Fern Forest Agriculture

[Adrienne]

Aloha!
I am looking to buy in the Fern Forest area. Can you give me some ideas on the weather and what I will be able to grow at this elevation? Thank you!

Adrienne

[Larry T]

Go to http://sensiblesimplicity.lefora.com/ Jay is in Fern Forest as well as others. A very active group of growers.

[pslamont]

You do realize that Fern Forrest is on rock/lava and you will have to bring in soil or use raised beds, right???

I want to be the kind of woman that, when my feet
hit the floor each morning, the devil says

"Oh Crap, She's up!"

[JWFITZ]

Actually, Fern Forest has very fine soil, some of the best in the state. Having deep dead soil is no better than shallow dead soil. It takes more work and money to rebuild dead deep soil than shallow dead soil. Expect dead soil. We have acid rain, and a lot of it. This isn't an obstacle but it requires understanding to deal with. Ag works out here, and has historically--it still will as long as you don't destroy what you have with an excavator. Be careful. Hand clear. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, it will set you back a decade. Machinery on site does NOT save you labor, I promise. There are a 1000 years of tricks, many have been lost, some have been rediscovered.

I have brought in no soil on site, and will be in commercial production by the end of the year. (commerical now, but would rather invest in expansion). 3 years invested. You'll go faster as I had to learn it alone.

http://sensiblesimplicity.lefora.com/

[pslamont]

That's great to hear Jay. All the people I have visited in FF have been on rock. In fact, I have great soil on my North Glenwood property and have given truckloads to people to help them get started. I am sure your experience shared will benefit anyone moving there!

I want to be the kind of woman that, when my feet
hit the floor each morning, the devil says

"Oh Crap, She's up!"

[MarkP]

There is a house on S. Kopua Rd Whose owner I have stopped to chat with on occasion. One time I noticed he had installed fence posts. Since I had recently been trying to install fence posts myself I was curious about how this fellow had dug the holes. Turns out he used a simple manual post hole digger to dig holes 3 feet deep. On my property the job would require a jackhammer to get 3 inches deep. I commented on this and the guy smiled ruefully and said that my soil was probably much better than his, which had been farmed on an industrial scale for almost 100 years.

I understand Jay to say that the land is capable of having good soil as long as you get past your prejudices, the most common of which has to do with quantity. I imagine other prejudices have to do with being able to plow and plant in straight lines and the desire to plant what you want rather than what grows well under the conditions. I don't know the quality of the soil on my Eden Roc property except to say there is very little of it. It is dark brown or black rather than red as I have seen elsewhere. The land in almost all of Puna has not been farmed. Volcanic soil is known to be very fertile and Puna's has not been used up, so if you can scrape enough into the low spots and learn how to work it it you might discover it is competitive with any other soil around despite being scattered over a hostile moonscape.

[Bullwinkle]

Early in the process I bought a 150$ 45 lb chinese electric jackhammer from ebay - paid about the same for shipping I think - grin

Turned out to be my favorite tool --- rat tat tat.....

out here its a layer of lava, a layer of dirt, layer of lava I go about three layers deep - about 1100 years or so since that soil has seen daylight I like to imagine.

- the rock breaks up easy enough a three pronged rake a good tool for getting the broken rock out of the hole

A 1/2 inch hardware cloth stretched over a 2 x 4 foot 1x1 frame a good tool for making (sifting) soil

[oink]

Very interesting Bullwinkle. How deep is "three layers deep"? What lind of lave do you see in the layers and how thick are they? How deep and thick do the soil layers tend to be?

Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.

[Bullwinkle]

its about 18 inches between layers ... the rock flow layers thickness varies 8-12 inches thick on average.

I was able to excavate into (to square off) a "hill" to add parking space under my shop ( 8' up on stilts). I went 10 feet or so back into the hill. Up to 6 feet deep in spots. Following the natural fissures in the rock splits it nicely.

The jackhammer makes short work of two to three foot post holes too ... I can get a three foot deep by 18" wide in a half hour per post hole or so.
- 6 inches of soil. a foot of rock 18" of soil and so on

I use the rock that comes out of the holes to make garden walls, back fill with he soil that comes out. I toss in a few bags of the Ace house brand soil for good measure. Aces' version has a lot of sand - promotes drainage and comes with nutrients already added - great stuff.

[oink]

Thanks. Again very interesting. I assume it's Pahoehoe?

Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.