Little Fire Ant ups the Ante

Little Fire Ant, an invasive species with a painful sting, is spreading quickly along the coast of East Hawai'i, creating havoc for gardeners, farmers, and pretty much anyone else who has the misfortune of discovering colonies. Little Fire Ants establish colonies usually in potted plants, trees and lawns, but will also enter all kinds of buildings - including homes, schools and businesses. Read about it in my article in the Oct. 28 issue of the Big Island Weekly -- click here.

USDA photo

Hawai'i School Gardens: Pa'auilo School

At the Hamakua Alive! festival held at Pa'auilo School this weekend, I saw many excellent ideas demonstrating sustainability in action, but most impressive was the school's garden itself. Above is one of the school's milk goats. (Would you believe it was love at first sight? Sigh.)

Here are the greenhouses and gardens...

...here's Donna Mitts, garden educator,
and the school's ever-expanding vermicomposting facilities ...

I couldn't help but admire the efforts of Donna Mitts. She's gearing up to do mid-scale vermicomposting using cafeteria waste, making this the first school on the island to take this bold step toward sustainability.

Hawai'i Island School Garden Network director Nancy Redfeather counts Pa'auilo among the school garden jewels dotting the island that are part of the Hawai'i Island School Garden Network.

"Donna's 10 year old program is certainly an example of the integration of various types of agricultural work into a small model that can be worked by the children," says Redfeather. "When a public/private partnership is formed, as I hope to see someday, communities around the island will be able to lend their voices to the decision."

To get the full story about this amazing outdoor learning lab -- "Wormville" and all -- read this insightful blog by Hawai'i Island investigative journalist Alan McNarie - click here.

Fall Container Gardening, Hawai'i Style

I'm not like most people in Hawai'i. Most residents live near the coast. I live at 3,500 feet elevation on the island of Hawai'i, atop an active volcano, Kilauea. While the rest of the lowlanders are sweltering around the state, I'm experimenting with mainland-style, cool-weather spring/fall herbs and veggies. Here the volcanic plume of sulphur emissions from Halema'uma'u crater, the home of Hawaiian goddess Pele, creates constant acid rain, which presents a challenge for gardeners in the Volcano area. In winter the rain is heavy, which is another problem for residents trying to grow edible gardens. To protect their bounty from acid rain and vog damage, many here resort to greenhouses and container gardening.

Though I haven't yet constructed a greenhouse, at the moment I'm keeping quite a few plants on a protected area on my lanai.

Here's what’s growing on my lanai:

Red shiso (Perilla)
Mexican tarragon
Sweet marjoram
Upright rosemary
Greek oregano
'Windowbox Mini Basil' (Renee’s)
Thai basil
'Patio' tomato
Aloe vera
Strawberry
Scallions, 'Delicious Duo' (Renee’s)

Just seeded:
Cilantro
Horenso (spinach )
Komatsuna (Brassica rapa, Seeds of Change)
Collards ('Green Glaze', Southen Exposure seed)
Oregon Snow Pea (Seeds Of Change)

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

DIY Watering Can

Happy Birthday, Dear Hawai'i Gardening Blog!

It's the second anniversary of this here blog thing. To celebrate, let's make ourselves a very thoughtful, very inexpensive gardening gift.

Watch it in action. You'll want one.

DIY WATERING CAN

Stuff You'll Need

Plastic laundry detergent bottle

Drill with bit that makes tiny holes

Utility knife

Rinse out bottle thoroughly. Drill plenty of holes in the cap. To allow air to flow into the bottle and keep the water free flowing, cut a hole near the cap in the handle – not to close to the cap, otherwise the water spills out there, too.

I make these and donate them to community and school garden projects. Makes a nice cheapo gift for any gardener who doesn't like to drag out the power tools themselves. Sure, laundry detergent bottles are #2 recyclable. But if you have to have those bottles anyway, reuse is better than recycle.

Edible Gardens, HI Lux Style

To eat well, it's best to learn how to grow well. Hope you'll enjoy reading my article about Edible Gardens in the August/September issue of HI Luxury Magazine, a glossy periodical published by StarBulletin/Midweek. To read the article, click here.

There are some great tips from two esteemed Hawai'i Island gardeners: renowned artist Mayumi Oda on her Ginger Hill Farm and Retreat Center in Kealakekua, and permaculture farmers Tom Baldwin and Shannon Casey at Uluwehi Farm in Hawi.

In the photo above is an edible flower, butterfly pea, Clitoria ternatea, that adds a splash of bright color with edible flowers and pods in Tom's sustainable garden. Cabbage and amaranth are just a couple of wonders growing in Mayumi's lovely mandala garden.

I hope you'll be inspired to cultivate bliss at your own doorstep.

Hawaiian Mint, Pokeberry, Raspberry

Are you a plant sale addict? Are you so afflicted that you'd buy plants instead of some yummy local-style grinds? If you’re like me, tables loaded up with transplants means emergency surgery on the wallet. This past weekend I succumbed to some hard-to-find natives at Volcano Art Center’s Forest Education Festival. Of course, it was a fundraiser for the center so I was just being supportive, right? Never mind that in seconds I ended up with only loose change in my purse and I had to go home for lunch instead heading for the food booths….

Mintless Mint, Stenogyne sp.

