Easy things to grow at 2000 ft?

[dayna]

I have a friend at 2000-2500 feet that has a breadfruit tree. It's beautiful, and produces....

Dayna

www.E-Z-Caps.com

[unknownjulie]

I agree those trees are gorgeous. Is it a breadfruit or a breadnut tree at the beginning of Pohaku as you turn into Orchidland?

[lquade]

julie, it is almost impossible to tell them apart until they fruit, since there are so many different leaf patterns on breadfruit. but when they fruit, the breadnut fruit has little spines on it quite apparent. and of course if you open a fruit up, there is no question at all. that whole family of trees are fast growing and lovely. i have a jackfruit that in 3 years was taller than the 2 story house and just beautiful although it took about 5 years to produce. (2200 feet)

[unknownjulie]

It is a breadfruit tree. I picked one of the fruit and cut it open. IT was the size of a large avocado, but didnt appear ripe at all, and I had to content with all that white latex type stuff in my car (did not exactly expect such an expressive fruit).

[rainyjim]

mangobingo,

I think Pigeon Pea, would be an excellent species to plant on your land it is used often as a cover crop to prevent weeds from covering the area and as it is a legume it is also an excellent nitrogen fixer making it ideal to plant and then return later and plant something else in its place. The only issue I could foresee is if your area does not have excellent drainage. Pigeon Pea doesn't do well with poor drainage. Chances are living on this rock you'll have excellent drainage!

[unknownjulie]

I think you may be thinking of perrenial peanut- which is a ground cover? I have pigeon pea bushes and they get big and are bushes that have year round legumes that you pick. ( I have perrenial peanut also) Two seperate plants. You can go look at the perrenial peanut ground cover at Garden Exchange or Makuu market in the left back corner (while standing at the Hwy. I would recommend buying the seed as the flats get really expensive. I planted the perrenial peanut in a small jungle clearing with limited succes, but it did better in a large bulldozed area. It does form a thick mat eventually.

[rainyjim]

I meant pigeon pea but perenial peanut is a great groundcover that performs much the same function!

About Pigeon Peas:
"While today in Hawaii we think of pigeon peas as a valuable cover crop or alley crop, through- out the tropics it is also grown for food (dry or green seeds), feed (seed, leaves and young branches), firewood, medicine, fencing, roofing, shade, and to make baskets (Shanower et al., 1999; Upadhyaya et al., 2006). Globally over a billion people in 82 countries rely on pigeon peas as a main source of protein, and it is grown as a cash crop by small farmers in Africa, India, and the Caribbean. In India alone, pigeon peas are grown in about 4 million hectares (ca 8 mn acres)."

Source:
http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/sustainag/ne...ajanus.pdf

[unknownjulie]

OK, I did not think of pigeon pea as a groundcover, but if you had a "grove" of them, I suppose it would be. I think this might be extremely expensive to plant a lot of pigeon pea bushes. Maybe there is a cheaper way to do it, but I think I paid 8 dollars a bush. However, I do think this might be something that would survive, if you planted a large enough bush to begin with.

[rainyjim]

Julie, yea.

I think you could take cuttings from your current bushes and propagate for free! Just takes a little time for the cuttings to establish rootstock.

You'll be delighted at how easy cuttings take root in hawaii, soon you'll be pigeon pea julie extraordinaire!

[unknownjulie]

yep, already sticking all kinds of cuttings in the ground, from all over, and miraculously they are rooting! The bushes are still small, but they appear to be growing about 6inches per week. Soon, we'll be getting an appreciative amount of food from out there.