Living Fence to keep out pigs and other critters..

[unknownjulie]

I saw the aquaponics set up at Waiakea HS and OMG, it looked like a lot of work, and also you need electricity to run the pumps to circulate the water. Can you possibly do this off grid somehow? We may not even be talking about the same thing, but they have fish ponds there and then use the fertilized water to grow the plants and then somehow recirculate the water back around again. This looks like a fulltime job to me. I think I'd rather just plant something that a pig wont eat. Any ideas? I think pigs eat just about anything, so it may be a lost cause. I was thinking of mostly growing fruit trees and bushes, where the fruit is up higher than the pigs.

[Carey]

Aquaponics is the system with fish (also pisciponics..more fun to say!) & hydroponics is growing food in nutrient water.

You CAN do these systems off grid (of course it is more complex when you add 'life support' to off grid systems, but it is done even in non-electric areas...) & a great place for more info is to visit the UH-H PACRC facility by the harbor.... & CTAHR has some literature on the systems, here is one:
http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/sustainag/ne...aponic.pdf

[Wao nahele kane]

Small fruit trees standing in the middle of a cleared area (typically $35 ea. or more) become prime targets for a group of young boars. We've had several young fruit trees damaged or destroyed by this activity. This can be avoided by fencing off the young trees. I’d say we have had 20% of our starter trees attacked. I have one neighbor who hasn't lost any, "yet". He also uses lots of insecticides and fertilizers etc. This sort of hog activity will be determined on how successful you and your neighbors are in controlling the local hog population. The better you are at controlling the population, the less you will experience in crop destruction by "hogs".

Aquaponic pumps don’t need to cycle 24/7. The systems can be set up several different ways. Off-grid systems are not beyond reach or impractical, nor do they need to be difficult to make. In the end, a mediocre designed aquaponics system, no matter how large or small, will yield far more than pot and soil and or open air earth gardens around here. No thrip screen use is best and can be limited to use around the more sensitive plants within a general shade cloth house. In any case, a small well made aquaponics screen/green house system will yield far better results than a large unprotected garden here in Puna. The variety of plants possibly grown also increases many fold. My advice to anyone who is serious about growing their own food or even commercially is a no thrips protected aquaponics setup. Personal time spent growing will be decreased substantially and the yields far greater.

Anyone who has made a serious effort to grow in Puna knows how many issues there are in trying to grow most anything here. In most cases, people eventually realize it’s a futile effort and give up, growing only a handful of select things now and then, maybe.

I started out making a medium greenhouse 30x40 with shade cloth walls. We had half the greenhouse filled with plants - it was a major PITA with all sorts of issues. I also figured from the start it would need to be outfitted with aquaponics or hydroponics in the end. That I knew after looking at all the abandon greenhouses and screenhouse around here, only one in use of 25 or so. At shis time ours it's pretty much empty until we modify it for aquaponics. The garden became a nightmare of endless weeds and insect attacks. That's the reality here.


E ho'a'o no i pau kuhihewa.

[unknownjulie]

What development do you live in? Yeah, those aquaponic things looked like a huge amount of work. Also, I'm basically trying to get trees and stuff for free or really low cost. The first trees I bought were for the lot lines and were a dollar apiece. I suppose if you dont spend much, you can experiment, and see if you can find something that works.

[fishnchamp1]

WOW, Just thought I'd share the link to these pics I found of an old fence planted in the 1945... This is more along the lines of what I envisaged ---> http://www.d-marc.de/natur/ohrdruf/index.htm

Now I'm thinking more along the lines of a long living tree (native and problem resistant, multigenerational) instead of a mean spiny one(Bougainvillea only lives 10-20 years) that I can plant multiple specimen approx. 6-10 inches apart, trellised together with approach grafting to eventually grow a wall of trunk 4-6 feet tall around the perimeter of the farm, essentially creating a trunk wall in 20 or so years... Going pupule behind my desk today [:o)]

Wonder what the oldest species of tree in Hawaii are? Probably some big Koa high up 6000 feet or something, but with all the moth issues nowadays there may be a better choice... Any suggestions on the oldest trees around and/or where to find them? Would like to collect wild seed and grow my own saplings...


William DeBoe
Palm Beach, FL
Honomu, HI sometime 2015
Moe'uhane Oihana mahi ai

[fishnchamp1]

Myrsine lessertiana looks interesting... I'd love to use Ohia but I don't recall seeing it growing up around Honomu town, maybe too much soil and rain?

William DeBoe
Palm Beach, FL
Honomu, HI sometime 2015
Moe'uhane Oihana mahi ai

[Carey]

William, Ohia do fine in soil (probably feel like the 'chosen few' of the M. polymorpha!), a look at Kalopa, farther up the Hamakua coast will give you a glimpse at how nice they grow sans the intensive ag that Honomu has seen:
http://www.hawaiistateparks.org/parks/ha...park_id=45

The latticed approach grafted trees in the photo link you provided are much like our neighbors non-native bougavillea fence, but theirs is not as tall & has a crazy colorful top...

Kolea is a very nice tree, just have not seen it available here.... possibly one of the native specialty growers may have it... one of the big hurdle with planting natives here is FINDING the plants, esp. after doing the research & takin' a likin' to a plant, only to find that you will have to try to find the plant...

[MarkP]

With all our griping about Strawberry Guava forming an impenetrable intertwined mass of trunks like iron bars, no-one including me has yet suggested using it as a living fence. Seems like it could be ideal.

Can you cut a bunch of long skinny trunks like those that grow up in the center of a clump, strip the leaves to temporarily reduce the demand for water and to make handling easier, dip the cut ends in rooting powder, then stick them in the ground either vertically every 6" or so or leaning left and right diagonally and interwoven? I have read the complaint that if you hack the stuff down and leave it lying it will re-root. Well, if that is true, it seems like you could build living structures. I have heard of lawn chairs built of sawn green willow taking root.

Weaving the trunks would make the fence more stable and less able to be penetrated but would obviously be a lot of work.

[Carey]

Mark, based on the use of the strawberry guava as pole bean supports, no need to do anything but stick those buggers in the ground... ours sprouted forth with nary a problem (course that was not what we wanted, found out ya gotta plant those buggers upside down...and even some of them may sprout!) Now we use bamboo poles, plus on those is they last about as long as the beans... so clearing the garden is one fell swoop to the compost...

But I would not recommend a strawberry guava living fences for a few reasons, one - it attacks wildlife, rather than repels it 2.- the invasive nature, 3.- the fruit flies it will bring to the edge of the property (almost impossible to keep the fruit area clean when those buggers start doing their maze root thing...