Without grazing animals to predate on them, many endemic Hawaiian plants put less energy into creating defenses such as thorns or unpleasant tastes. Thus Hawaiian mints, such as this Stenogyne, don’t have a minty taste or smell. However, as you can see in the photo, they do have the square stems characteristic of the mint family. This trailing mint prefers filtered light and moist areas, so I’m planting it under some ‘ohi’a trees in the backyard. The plant I bought has one long vine so I can get a few cuttings, too - I’m getting more than one plant for my money. Hooray!

Hawaiian Pokeberrry, Phytolacca sandwicensis

Who says native plants aren’t colorful? The first time you see Hawaiian Pokeberry, or Popolo ku mai, it will stop you in your tracks. I first saw these attractive, rose pink blooms and deep purple berries on a hike through Kipuka Puaulu, a mesic forest in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. I love the deep purple venation on the leaves, too. It likes full sun it needs moist soil, so I’m planting it in a sunnier, open area farther from the house. I’ve been told it reseeds itself, so I’m looking forward to having a nice stand of pokeberry someday.

Hawaiian Raspberry, Rubus hawaiensis

Look, ma, no ow-ees. The endemic raspberry, known as ‘akala in Hawaiian, certainly has prickles, though it isn’t as nasty as the introduced varieties. The flower is dark pink and the fruit is usually large and tart, ranging from deep red to bright yellow. Hawaiian raspberry grows only at high elevations, usually in mesic and wet forests, and in woodlands, so maybe I'll have a chance at coaxing this one to take root here in Volcano Village at 4,000 feet. The kalij pheasants will probably find it unpleasant to peck at it despite its wimpy prickles, but looks like some chewing insects have already nibbled at the leaves; I’ll have to keep an eye on this transplant under the ‘ohi’a trees, too.

Ginger, Nice but Naughty

Gorgeous, isn’t it? Such a pity something so nice is actually a pest. Kahili ginger (Hedychium gardnerianum) is in full bloom now, rioting all over Volcano Village, including my yard. Its heavy perfume is an evening serenade, a fragrant backdrop for romantic stargazing on clear summer nights. Oddly enough, my cat might be allergic to it – he’s developed a rapid, machinegun-like kitty sneeze. Personally, I think the scent has a nicotine-like undertone and is inferior to white and yellow ginger. That, and K-ginger's invasiveness, permits me to charge full force with my machete. Snicker-snack!

The first Hawaiians brought "shampoo" ginger, which they called awapuhi (Zingiber zerumbet), to these islands. However, so-called “Kahili” ginger, like other gingers that have naturalized here, was brought to Hawai'i as an ornamental in the early 1900s, and since then it has created enormous environmental problems in the native rainforest, crowding out other plants. Heard of the invasive Himalayan raspberry? This is Himalayan ginger – no kidding. “Kahili” is a misnomer; it’s not Hawaiian at all. Sad to say, it’s just someone’s clever way of marketing a nursery product by co-opting a Hawaiian identity. Again.

Himalayan ginger is well-adapted to rainforest environments. It is shade-tolerant, is tall and has broad leaves to block sunlight from reaching competing plants, and it spreads by rhizomes and seeds, which makes it even more successful. Birds are attracted to the bright red seeds and spread them around to other areas.

Sure, you can keep hacking it back, but it’ll only laugh at you. At the nature trail of the Volcano Art Center’s Niaulani campus, volunteers spend every third Sunday of the month digging out the rhizomes in order to preserve the rare native species of the old-growth forest there. A good ecotourist activity if you’re interested, by the way. Click here for more info.

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park uses another method: They cut the plants down to the rhizomes, and then they spray an effective (but expensive) chemical pesticide until the point of runoff. (I won’t say which pesticide it is – sorry. But you can ask them yourself, if you’re really desperate and have a big problem.)

Recycling on Your Own Turf

I'm away from Hawai'i now, spending some time in the San Francisco Bay Area on family business. Every time I travel to the city I'm amazed at how rural practices can get wildly out of hand in urban contexts. Take the concept of recycling, for example. "I'm a big-time recycler!" My city pals are fond of saying this. What it really means is that every week their curbside pickup consists of 3 colored bins: a blue one for recyclables, which they do not sort ("they have people who do that," they explain); green for "compostables," and gray for plain old "garbage," whatever that means. And, among my pals, there's competition for bragging rights to keeping the most out of the gray bin. Does this deter them from buying overpackaged items? Not necessarily -- because, hey, every week almost everything is "recyclable," right?

Apparently, in the city, recycling isn't necessarily connected with composting at home. Take for example the condo owner who lives next to my friend in the city of Alameda. That's his green bin in the photo above. He decided he no longer wanted a postage-stamp lawn and wanted a concrete patio instead - the way it was originally - so he ripped it out the grass and disposed of it just as it had come to him, sod piece by sod piece. Well, I guess he thought it is compostable, and so it made some kind of logical sense to him to stuff it in the "green" bin. But to me it somehow seemed a bit bizarre to see turf rolled up and stuffed in a garbage bin like a bit of old carpet, even though it would go to the green waste facility. Big time recyclers? Not quite, I don't think so, at least not yet.

Which makes me wonder: When it comes to recycling, how are we doing on our own turf, Hawai'i?