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It’s dry. It’s very dry. We haven’t gotten any significant rain for a month and lawns are turning brown all over the usually wet east side of the Big Island. Whether the current drought is caused by global warming, the El Niño effect, or just a fluky coincidence, we’ll never know.
If you look around, however, you’ll see plants that are holding their own and continuing to look good. Many of the Hawaiian native plants have evolved to handle extremes in the weather: on the east side, they must be able to tolerate long periods of nonstop rain as well as dry spells, like the one we’re having now. The native hibiscus species are looking fine. The ‘uha-loa and kukui don’t mind the lack of moisture a bit. Beach naupaka, ‘akiohala, ala he‘e, hau, ilie‘e, kamani, la‘amia and niu (coconut palm) are not showing signs of stress or suffering — these are only examples of plants that do well on the windward side of our island. The plants on this brief list are all native Hawaiian plants or those that were brought here in the canoes of the first Polynesian settlers.
We don’t need as much water as we think we need to keep our property and gardens green and productive. If you plant natives and other plants that can withstand both rain and drought, you’ll learn to love them and begin to understand that the ornamental exotics that many people value might not be the right plants for our environment. Encourage your local nursery to carry more Hawaiian native plants because by growing them in our homes we not only save water and enjoy year-round greenery, we are helping to conserve and ensure that our natural heritage plants do not become extinct. When you grow native plants in an appropriate environment they also do not need fertilizer. Have you ever seen a person walking around the forest scattering little pellets around the trees and flowers?
Wonderful Weeds
Many plants we consider weeds are not affected by drought. Invasive species such as the yellow and strawberry guava, trumpet trees, autograph trees, schefflera and many others are thriving. Even though you don’t want to purposely introduce these plants to your property, the invasives can teach us one thing: if a plant is suited to its environment, it will do well. Pure and simple. Many plants just seem to perform better when they grow where they want to grow and not where we tell them to grow. Wonderful weeds that are not invasive and yet survive dry weather include Madagascar periwinkle, liliko‘i, nut trees such as the macadamia, many herbs, popolo (black nightshade), “Red Zinger” hibiscus, purslane, plantain (Plantago species, not the banana), pikake jasmine, bamboo orchids, parrot’s beak heliconia and many more.
Break out of the ornamental plant box. Stop growing plants that need lots of water and fertilizer. Get in step with the natural environment — everything and everyone will benefit.
I started this experiment by freezing several dried berries that I bought at the natural foods store for one month. Then I soaked them in water for about a day. This made the berries very mushy, so I just used my fingernail to split them open and extract the tiny seeds. It didn’t take too many berries to get a good number of seeds and I didn’t use all the seeds from all the berries because just a few berries gave me all the seeds I needed for this experiment.
Next, I allowed the seeds to dry just slightly, maybe a day, to make them a little easier to handle. I filled an 8-inch bowl-type pot with Super Soil and Perlite and scattered the seeds on top and barely covered them. I kept them in my propagation area, which only gets limited sun, because I wanted to keep the soil good and moist and didn’t want the hot sun to dry it out or to burn any baby sprouts. I have now moved the seedlings, in the same pot, onto my other table that gets a lot more sun much of the earlier part of the day.
They look a little leggy already, so I wanted to start giving them plenty of sun as soon as possible. I will keep a close eye on them over the next few days to make sure they are not burning, and will keep you all posted when anything new or dramatic happens. But for now, I am pleased as punch that my goji seeds have sprouted! I had my doubts…
I've been so involved writing my GardenGuides articles, I haven't taken time to post to my blog lately!
This is the time you on the mainland would call "early spring" in Hawaii--it's a great time to get started planting seeds, taking cuttings and getting ready for the long, hot summer season when it's harder to start things because they sometimes fry. Yesterday I planted seeds of Calamondin lime, Anaheim chiles, "nioi" Hawaiian hot pepper and goji berries. The goji are an experiment that I will write about more in the coming months--I believe they are a possibility here in Hawaii and I have written about them in my GardenGuides articles.
