Grow My Own Food (Volcano: home, buy, live)

[oregonwoodsmoke]

That's seems to be a common theme. Plan to move to Hawaii and grow fruit and veggies.

Whenever I read that, I always hope those folks who plan to reduce the grocery bill by growing their own food have some gardening experience. Because it isn't all that easy.

I sure know a lot of people who have started a veggie garden and simply quit and allow it to go to weeds. It's a lot of work.

I've gardened for several decades and sometimes I don't get much to the table to show for my work. Weather (OK, that shouldn't be too much of an issue in Hawaii), bugs, weeds, fungus, viruses can destroy crops. Birds, bless their little feathery hearts, can eat most of your fruit crop.

I know I'm going to have to relearn gardening skills because the environment is so different, but at least I won't be starting from ground zero with no experience at all. There's going to be a huge learning curve for people who haven't already been gardening.

[PacificFlights]

Depnding where on the island you are, youi may drop yuor fruit and before you can bend down to pick it up, it has sprouted, grown and is now fruiting. (yes and bit far fetch but plant it and it will grow). Other places, you need everything from sopil, fertilizer, and water all brought to the plant to just get it to pretent to be alive.

Someone once posted a good guide to understanding self sufficiency on hawaii, in particular the big island. It cover the types of stuff that grow wells in most areas and which things needed certain elevations, rainfall and all that. What I luiked was it mentioned the problems surrounding balnce garden where not everything grows at the sam time so yuo may have way too many of one thinga nd have to wait 6 months to get the other, stuff like that.

I see many people with home food gardens on the Big Island I think its generally acepted that you can grow lots of what you need. But i also hear a lot of talk about you can't be pure self sustaining since you can;t eat papayas day in and day for months and switch to guava cause thats now fruiting, so you must buy (or trade) what you have for stuff you don;t.

If any place, Hawaii has a great shot at grow your own especially from waipio valley clockwise to kalapana.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by oregonwoodsmoke

That's seems to be a common theme. Plan to move to Hawaii and grow fruit and veggies.

Whenever I read that, I always hope those folks who plan to reduce the grocery bill by growing their own food have some gardening experience. Because it isn't all that easy.

Ditto. Matter of fact, many people have expectations that are well off into fantasy land. I love gardening, and I'm a big fan of people getting more connected to the soil and to the rhythms of nature through gardening. It feeds the soul as well as the body to sit down to a meal that you've grown yourself. But it is a lot of work, and doing anything more than supplementing your diet requires a bigger commitment than most people are really up to.

And tropical gardening has its challenges, yes. Just as the rain and heat allow year around growing of food, they also encourage year around flourishing of pests, and boy, do we have them. In climes farther from the equator the winter cold helps to periodically knock down the bug population. In the islands, however, there is little of that effect. And there are all kinds of molds and mildews and rots you'll never see elsewhere. And snails.

I had an eyeopening experience when I put out my first garden in Hawai'i and talked to a Master Gardener at the Volcano Farmers markets who was selling inexpensive pheromone traps for destructive fruit flies. I said I hadn't really seen any around my place, but just in case I paid the $4 for one and hung it up, and the next day I had already collected a half a cup of them!

Then there are the bigger pests, like the beautiful Kaliji pheasants, who lay waste to my berries. Or the lightning fast mongooses, which can lay waste to a chicken coop, or the feral pigs, which can lay waste to an entire vegetable garden in an hour or less. And the rats... I hate the rats.

Nevertheless, if you plant enough of a lot of different things, they might leave you something to eat.

[terracore]

We currently have a counter full of fresh Hawaiian fruit, vegetables, and sweet potatoes. We didn't "grow" any of it, we just found it growing on our land. And our neighbor brought over some avocados. Even feeding it to our parrots (not the avocados), we can't eat it as fast as it grows.

[hotzcatz]

Hawaii is all about micro-climates. Sometimes something will grow well in my yard and not grow well several blocks over. You also have to be very specific about which crops you plant and which variety of fruit trees you get. "Chill hours" are important and you have to find varieties of fruit trees which don't need many of them.

A lot of gardening in Hawaii is actually permaculture. Once you get your avo or citrus providing fruit, it's a no brainer. Bananas are another good choice for many areas. Coconuts are also hardy although don't plant them where falling nuts will be an issue. (Like "duh"! But you'd be amazed at what ends up below coconut trees.) However, you can't live on just a few fruits. To completely subsist or even substantially augment a diet, you need a fairly large garden. Which works better in some areas than others.

If you plan on growing a large garden when moving to Hawaii, choose a spot that has soil. Just because there's stuff growing on the land doesn't mean there's soil, a lot of things grow in leaf litter on lava.