Gardening/ landscaping

[leilaniguy]

Anyone interested in discussing gardening sucesses & failures, the jewels & monsters that grow in Puna?

[HADave]

Absolutely! Great Idea The wife and I are avid lovers of the garden soil. We are also feeling challenged by what we don't know about growing on the Island. Love to get any help and advice we can get.

Dave & PeggyAnn

[leilaniguy]

OK, Here's one for starters, has anybody out there successfully grown tomatoes outside a green/screenhouse? Any varieties that don't get stung? How about sweet peppers? (I'm in the rainforest).

[nanasohana]

I am a rabid gardener. Its real, real hard to move away from all this lovely soil to a place that is mostly lava. The fact is if I can't sucessfully vegetable garden in Puna, I can't guarantee I will stay for long...its that important to me. I will give my all to learn to garden there and find out what grows and how. I tell you the older I get, the more I treasure great garden soil. I love, love the smell of a good loamy soil. I really think container gardening and raised beds will be essential with all the rain. More concerns are is there enough sun and not too much rain and are the bugs too hard to battle. We will see.

[mella l]

Back in August I believe in a response to Glenn P someone posted this advise on raised beds. These are used in various locations on island and I kept the response as Gene and I plan to put Lazagna gardening to work at our home. Hope this helps you also, sorry it is so long. Mella L

Barbara has an organic garden and neat web site, and I believe it is to her credit that this following response was created.
www.hiiakas.com



Hawaii Island Journal Columns!

The Hawai'i Island Journal (www.hawaiiislandjournal.com)is a twice-monthly, independent, island-wide newspaper which aims to, humanely, slay threatening dragons on the Big Island of Hawai'i. The Journal, born in late 1999, fights to protect the environment, promote political activism, champion native Hawaiian causes, take David's side against Goliath and spotlight dollar-driven schemes that imperil the island's character, culture and charm. Then, too, it highlights good people doing good things.

The Journal questions, reveals, challenges and praises. Truth, fairness and accuracy are its guidelines.

03/01/03: Lava Gardening by the Raised Bed Method

Lava Gardening by the Raised Bed Method

Someone asked me recently why I use raised beds in my herb garden and my reply was that it's the only way to grow things when you live on a solid rock lava flow. This month I'll talk about the history and practice of raised bed gardening and include some tips for creating an abundant garden.

If you want to eat organic fruits, veggies and herbs, it's easy to grow them yourself. Many people on this island are fortunate to have a small patch of land where we can do this. But what land! In many places we have no soil at all and in others it has been used up by sugar cane or other crops that once grew on it. So what is a wanna-be gardener to do? I say, build raised beds!

Where It All Started

The raised bed, or biointensive, method of growing vegetables started in 1972 at Stanford University in California, where a group called Ecology Action began a 1/2 acre research, demonstration and teaching garden. It was so productive that it produced a complete vegetarian diet for one person in just 2800 square feet of garden. In 1980 the method was taken to India, where it improved local nutrition. Since then, biointensive farming techniques have been used in China, Brazil, Africa, Mexico, the Philippines and other countries. If you're interested in reading all about it, check out the books "How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible On Less Land Than You Can Imagine" by John Jeavons and "Lasagna Gardening" by Patricia Lanza.

"Lasagna gardening doesn't mean growing your own lasagna," Lanza states in her book. It's based on a permaculture technique called sheet composting, which is just a fancy name for this easy, organic layering method you can use to create better soil while keeping your garden neat and attractive. Through this method, you can build and maintain a garden without digging, tilling or removing sod or lawn. "Using no power tools, heavy equipment or expensive additives, one person can easily create and enjoy a healthy, productive garden" right on top of solid rock, if you have the same conditions that I do in lower Paradise Park. And if you have a patch of old, weedy lawn, it's the perfect way to transform the area in a few hours.

Creating Your Own Raised Bed Garden

Start small! A 4-foot by 8-foot area will make a nice bed and won't require many ingredients. One of the basic principles of raised bed gardening is that you never want to step on the beds, so consider access when you're planning your raised bed: you should be able to reach into the middle of it from either side without stepping on the bed. This keeps it light and fluffy and doesn't compact the soil. Four feet wide is a good size. My orchard consists of two huge raised beds, each 4 feet wide and about 100 feet long, containing 45 yards of cinder/soil mix.

1. Mark the area with stakes or string or simply sprinkle some flour to mark the edges.

2. Sprinkle the ground with bonemeal and/or bloodmeal, or a bucket or two of compost (this adds nitrogen, which starts the process of reducing the carbon in the following layers). If you have seed-filled weeds that you want to get rid of, spread them here.

3. Smash down the weeds. No need to pull them, level the ground, or remove any rocks.

4. Cover the entire area with cardboard, newspaper, or old non-synthetic carpet, overlapping and leaving no holes for weeds. Water this layer well.