I also transplanted some basil starts into individual pots and some baby epazote seedings. I've tried to get epazote, a Mexican herb that is said to "de-gas" beans when you add it to their boiling water, to naturalize here for 10 years--it grew in the sidewalk cracks in San Jose! Finally, about a year ago, a patch of it miraculously appeared below my propagation table, in a scrubby area amidst weeds, and it thrived on neglect! I harvested some seeds from it and started them on Nov. 15. Got a lot of sprouts, so I chose the strongest, biggest ones and potted up seven of them in 3-inch pots. I'm gearing up for a plant sale in March, when I have my annual open garden party for the garden's 10th birthday.
I still need to re-pot my Greek oregano. My dog knocked it off the low shelf in front of my house recently, so I unpotted it and divided it into 3 sections, which I repotted... one for me, two for sale. But I had some bad luck with some old potting soil--I believe it contracted a fungal disease because a lemon verbena I recently bought and planted in it died within two weeks, the first basil babies were keeling over one by one, and the oregano could look better. I also repotted my old culinary sage into the same bad soil, and it didn't look like it should have after two weeks in the "bad" soil. So I repotted it too. Washed all the soil off the roots and scrubbed all the pots those plants were in in bleach water. Also scrubbed out my wheel barrow, where I kept the soil, with bleach water. Hopefully that problem is behind me.
More on the goji soon!A lot of people here in Hawaii just love to eat Spam. I always knew it wasn't even a real food, but I just got this info from a Yahoo group I subscribe to, and wanted to share it...
Spam was really a major miracle of food science, as it solved a mystery that humanity had been trying for centuries to figure out: namely, how to make meat-flavored Jell-O. Developed in the 1930s, Spam is derived primarily from pork shoulder meat (seriously) and combined with water, sugar, sodium nitrate (of course) and copious amounts of salt. The result is a meat-like goo that derives 80 percent of its calories from fat and that delivers a whopping 790 mg of sodium per two-ounce serving.
Spam first hit the big-time during World War II when its highly preserved state made it the ideal food to feed to our protein-needy soldiers fighting over in Europe. Now there's a fine tribute to our fighting boys! Thanks for risking your butts against the Nazis, fellas, now here's a mound of pork slime! When you think about it, it's remarkable that more of our troops didn't defect to the German army, which assuredly would have offered them generous helpings of bratwurst, knockwurst and schweineschnitzel in exchange for changing sides. The fact that Americans bravely suffered through Spam prior to fighting the Battle of the Bulge adds yet another heroic chapter to the Greatest Generation's legacy.
Enjoy your breakfast...
When I first started telling people in my California homeland that I was going to move to Hawaii, I received some negative reactions, such as, "doesn't it rain a lot there?" This was shocking to me because I guess I am a positive person, a person who always experiments with the "what if" scenario and who believes that anything you set your mind to doing is possible if only you work hard at it and do everyhting in your power to make it happen. So my response to these naysayers was always, "I am a writer and a gardener. When it rains, I'll go inside and write. When it's sunny, I'll go out in the garden."
Never did I know how true this would be for me in my life 11 years later, being a writer for GardenGuides and also keeping up a large garden that gives me fruit, herbs, medicines, some veggies, and lots of beauty and enjoyment.
I say to all of you, believe in your dreams no matter what other people think. I'm sitting here in Hawaii on December 5 with all the doors and windows wide open and fans going to keep the place cool from my oven, in which I am making a papaya cobbler.
Hallelujah!
This is an oldie but a goodie:
GOD:
Frank, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is going on down there on the planet? What happened to the dandelions, violets, milkweeds and stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honey bees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But all I see are these green rectangles.
St. FRANCIS:
It's the tribes that settled there, Lord. The Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers “weeds” and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.
GOD:
Grass? But, it's so boring. It's not colorful. It doesn't attract butterflies, birds and bees; only grubs and sod worms. It's sensitive to temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?
