Getting to know the environment where you live is the best way to begin the process of growing food. Knowing about your soil, rainfall, elevation, wind direction, and other environmental conditions will help determine what to plant and what might need to be done to improve conditions for plants and animals.

Soil

Soils vary tremendously across the island, from sandy clays to coarse soil in lava rock. A soil test can help determine the nutrients available in your soil. The USDA also has detailed soils maps that can help determine your soil type.

Part 2 of a 2-part series.  For Part 1, click here

This part continues the presentation of in-depth information on nitrogen-fixing and dynamic accumulator plants.

Diversify the Leaf Litter to Aid Nutrient Cycling

Research has shown that diverse forms of litter on the forest floor aid nutrient cycling in the litter layer and topsoil. Diverse litter provides for better decomposition and diversity in the decomposer food web. Therefore, using various kinds of mulch and planting plants that provide diverse kinds of litter will improve self-renewing fertility.

An Open Letter to the Farmers Market Community

At farmers markets all over the state I see pricing structures on locally grown fruit and veggies that just don't compute.

When I started a small farmers market adjacent to the Kona Pacific Farmers Cooperative on Napoopoo Road in the mid-1990s, avocados were $1.00 each and bananas were 5 for $1.00, as that was roughly what the prices were in grocery stores. Back then my Kaiser insurance was $680/month and gas $2.23/gal or so. My insurance is now $1300/month and you know what gas has gone up to. I'm sure you all have stories like this.

Prices at grocers for avocados have gone from $1.99 to $3.99 at KTA for imported avocados, and at some stores from $0.69-$2.45/lb for local avocados. Why haven’t farmers market prices gone up too?

With our mild tropical climate in Hawai‘i, we are very fortunate to be able to grow most food plants from both temperate and tropical climates. Temperate food plants include many table vegetables such as lettuce, cabbage, tomato, cucumber, corn, squash, spinach, sunflower, radish, peas, and beans. These plants have relatively short life cycles, usually 2–9 months. These short-lived plants are adapted to completing their life cycle during the few months of spring, summer, and fall.

Part 1 of a 2-part series

Introduction

The forest-gardening approach to fertility emphasizes strategies employed in the design phase that should reduce the need for work and expensive inputs later on down the line. Many basic characteristics of forest gardens support self-renewing fertility by their very nature: perennial plant roots provide consistent root-zone resources to the soil food web; lack of tilling allows undisturbed development of the soil organism community; consistent mulch provides stable food resources for the decomposers and a stable soil environment for everyone who lives down there; and so on.