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I am experimenting with some veggies and want to do as little work as possible. I bought some kind of hot pepper tree that is really a great producer and the insects stay far away from it. The problem is that the peppers are practically too hot to eat, so I started just chopping off the ends of the peppers and only using those. The ends are not nearly as hot. I suppose this is wasteful, but it grows on it's own, and I dont need to cultivate it! The insects wont even touch the leaves, so I decided to eat one of them to see why -and yep, the leaves even have a hot peppery flavor.
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Thanks for the info Carey 
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The solution for local food production is aquaponics and can be done anywhere, even snow country on the mainland with a greenhouse.
http://www.friendlyaquaponics.com/
I'm also about to dig a 120' pond to grow prawns and other fish and the overflow will feed nutrients to my orchard.
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Julie, if they are fairly small peppers (1-1.5") sounds like the imFLAMEous Hawaiian Chili Pepper - we have one tree that produced for over 5 years, but did not like transplanting (unfortunately it needed to move...& is one of the very few things that did not survive when we poured our lanai..)...
They are great for making chili water... the tips ARE a might bit milder....in a "burning your tongue off just a little" way - 3-4 of the whole buggas in a 6qt crock pot of soup, stew or what have you makes a nice slow heat spread across you - 5 will have the tongue hot, more causes afterburn ;~)
Oh & I forgot the links for the USGS & USDA HI soil & map info:
http://hilo.hawaii.edu/~sdalhelp/soils.php
http://soils.usda.gov/survey/printed_surveys/state.asp?state=Hawaii&abbr=HI
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Paul rightly quotes:
"It's simply not economical to grow food here. If it was, then people would do it."
_______________________________________________________________________
It's also not economical to eat a healthy meal as opposed to a MacDeathly's dollar menu unit. (In the short run)
It's time to make changes and take back our food supply from greedy chemical companies and corporate boards.
Eat your view now! (Or pay your Oncologist later)
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Exactly my point -- problem is (1) the corporates are so deeply ingrained, (2) most people can't differentiate "price" and "cost". A partial (or complete) economic collapse is probably necessary.
Example: gas is "priced" at $4/gallon, but the real "cost" is much higher if you factor all the tax breaks, war in oil-bearing countries, and the "free pass" given to polluters -- gas probably "costs" about $10/gallon.
If people understood the real "cost" of the dollar menu, at least some would opt out.
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quote:
Originally posted by HereOnThePrimalEdge
quote:
Originally posted by Wuzzerdad
just about anything could be grown in most parts of Puna, at least anything that could be grown in Iowa. .
I had a small commercial vegetable farm in Wisconsin back in the 1980's about 10 miles from the Iowa border. When I moved to Hawaii, I too thought I would be able to grow anything and everything. I soon learned that the fruit flies will sting and destroy tomatoes, peppers, squash, and almost all similar vegetables and fruit. The rains will rot your carrots and potatoes and other root crops. After years of experimentation I found there were only 5 or 6 vegetables out of the 30 I grew in Wisconsin that were dependable in Hawaii without a greenhouse, sprays, bagging the fruit, etc. It's really hard to grow most types of food here, and then as others have mentioned, fertilizer prices and labor costs make what you do grow very expensive.
fruit flies will sting tomatoes and squash till it's rotten? really? Anything to stop em'? (And I thought squash bugs were bad.)
comin' your way soon!
comin' your way soon!
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Fruit flies sting (lay eggs) in most fruit and fruit like vegetable crops in Hawaii. You can protect tomatoes, peppers, cukes, etc with a greenhouse, or screen house, or you can bag each fruit as it starts to develop. You can also spray with an insecticide, all of those techniques work, but they are all labor and time intensive. There are also fruit fly traps, but they trap the males, not the females that sting the fruit. The traps do reduce the general fruit fly population, it helps a little.
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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quote:
Originally posted by kalakoa
Given that the "economy" is tied directly to the "price of gas", I predict that food production will become economical in the near-term future (less than 10 years).
Either that or "most people" will have to leave the islands.
People have been saying that for a long time yet here we are.
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quote:
add to that the feral farm animals (pigs, chicken, goats, cows - yup, there is a problem here with FERAL cows...) and the game animals (doves, turkey, ducks, pheasant, sheep & soon abundant deer )
Feral Cows? One of those would be in my freezer for sure. Seriously, is there not enough hunting to keep the population down?
I started out with nothing and I still have most of it.
Mahalo
Rick
I started out with nothing and I still have most of it.
Mahalo
Rick
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