ST. FRANCIS:
Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it and keep it green. They begin each spring by fertilizing grass and poisoning any other plant that pops up in the lawn.
GOD:
The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow really fast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.
ST. FRANCIS:
Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it — sometimes twice a week.
GOD:
They cut it? Do they then bale it like hay?
ST. FRANCIS:
Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.
GOD:
They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?
ST. FRANCIS:
No, Sir, just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.
GOD:
Now, let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so it will grow. And, when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?
ST. FRANCIS:
Yes, Sir.
GOD:
These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.
ST. FRANCIS:
You aren't going to believe this, Lord. When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it, so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.
GOD:
What nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn, they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. It's a natural cycle of life.
ST. FRANCIS:
You better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.
GOD:
No!? What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?
ST. FRANCIS:
After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.
GOD:
And where do they get this mulch?
ST. FRANCIS:
They cut down trees and grind them up to make the mulch.
GOD:
Enough! I don't want to think about this any more. St. Catherine, you're in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?
ST. CATHERINE:
“Dumb and Dumber,” Lord. It's a story about....
GOD:
Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis.
You know, all this garden writing has made me get out in the garden more lately. Late yesterday, I wrote an article for GardenGuides about "How to make your Citrus tree green." and it kind of guilted me into getting out and taking care of my kaffir lime, which has been turning yellow for some time, but out of laziness I have been ignoring it. I knew I would have to prune it and feared that it might be infested with aphids, but as I was cutting off old growth and dead branches, I could see little or no insect damage. But it definitely has the yellow leaf chlorosis I wrote about. It was encouraging to see that there was actually quite a bit of new growth -- good news because that means the plant is still alive and trying hard. Bad news because it made pruning harder: I had to examine each branch for new growth and carefully cut off branches that didn't have any new growth at their tips. If there was a "sucker" branch coming out from the middle of a branch that had no growth at the end, I had to carefully cut above the new growth to remove the bad part. I'm not sure I got them all because it's a pretty large tree: taller than me and these citrus trees do have heinous thorns.
I will give it a good shot of a chelated iron plant food I found in my nursery area tomorrow and keep you posted.
Aloha, all!
I recently wrote an article for GardenGuides called "How to grow Goji berries in Hawaii," and it motivated me to start some here at my garden. I purchased just a few dried berries at my local health foods store, Keaau Natural Foods (they are the BEST), and have now put them in the freezer, as my own instructions say to do. I will leave them there for one month, then soak them, wait for them to germinate (if they do) and then plant them in small pots. I'm excited to be doing a garden experiment and encourage you folks to try to grow these as well--they are native to Tibet, so can withstand cold temperatures, but like, hot dry summers. I think they could be grown almost anywhere.
I'll keep you posted on my progress.
I couldn’t believe how many large groups were having lunch at my usual Wednesday lunch spot, Ocean Sushi, in Hilo! Veteran’s Day must have special significance here or something.
Tomorrow is a red-letter day for me: it’s my eleventh “Hawaii birthday,” which is what I call the anniversary of the day I left my life in California for a new life here. November 12, 1998. When the airplane started being pushed backward toward the runway that day, I thought, “the first step of a million mile journey.” And what a journey it has been! There have been good times and tough times, challenges and triumphs. I successfully built the garden, a road, a pool, two gazebos, an outdoor bathroom and a whole lot more. But the fame and fortune I assumed would be mine eluded me, except in small doses at scattered times.
I am now coming out of a year-long struggle to keep my place in Hawaii. I feel as if I hit bottom and am now pulling it all back together. One year ago I was ready to chuck it all in, move back to California and re-enter my technical writing career in Silicon Valley. But thanks to Bubba Bush’s economic downturn, I never found a job. This basically forced me to stay here and find ways to survive — I truly believe things happen for a reason and the gods and goddesses have plans for me that I might not know about yet.
