My native and food garden site

[robguz]

http://robguzman.com/Rob/Hawaii_native_p...arden.html

Just posted and thought I'd share it. Aloha
Rob

[asly]

Yay! I'm excited about this Rob. We love Seaview and want to purchase there after the first of the year. We are very interested in many of the same plants you already have growing. Nice to know they grow there well and would love any future seaview area gardening tips you may have. Very cool, I'll follow closely. Thank you for sharing!

[Ryan.]

It's great to see your pictures Rob. I'm really enjoying them. Thanks for sharing.

[aline]

amazing what you can do on a small lot. Very nice you should be proud of your hard work, cant wait to get back and be able to plant stuff again

[Kelena]

This is a beautiful garden. I would like to find myself in the middle of it, plucking a couple of pohas and licking buttery Sharwils off my fingers. I am amazed at three things: 1) How much you got in such a small space (I worried that my half acre wouldn't be enough, but now I see how much can be done), 2)How quickly it took off, 3) The sheer variety of the garden, 4) And the fact that you didn't have to blast anything to get a garden going. Okay, I guess that's 4.

Thank you for sharing this. You make this look easy.

And I absolutely love the dog run. Woof.

[asly]

I agree, I really like it when people are creative with small spaces and edible landscaping. Looking forward to watching it all take place.

Do you have a problem with slugs in Seaview?

[robguz]

I do have slugs but not snails yet. I use slug bait buy not a lot so it seems to have little effect. Have seen at least 3 different kinds but they tend to go for mushrooms rather than veggies.

Yeah, you can grow a lot on a small lot. Certainly more than enough to provide all the fruits and veggies 2 people can eat.

[Kelena]

So I take it you didn't blast, but instead just put dirt down in pockets in the lava. Is that right? And you seem to suggest that this is more easily done in a'a rubble than in pahoehoe (which is probably what I have -- I have no idea what that stuff is). Can you just empty a bag of dirt on the lava and then stick something in it, or is there more to it than that? I would really like to emulate this if I can.

[robguz]

Well there are plenty of pohas but the Sharwil licking is a few years away!

I put bags of soil in the beds, directly on top of the rubble. The ground is at least several feet deep of rocks about fist size (some much bigger)with smaller cinder sized rocks in between. I can usually just grab them out to make holes and use a pick to break up the bigger rocks. In one bed I put the soil on top of mulch, and that seemed to keep it in place longer. The few inches of soil I put on the bare rock worked its way in within a year, so now I just spot plant new vegetable sprouts. It's amazing how things will take root in the rock, which stays pretty moist even in summer.

I never spread cinder or soil on my lot. (Too cheap and too broke!) The majority of it is just county mulch on the rocks. Last about a year before the rocks become exposed again and weeds go crazy.

I've never planted anything in a pahoehoe, but I thought you can bust up some with an o'o bar or pick and spot plant, or just plant in naturally occurring cracks. Probably a pain for planting anything large, like older trees.

[Devany]

Great Job at converting the lava to a mini farm. I love edible landscaping! Keep up the good work.

Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany

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