5. Spread a thin layer of manure or stable sweepings. Chicken manure works well: you can buy it at your garden supply store.

6. Spread alternating layers of peat moss, soil (if you have it), wood ashes, chopped leaves, grass clippings, and/or compost. You can vary the ingredients according to what you have: for example, you can use plant rubbish like chopped-up tree trimmings, pine needles, hay, old tomato stems, corn husks, small branches, etc. Sometimes I simply use purchased soil mix containing top soil, black cinder and macadamia nut compost. Water your new bed thoroughly.

Plan the depth of your bed depending on what you want to grow. Small plants such as herbs and flowers need little root space, while large plants like trees need much more. Keep this in mind while building your bed: it could be from 3 inches to 4 feet deep, like in my orchard.

7. Cover your bed with a cosmetic layer of chipped bark, leaves, or sawdust. Water everything well. The bed is done!

8. You can plant in your new bed right away. With your hand, dig a small hole to the base of the loose top mulch. Plant your plants close together, and mix the plants, as nature does. No need for straight rows, either.

Notes From the Experts

* If your bed is shallow and you have built it on an area containing soil, root crops might not do well the first year, but by the second year, the ground underneath the bed will be revolutionized -- full of worms and microorganisms.

* Sprinkle a little bonemeal and bloodmeal each year and add mulch to keep up the level. The soil is so rich that you don't need to fertilize: the bed supplies everything your plants need.

* Water newly-planted seedlings frequently.

* You don't need to rotate plants or rest the ground in this system.

* Because you never hoe or dig, you can plant closely.

¥ Don't bury sawdust or wood chips: leave them on top so the atmospheric nitrogen breaks down the wood. Keep the mulch loose and don't let it mat.

* Raised beds can provide a rich habitat for slugs, sowbugs, and other hungry insects, so protect tiny seedlings with beer traps, diatomaceous earth or iron phosphate granules, sold as "Sluggo."

==================================================================
Thanks to my Master Gardener friend Deva Luna in Santa Clara, CA for sending me the basics of the recipe portion of this column.

Barbara Fahs is the owner and creator of Hi'iaka's Healing Herb Garden, LLC near Hilo. To read previous Hawaii Island Journal columns by Barbara and learn more about Hi'iaka's Garden, visit her web site at www.hiiakas.com. She often sells herb plants and products at the Pahoa Village Farmer's Market on Sundays, leads free educational tours of her garden every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from 1:00 until 5:00 and teaches classes on all aspects of herbalism. Barbara can be reached at goddess@hiiakas.com.



mella l

[leilaniguy]

Aloha Nancy, I wouldn't worry too much about how much soil you have, if you get enough rain, just about anything will grow. I live on an acre of rocks with only the "AA muck" for soil. The only reason I haven't been able to grow tomatoes, peppers, and a few other things is the fruitflies that sting them just as they ripen. Other than that, everything seems to grow like mad! I just pry a rock or two out, plant what I want along with some cinder-soil mix and jump back out of the way!



Edited by - leilaniguy on 12/13/2005 13:02:31

[Seeb]

does anyone what would make a good low maintance hedge row/screen in the dryer costal area in hpp

[mella l]

I don't know about the stinging insects yet although I have heard others mention them so what to do about it is a mystery to me. However on a positive note I do believe it will be relatively easy and quick for us to create our own compost to nurture our plantings. They will render quickly with the moisture and the humidity, perhaps we could mine black gold. I have heard that supplementing the soil with lime is an absolute must. Have never had to do that before. As to amounts I will have to determine that when we get there and talk to the master gardener center, or take a class.

Am looking forward to seeing others post who are actually doing this in real time on island and not in their imaginations like me!
Mella L

mella l

Edited by - Mella L on 11/18/2005 23:31:15

[pslamont]

Gardening... gotta love it. We do get an awful lot of water the sun manages to shire through even up here in Glenwood, supposedly the wettest spot on the island. We grew corn with moderate success, but I imagine my timing had a lot to do with that. Beans and peeas were not happy but cucumbers did great and my squash grown in raised beds did well. It helps to screen off the squash as the fruit flies do indeed sting and ruin a lot. My lettuce, carrots and potatoes are currently doing ragingly well. and herbs, again in a raised bed, have given me cilantro parsley, basil of several varities and even a little rosemary Strawberries look wonderful but aren't producing much yet. Waiting for spring to see what they do.

Gardening here is great fun and I usually have some rich soil to share with any who want to come pick it up.

Aloha.... Pam

Just another day in P A R A D I S E !!

[leilaniguy]

[quote]
does anyone what would make a good low maintance hedge row/screen in the dryer costal area in hpp. -Seeb, you might try podocarpus, very hardy, but will need mulching and probably hand watering the first year. Hala will work, grows there wild, but gets rather tall. A word of caution, do not gather wild hala plants (or anything else for that matter), in the conservation zones near the sea, it's illegal.