11-10-2007, 04:18 AM
My name is JayJay and I'm from Seattle originally. While in the Navy in Pearl Harbor I flew here to the Big Island with a shipmate and we rented a car and drove around the Island and camped at Kaimu Beach ... I remember vividly thinking that it was the most beautiful spot on Earth and I really think it was. We spent much of the day there and I also remember walking out into the light surf and standing on the sandbar and just being in awe of what was before me. We drove into Hilo, through little sleepy Pahoa,it was the year KTA was being built and I think that was 1967, anyway, I knew then that someday I'd return and here I am! This comming summer will be my fourteenth year living here in exotic Puna.
I was fortunate to be able to have two extra lots and I immediately began planting a permacultue which is still ongoing. I stated with the fruit trees, although now I'm putting the emphasis on vegtable and vine production since the trees and bushes, about 90% food producers are in. I've just completed building and planting an overhead trellis which is cantilevered on one end so the vines ... which are several different species of passion fruit, will form a giant canopy twelve feet off the ground and covering almost one thousand sq. ft. Passion fruit are one of my faorite fruits and by next fall I should have my first crop. One of the species I'm gowing is a cross between the purple and the large yellow which are a new hybrid and divinely sweet yet super sour!I can't wait!
I've found, at least for me, that the best way to actually get the work done is to plan well and move in segments,i.e, I'll expand a little, (put in a new system or rockery or trellis or whatever), and then I'll go into a consolidation phase for awhile, where I'll make sure everything I created remains viable and in working order and/or producing. Then, when that's accomplished, I'll go back into an expansion cycle ... so expansion, then consolidation and back to expansion and so forth. This really wasn't my idea, rather the concept goes back to Mr. Robert Rodale who was the editor of Organc Gardening ... and it works well. I also never work in the heat of the day, rather I'll sometimes work in the morning yet the majority of my attention to the garden is done in the afternoon till sunset and at the end of the day I've always got food which I collect as I tend the permaculture.
For those of us arriving here from a temperate climate there is so much to learn if you're a gardener ... new plants, which in many cases you'll find you never knew existed will grow here. It just knocks me out sometimes how fast plants can grow on the Big Island if thy like where they are. If you do have an interest in putting in a garden, I think the best way is to start with the fruit trees and make sure to leave a large "sunspot" (or two), so you'll be able to produce good vegtables in the future, and make sure to plant those trees on the North and East side of the property line if possible, since this procedure will help you estabish your sunspot(s), Anyway, for all of you who are new here to Hawaii, and to those of you who are stateside dreaming of the day when the great transition will happen, and to the "old-timers."
~Aloha, JayJay
JayJay
I was fortunate to be able to have two extra lots and I immediately began planting a permacultue which is still ongoing. I stated with the fruit trees, although now I'm putting the emphasis on vegtable and vine production since the trees and bushes, about 90% food producers are in. I've just completed building and planting an overhead trellis which is cantilevered on one end so the vines ... which are several different species of passion fruit, will form a giant canopy twelve feet off the ground and covering almost one thousand sq. ft. Passion fruit are one of my faorite fruits and by next fall I should have my first crop. One of the species I'm gowing is a cross between the purple and the large yellow which are a new hybrid and divinely sweet yet super sour!I can't wait!
I've found, at least for me, that the best way to actually get the work done is to plan well and move in segments,i.e, I'll expand a little, (put in a new system or rockery or trellis or whatever), and then I'll go into a consolidation phase for awhile, where I'll make sure everything I created remains viable and in working order and/or producing. Then, when that's accomplished, I'll go back into an expansion cycle ... so expansion, then consolidation and back to expansion and so forth. This really wasn't my idea, rather the concept goes back to Mr. Robert Rodale who was the editor of Organc Gardening ... and it works well. I also never work in the heat of the day, rather I'll sometimes work in the morning yet the majority of my attention to the garden is done in the afternoon till sunset and at the end of the day I've always got food which I collect as I tend the permaculture.
For those of us arriving here from a temperate climate there is so much to learn if you're a gardener ... new plants, which in many cases you'll find you never knew existed will grow here. It just knocks me out sometimes how fast plants can grow on the Big Island if thy like where they are. If you do have an interest in putting in a garden, I think the best way is to start with the fruit trees and make sure to leave a large "sunspot" (or two), so you'll be able to produce good vegtables in the future, and make sure to plant those trees on the North and East side of the property line if possible, since this procedure will help you estabish your sunspot(s), Anyway, for all of you who are new here to Hawaii, and to those of you who are stateside dreaming of the day when the great transition will happen, and to the "old-timers."
~Aloha, JayJay
JayJay
JayJay