Hawaii isolated, can you survive off your garden?

[randomq]

WW3, pandemic, economic collapse... What will you grow to survive? I've planted lots of purple sweet potato and avocado, are those good choices?

[keaau mary]

Those are great choices! Good start!
We've planted a lot of greens, tomatoes, peppers, cukes, asparagus, blueberries, mulberries, strawberries. Lots of trees too: breadfruit, black sapote, fig, orange, lemon, lime and tangerine trees. Also mango and avocado. Plus we have chickens for eggs and the 'poop' for fertilizing all the veggies and trees. Planning on a lilikoi or 2 in the spring.

Mahalo!

[Lodestone]

Yeah, purple sweet potato and avocado do better than any food plants here in Puna in my experience. Both seem indestructible. Papayas and (candy apple) bananas work too. Citrus works, but grows slowly. Pineapples do well. On the other had, a surprising number of crops fail spectacularly in our wet pest-and-fungus laden soil.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

If you’re growing food for various generic apocalyptic scenarios, plant out of sight. We’ve had various people come into our yard over the years to pick fruit, not just a handful but bags full. When I asked them what they were doing they told me I was greedy.

That’s with food in the stores.

[birdmove]

We have a ruby red grapefruit tree that does great here. We have grown green beans, "wing" beans (?), sweet potatoes, oranges, lemons, tangerines, egg fruit, jack fruit, cukes, and I'm forgetting some. One vege that grows great for us is egg plant. We even grew cantaloupes, but they never got very big, and something went after them. But, even the small ones tasted great.Papayas and bananas, of course. We finally planted a breadfruit tree, but it'll be a while on them. Coffee plants, poha berries, figs, rambutons, jaboticaba (these I understand take quite a few years before producing).

Jon in Keaau/HPP

[Mangosteen]

If things really went SOUTH and you had prepared for such an event (unlike the vast majority of people) count on the County Government to come knocking with a (armed) request that you share your supplies with the people of the island (for the good of the community). Any hint of a refusal on your part would result in jail time for you (hoarding) and all your provisions being confiscated

Don't kid yourself.

[terracore]

The founding fathers thought of that already. 2nd and 4th amendments are good starting points for reading material.

Agreed, sweet potatoes and avocados do well here. Grow many varieties of avocado that fruit at different times of the year. Same thing with bananas. Irish potatoes can do okay in the winter. Corn has less pests in the cooler months. Though in a SHTF scenario growing "organic" is probably the least of your worries. They used to grow a lot of rice on the BI back in the day. We keep intending to try growing it in kiddie pools but it's an experiment that keeps getting pushed back. If I remember correctly one kiddie pool can make 12 pounds of rice but I don't remember if that was per year or per growing season. A lot of the invasives can be eaten by both humans and livestock.

[Carey]

For sweet potato, most of the growers on island rotate with dryland taro to reduce the infestation loads...as sweet potato are like candy to many ground pests &, of course pigs...

Hopefully you also have avocados that are ripe in different seasons, otherwise you will have a few months of feast & many lean months...

We have a really small Keaau lot, so have a fairly limited variety of food trees, but they include: allspice, apples (Anna & Dorset), avocado (2 different seasonal trees), basil, bilimbi, cassava, cherry (acerola & guyana), clove, coffee, cucamelon, grapefruit, kabocha pumpkin, lemon, lilikoi, lime (tahitian & 2 different finger varieties), malabar chestnuts, mangos (Julie & Glenn), miracle berry, moringa, mulberry, oranges (3 different season varieties), oregano, papaya, peach, pineapple, rangpur, rosemary, stevia, strawberry, tangerines, taro (3 varieties), tomato, vanilla
We did have banana, twice they were hit with bunchy top, we did as advised between the times & allowed 3 years of fallow...so we are not going to grow them, at least for a long while

We have often had Hawaiian pepper, but not right now & had had cinnamon, but that got fatally whacked by a weed whacker & was a lot of work for a cheap spice...

ETA: we also have bees, for pollination, but sometimes they will provide some sweetness to us!

[Mangosteen]

quote:

---

Originally posted by terracore

The founding fathers thought of that already. 2nd and 4th amendments are good starting points for reading material.

---

To each his own, but anyone that thinks he has the 2nd amendment and the firepower to hold off the arsenal the County Government has in its possession and is ready to use to secure supplies that are needed by the community in an "emergency" is IMHO dead wrong.

The 4th amendment will go out the window when Martial Law goes into effect.

Don't get me wrong. I think that EVERYONE should be prepared to take care of their families needs by growing as much of their own food as possible and stocking up on vital supplies. I'm just saying that in a real SHTF situation, the County and State Governments are going to take what they need.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

in a real SHTF situation

A good size purple sweet potato is your best bet. You can eat it or if necessary throw it at someone’s head for protection. Try and hit them with the sharp end.

Here is what I’ve witnessed in Puna over the past year. No one or almost no one defended themselves or their property with a firearm. The people who used firearms were criminals shooting it out with other crooks they had a beef with. If a crook shot at a cop, the crook ended up dead.

More gun owners had their firearms stolen by criminals in a break in when they weren’t home, or were surprised, tied to chairs, and looked on while the crooks took all their guns and ammunition. No one or almost no one actually protected their home from a criminal with a weapon they owned

The average person in Puna who believes they’ll insure their safety with a gun is far more likely to use car insurance or home insurance than a firearm, which is almost never. But like a New Years resolution that they’ll finally use the stationary bike at least half an hour every day, it sits there gathering dust, just like the gun they bought for home protection. So they daydream and imagine, one day, they'll get in shape and lose some weight, one day they'll defend themselves in a blaze of glory, just like Chuck Conners in The Rifleman, or Dirty Harry.