump out!!!

LAB works wonders for speeding the process of composting. I will definitely take a look at EM-1.

I knew the Hawaii thread wouldn't let me down if I had something to ask. Thanks again guys...

I wish they gave away free compost on oahu, I guess they need it all for something here.

Have you tried the fruit farm on the north shore? The shrimp farms should also have some great stuff!