February in Puna - Things to plant now ?

[Kapohocat]

Hey Mitzi or punafarmboy or any one else - can you help out us brown thumb gardeners ? Maybe each month give us a few suggestions on what to plant at this time.....

in other words, HELP!

[Mitzi M]

Weeellll....I have to admit that my gardens are still a little shell shocked from the rain - that is to say, they melted and I haven't cleaned them out. I plan to get going again soon as the day length increases. I think it's still a great time to try parsley, cilantro, lettuces and other greens that like cool weather. I've just started tomato and pepper seeds and plan to outplant them in another 4-6 weeks. Somehow, it seems like things really grow fast just after the spring equinox. If you have nice soil, you might try carrots and radishes. My neighbor's pole beans and peas did pretty well in early spring last year. Who ever really knows, but we may see some more moisture in the next couple months, so I'm putting off planting a new sweet potato patch and other root crops for a bit. It kinda seems like the wasps that sting and melt cucmbers and tomatoes may not be so thick right now so maybe I'll try and grow some cukes before they get wise. It's also a good time to plant trees and shrubs right now because the wet weather will help them get going without too much root shock. That's pretty much what I have going on!

Aloha,
Mitzi

Uluhe Design
Native Landscape Design
uluhedesign@yahoo.com

[Hotzcatz]

There may be a few bare root fruit trees left at Paradise Plants. Angela alerted me to the sale a week or two ago right after the rains so a trip into Hilo was made to procure trees. (Thanks Angela!!)

New fruit and nut trees in the ground in our yard this month are:
Almond - Garden Prince
Apples - Pettingill & Golden Dorsett
Peaches - May Pride, Eva's Pride & Tropic Snow
(I already had the "Florida Prince" peach tree and that has been doing really well at our low 500 foot elevation.)
Grapes - Thompson, Crimson, Flame and Venus all of which are seedless.
and three different blackberries all of which are thornless and in an area which is sort of naturally containerized so they won't escape and invade other places. There's also a horseradish which was ordered in with the mainland tree order. And two rose bushes.

That's this month's "permaculture" stock. These are things that are planted once and then hopefully will not need to be replanted. I am thinking of grafting and swapping branches of the peach and apple trees with each other. It should help the pollination as well as spread the fruit bearing evenly across the yard. Plus I haven't tried grafting and this will be good practice.

For the garden, there is a new seeding of radishes, beets, green beans, mixed greens (lettuces and collards with a packet of mixed salad greens). The collards, once started will stay going for several years.

Most of the vegetable garden was started last October so this re-seeding is a continuation of that. The tomatoes are beginning to set fruit although the only one which has produced tomatoes so far is "Bonnie's Best" because that one had been started in a pot a month before the rest were direct seeded into the garden.

Lima beans are very vigorous and prolific, we've been getting a mess of beans about once a week from the four bean lima bean vines. They will need a lot of room to grow. I didn't give them enough room thinking they would be like pole beans and the vines are all doubled back on themselves and they are trying to grow over the tomatoes.

So, in my estimation the quick answer of what to plant now is:
Lettuces
Beans & peas
Beets
Radishes
Lima Beans (they somehow seem different than the rest of the beans mentioned above)
Corn (if you have the space and plant it in squares instead of lines so it can pollinate itself)
Tomatoes
Green peppers
Basil
Carrots (if you have soil or compost to plant them in)
Celery

I scatter marigolds through out the garden since that seems to keep some of the bugs away. Also "sacrificial" plants like roses can be planted near the garden so the bugs will eat them instead of your vegetables. I think they do that in some vineyards with grape vines.

[Nalu]

Your welcome Hotcatz! Can I ask where you got the thornless blackberries from? I've seen the Doyle's in the catalogues and that's something I've always been interested in. I'd have to find a way to containerize it, I would imagine. We, unfoturnately have the very invasive thorny one all over our 7 acres here in Mountain View. They don't even fruit! The bane of my existence up here.
Berries seem to do well up here, the thimbleberries, and Poha berries sprout up everywhere.
Mahalo, Angela

[Guest]

I'm definately not experienced in this, however, I just read an article that came out today, about how Decembers weather has affected Hawaiis crops now.

Of note:

It is expected that acreage for harvest in December will be up for mustard cabbage, head lettuce and green onions, while acreage for snap beans, sweet corn, cucumbers and dry onions is expected to decrease. Chinese cabbage, head cabbage, romaine and semihead lettuce are expected to be unchanged.

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Happy Birthday Aaron