Growing your own food

[April]

This may be a dumb question, but are you limited with what you're "allowed" to grow in Hawaii for your own food consumption? Can you grow oranges, grapefruit, lemons, etc.? Do you need any special permits to grow certain kinds of fruits or vegetables?

Thanks for any info!
April

[Greg]

The only dumb questions are those that are unasked!

I don't know of any regulatory restraints on growing your own food, but as a small producer, I've found other restricting factors; mainly insects!

I grow in containers on a bench top to minimize slugs, and I've found it easier to stick to crops that are more naturally insect resistant.
Bush beans, fancy lettuce, spinach, cherry tomatoes, snow peas, most herbs, soybeans, yellow squash and dakine can be grown pretty much year round. I've had less success with cucumbers, and regular tomatoes.

My bench is under a clear cover to protect in from deluges, but that necessitates watering frequently. The bigger the containers, the better.

We recycle the soil with compost that we produce that has lessened our waste volume tremendously.

It's very satisfying to go out and pick a salad for dinner.

[pslamont]

We too are growing a lot of our own food. I know of no regulatory limitations for what one would consider normal food crops. Drenching rain tends to make us all want to grow under a clear canopy of some kind. I have an open outdoor garden for corn, beans, peas and such but all other stuff like lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes and zillions of others are all grown in my greenhouse. One side is a hot house and screened in; the other half is open to the air but protects from the rain.

It's a ball growing here. Every parcel of land is different. Most do not have dirt which causes a lot of composting and container growing but it's all good! If anyone really wants dirt, I have 30 acres of it.

I want to be the kind of woman that, when my feet
hit the floor each morning, the devil says

"Oh Crap, She's up!"

[Carey]

There are not many regulations on what you can grow (the main ones are no illegal drug plants w/o permits, like marijuana... which are regulated)

There are limits on what can be imported into the state, the link to the DOA import list:
http://hawaii.gov/hdoa/Info/doa_importing

There are limitations based on your lot, some will grow just about everything, others not so much...

On our very small town lot, we have: oranges, grapefruit, tangerine, lime, lemon, avocados, biliimbi, moringa, pandan, guava, bananas, papayas, pineapple, lilikois (passionfruit), cherry, coffees, cinnamon, red hibiscus (red zinger tea...), mints, weed cherry tomato, dry taro, cassava, oregano, basil & manilla palm (like betle nut) that we have harvested and grapes, miracle berry, peach, clove, allspice, swamp chestnut( I think that is what it is..) that are still growing - along with some things we have do not use, & some have removed, including mango (too big), kava (not into it) ferns.... and we do use ti for food wraps rarely, mainly for lei...

ETA Was weeding out some vines & forgot all about my Hawaiian pepper & edible ginger... and probably more.... & we do not have chickens that are our own, but there are usually feral chickens hanging out around the gardens...