The other night I had an epiphany of sorts: I realized that my life here, my home and garden, all that life here includes, is like a marriage: for better or for worse. I have never lived in any place this long as an adult — eight years in San Jose was my longest tenure before Hawaii. When things have gotten tough, or when I have gotten bored and restless and unhappy with my current situation, I have always moved to something different, another town, another home, new friends. I do get bored fairly easily, and certainly considered leaving this place a year ago. But the powers that be had other plans for me…
The other evening, just as the sun was about to set, I took my dog Jackson down to the “beach,” about ½ mile from my house. I put “beach” in quote marks because there’s no sand, just cliffs and crashing surf. I hadn’t been down there for a while, partly because they don’t seem to keep up the road and it’s like driving on a moving lava flow in places! I parked near the sea cliffs and walked Jackson around a bit and realized, really vividly, that “I’M STILL HERE.” Damn, I am still here. I have succeeded in somehow finding the resources to pay the mortgage and my other bills. Perhaps I’m not doing exactly what I intended to do for a living — I’m writing instead of teaching about gardening and herbalism — but I’m writing about gardening and I’m making ends meet.
Hallelujah.
Well, aloha and welcome!
I feel as if I should begin at the beginning, but I built Hi‘iaka's Healing Herb Garden almost 10 years ago to help conserve and educate about threatened Hawaiian medicinal plants. It's still a public botanical garden and I continue to hold an occasional workshop or class, but I'm primarily focusing on writing articles for GardenGuides now.
I wanted to start writing this blog to let people know what I’m doing in the garden to keep it going. But I promise I won’t write all about all the weeds and how much time it takes to keep them under control with organic methods!
A few days ago I HAD to clean out my chicken coop because it was beginning to send its pungent aroma around the property. I scooped the poop out with a flat-nose shovel and put it in a 5-gallon bucket (could have used a 32-gallon trash can, but I didn’t have one). Then I added water to make “manure tea” or as I like to call it, “poop soup.” I waited about two days and then watered a bunch of the potted plants I have growing around my house with it and then added more water to the bucket. But it was starting to get stinky and they say you shouldn’t allow poop soup to steep for too long.
I wanted to fertilize my banana plants and also wanted to start preparing the two planter boxes in my small screen/greenhouse for tomatoes and perhaps some other veggies I will start seeds of after Christmas. I’m not much of a ”plant by the moon” gardener because I can never remember what you’re supposed to do when, but I certainly believe in planting by the sun. Here in Hawaii, where we don’t get cold winters, you can grow things like tomatoes year-round. But I have discovered that they do better if you wait until after the solstice on December 21 or 22 to plant seeds. The increasing amount of daylight after that date gives seeds that upward growth spurt they need.
I used about 1/3 of the bucket full of manure for each of the two beds and dumped the rest of it at the base of most of my banana plants. I’m a pretty lazy gardener, so I figured that if I just spread the manure on top of the soil in both locations, it would leach into the soil every time it rains or I water (inside the screenhouse). I do plan to hoe the manure into the planter boxes… when I find the time and motivation.
You’re not supposed to use fresh manure on plants directly because it is strong stuff and can burn them. But bananas are very hardy and my plants are already big, so I figured a top dressing of fresh manure, which will get leached in with the rains, would have just about the same effect as watering them periodically with poop soup. We shall see, but I am confident it won’t harm my bananas. I spread it on top of the planter boxes’ soil now, and will dig it in later, because I won’t be planting my tomato seedlings until late January, and by that time the manure should be pretty well composted. Sometimes you do need to plan ahead and be a little organized with all this gardening stuff!
Oh! I forgot to mention that I also added a big scoop of worm castings to the bucket that the manure was in. The more the merrier. I’ve never been a big “fertilizer” because I know that if you have rich soil that you’ve amended with yummy composty stuff, that’s basically all your plants need. And I also believe in growing plants that do well in your particular microclimate, such as natives and other good plants (not invasive species) that are totally adapted to your conditions. They don’t need any fuss or muss, no water or fertilizer, and that’s the way I like it.
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