What are some of the things Hawaiians like to grow in their back yard? (Kailua: houses, camp)

[RangerDuke08]

Please share what you like to grow and what grows well in your backyard.

[Jungjohann]

Well, if you've got a really high fence, and not too many helicopters flying overhead all the time, you can grow,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,try guess em already????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hawaiian chili peppers!!!!!!!!!! Make jalapenos look like kool aid!!!! Got some growing right now!!!

Aloha and hau'oli maka hiki hou

[HankDfrmSD]

Originally Posted by RangerDuke08

Please share what you like to grow and what grows well in your backyard.

Edible:

Avocado, papya, banana, coconut.

Beautiful:

Plumeria, Orchid, red ti, green ti, hibiscus, areca, spider lily, bamboo, croton, bromeliad, euphorbia, panax, monstera, ginger, heliconia.

Hank

Example:

[cynmkolohe]

Lychee.

Link: Lychee--Farmer's Bookshelf (scroll down to "Description")

We also have orange trees and a small herb garden. Planning to add lime trees once the rain stops.

[hotzcatz]

A lot of it depends on your location and elevation. Hank has lovely heliconias which are part of the ginger/banana/heliconia family and like moist wet conditions. Even shady wet moist areas.

As you go up the mountain to higher elevations, the cooler weather plants will grow such as protea, lavender, apples, plums but the hot weather plants don't do as well.

In my backyard (400' elevation, about 120" of rain a year) we have coffee trees, coconut, bananas, heliconias, gingers, ti, tea, apples & peaches (specific low chill varieties), pineapples, grapes, bamboos, one big Norfolk Island pine, assorted crotons & dracenia, oranges, grapefruit, a cactus tree my DH hates, roses, gardenia, orchids and a general vegetable garden along with hydroponic lettuce and tomatoes.

As far as favorite plants for Hawaiians to grow, they are fond of taros and bananas.

[RangerDuke08]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

A lot of it depends on your location and elevation. Hank has lovely heliconias which are part of the ginger/banana/heliconia family and like moist wet conditions. Even shady wet moist areas.

As you go up the mountain to higher elevations, the cooler weather plants will grow such as protea, lavender, apples, plums but the hot weather plants don't do as well.

In my backyard (400' elevation, about 120" of rain a year) we have coffee trees, coconut, bananas, heliconias, gingers, ti, tea, apples & peaches (specific low chill varieties), pineapples, grapes, bamboos, one big Norfolk Island pine, assorted crotons & dracenia, oranges, grapefruit, a cactus tree my DH hates, roses, gardenia, orchids and a general vegetable garden along with hydroponic lettuce and tomatoes.

As far as favorite plants for Hawaiians to grow, they are fond of taros and bananas.

Sounds like a big backyard! How do grapes grow on the big island?

[hotzcatz]

It's a pretty big backyard, just under a third of an acre. It has been a plantation camp back yard for about a hundred years so there was all kinds of stuff planted here by the folks before us. The fellow before us planted all the coffee about twelve years ago, the Norfolk, bamboo and coconuts are decades if not a half century old or more. It takes awhile for coconuts to get that tall.

The grapes are "Filipino Wine Grape" from what my neighbor tells me. Before the bulldozer squished a line of camp houses a block over from our house awhile back (2002?) I took cuttings from everything in a yard where there had been extensive gardens before they were all overgrown. One cutting grew and produced a lot of dark purple seeded "concord" type grapes. Very grape flavored, good for wine or jam. A bit thick skinned and tedious to eat around the seeds for a dessert grape but really good for jam and wine. I have a bottle of grape juice still left in the refrigerator, I might see if I can make it into balsamic vinegar for salad dressings.

I've planted several other varieties of grape but that was last year and they haven't had time to do much yet. Chickens like to eat grapes so our harvest was about half of what it could be since they ate all the ones they could reach.

Sometimes the rose beetles eat loads of holes in the leaves, but the leaves will fall off in the winter and the vine looks pitiful and kinda dead but then it puts out new leaves, more vines and makes more grapes. Three years ago, a friend came to visit for the Merrie Monarch Hula festival around Easter time and she trimmed the vines for me since she is from Napa and they do that sort of thing there. The year after that she was going to trim it again, but it didn't seem quite the right time since it was already making small grapes so it didn't get trimmed. The year after that we got loads and loads of grapes from it. I'm not sure if grape vines really like being trimmed or not. We will see what it does this year after two years of no trimming.

[RangerDuke08]

Wow very interesting. I'm from Colorado originally, can't really grow much here heh heh, though we herd cattle growing up, but grandpa moved from Hawaii to Colorado after WWII.

Anyways looking to grow some stuff once I return, which is a great idea, I hear since the soil and weather in hawaii is great. Grow some herbs and grab a pinch whenever you need it, grapes sounds good too, like you say chicken feed and then make it into wine and jam. Them lychee sounds interesting too, for both fruit and wine. Of course that's going to be a long term project.

Hau’oli Makahiki Hou and happy harvesting!

[hotzcatz]

We get choke cows here too, try ask any paniolo! One wandered into my neighbor's coffee field, everyone says it isn't theirs but it just eats the grass and not any coffee so they leave it there. Parker Ranch is just up the road, there are lots of cows there and a lot of folks all around the island have cows, sheep and goats. A lot of ranching is done here as well as farming of various types. We need more farmers and ranchers.

The soil and weather in Hawaii are very variable. Some areas have no dirt and some areas have very little rain. We have four or five different varieties of fruit fly which damage a lot of crops, the topography isn't flat so a lot of mainland farm machinery doesn't work and we don't have large enough crop areas to have the economy of scale necessary to support large farm machines which means more human labor which also adds to the expense of farming. We could also use some more produce processing facilities since most farmers have to grow, harvest, process, pack and sell their own produce.

There was a lot of sugar grown in Hawaii until about 1995. Most of the cropland was in sugar so there wasn't a lot of general farming being done. The big sugar plantations were a lot like factory work done outside so the sugar folks didn't learn much about crop farming. Now the land is available for diversified farming and we need folks who know how to farm.

Many herbs grow well here. My rosemary is the size of a small shrub and that's only because I keep whacking it back, it would be taller if it could. My neighbor grows sage so we swap rosemary for sage. Chives, parsley, mint, oregano are all constantly available out there. Dill has to be replanted every once in awhile since it likes to seed and die off if it can. Same with the basils, if they are let to go flower, they will seed and die off but if you keep the flowers clipped off, they will last a long time. Comfrey is a bit difficult to get started but once it is going it is hard to stop. Chickens love to eat that, too. Lemons and limes are almost in the herb class even though they are trees. My trees haven't started fruiting yet, but my neighbor has plenty so it's all good. Having neighbors who garden can double the amount of stuff you have available if you share with each other.

[RangerDuke08]

HOTZCATZ, do you go to farmer market of some sort? Do you sell any there? I think that would be a lovely idea.