It is pretty amazing leaving HAwaii, a place that is so filled with food and abundance of trees and water and then entering an environment so different. There is definitely culture shock. I have grave concern for the millions of poeple totally reliant of the fossilized oil economy system for survival. Millions of peole concentrated and no food growing for thousands of miles is not food security. And the popular culture is so far away from sustainable living that there is a wide gap between where people are and where we need to be to make the evolutionary shift. We need a revolution of conscious agriculture, enlightened land stewards who are ready to care for and restore our rapidly degrading ecosystems, green warriors.

My prayers are that people start waking up to the predicament or challenge they are in living in Southern California, and other dry areas in the US. It is very troubling that the majority of people I speak to seem totally unaware we are headed for a calamity.  All I can do is offer opportunities to people to transition out of cities and hope they consider an option that is drastically different from the current model of endless consumption and destruction as a basis for creating the industrialized standard of living.

I made a really exciting connection with Dr. David Larom, SDSU professor who is teaching A GLobal  Perspective. His class is so important and timely, and it is really a wake up call for those who are ready to realize what is happening to our planet, and the corrective action we can take. I was so happy to see this class taking place in a city that seems to be in a deep sleep.

But it is an honor to be speaking to young people about opportunities to improve their health and expand their consciousness.  THis week I will visit UCSB, UCLA, and UCSD. More to come!! Blessings Dash

Week of Oct 2^nd                                              

I prepped lower garden space to start new test plot for agroforestry. We cleared the cane grass, added composted cow manure from the local dairy, fish and bone meal, and lime and I incorporated it in with tiller. I was very unimpressed with the tiller. After using a 6 foot spader for the last 3 years the tiller seems quite inferior. The tiller did not till very deep at all. I talked to a local veteran row crop farmer about this and he confirmed that tiller does not till deep at all and you need a ripper to open up the soil. I found the spader to be much more effective at opening up garden space.  Weather is very dry. Kohala is experiencing a major drought. We need to water all the gardens and nursery very frequently, the water bill is very challenging, as we are not selling much produce yet. The garden that is on well water is doing much better than the garden on county water. I believe it is because there is no chlorine in the well water.

We want to get the whole farm on well water as soon as possible, it makes plants thrives, maybe it will make us thrive as well. I am having trouble-getting kava to grow in the ground once I plant it out from nursery; I have already lost 5 plants. I think I need to wait until the rainy season kicks in.  I planted out a third polyculture garden this week; this will be one of the main research gardens for my work with Evergreen. I planted numerous species of plants in polyculture with varied spacing. Plant species initially planted include turmeric, ginger, taro, papayas, vettiver grass, cassava, cowpeas, plantains, island cabbage, yacon (south American tuber) and tobacco.

Oct 9^th

We planted some more crops into the garden this week incorporating Ilex Guyusca (yerba mate relative, bitter gourd, perennial tropical cucumber, more papayas, pineapples, and other plant species and a variety of vegetable crops including some corn. I am curious how the vegetable crops will perform next to the tropical plants, especially since the garden beds are not raised and I did not prep the beds as thoroughly as I do when we plant row crops. The garden patch in a gulch, so it is naturally moist, the patch was fallow with cane grass. There are bananas adjacent which hold much moisture. The patch received much pig traffic and pig feces deposited over time, it seems exceptionally good for a garden. It is in the Halawa stream bed. When the river used to run sometimes this area would flood, creating a higher concentration of nutrient rich silt. I am excited to see what type of production we get form this garden.

Oct 16^th

Many of the vegetable seedling we planted are ready for thinning, so we thinned the beets carrots and other salad greens. We are still watering by hand and everyday because it is so dry.  The polyculture in front of the house is really suffering from the dryness, I have the garden on drip, but it is not doing well, I assuming it is because it is on a slope and not holding moisture. The corn did not germinate, the taro died back. But the papayas, bananas, sweet potatoes, and few other crops are hanging gin there.

Our terraced polyculture in the lower macadamia nut orchard is growing the nicest on an abundance of well water. I am running the water frequently, sometimes over night soaking the soil. Everything is growing well, the ginger, taro, pigeon peas, papayas, moringa, and turmeric. And this garden has been planted with the climax species of 4 durian trees, two mangosteins, and one breadfruit.  The durian trees are doing very well in the shade of the pigeon pea plants, they seem like they are rooting an getting established. One durian tree died, it looks like form two much organic matter at the base, allowed insect damage and then rot. But everything is growing nicely.

Oct 23^rd

All the gardens need weeding this week, we hoe out the young seedlings and we selectively hand weed out some extract invasive species, including Honohono grass, a succulent crawling grass, which each segment grows more. We need to completely remove it from the garden, and burn it, trash it, or compost it, but the pile needs to be covered, no light or it will continue to grow. But there are worst weeds on island, like wainaku grass. The gardens are doing well but even with watering, it is not like when it is raining. We mulched all bananas, fruits trees and plantings around the house with macnut waste, coconut shells, and weeds. We also sprayed all gardens with whey from dairy.

The taro in the lower garden is growing very big and looks nice and healthy the spacing of every 18 inches seems to be working with the tree crops incorporated.

Oct 30^th

The garden below the house has some winter squash ready. I discovered the irrigation line I had been turning on was disconnected, so the crops were really a dry land farming experiment. The bananas and papayas did very well on almost now water, but the taro, vegetables and turmeric mostly died back.  Some of the papayas in the garden are starting to show their sex, so I am thinning them down to single females or hermaphrodites. The banana and papaya spacing which is consistent in all the gardens is working with out a problem, but the shorter term crops are not looking as good as I would like them to. The garden by the house is do to shortage of water.

Nov. 6^th

We mulched the entire gulch garden with banana leaves and stalks, a traditional Hawaiian garden mulch; it is nice to see the ground covered. In our terraced garden, the beds were heavily mulched and the crops are doing great, and there is a lot of mycelium and earthworms present. We also fertilized the terraced garden with composted cow manure, and the gulch garden with biochar and fishmeal.  We have been mulching our gardens with finished compost and mac-nut leaves. The mac-nut leaves grow mycelium very well, creating rich microbial alive soils.

Nov 13^th

The polycultures planed in the clearings of the orchard really seem to be optimizing catching sunlight and converting it into food. We could quadruple productivity of this land once we get all of these little niches planted. It seems that some of the crops do better in patches versus sharing rows. For example a patch of taro next to patch of turmeric lined by a row of bananas, but not a line of bananas with taro and turmeric in the same line. In a larger field system, I would like to have patches of food in-between rows of longer-term perennial polycultures.

Nov. 20^th

Right on schedule with the Hawaiian calendar the day that rainy season (Ho’o-ilo is supposed to start the rain s are beginning, it has been raining for days with no end in sight. Everything is starting to green up, plants getting lush and healthy looking.  All of the mushrooms are starting to fruit, numerous fruiting of Paneolous Cyanescens, Agaricus subrufescens, wood ears, found some oyster mushrooms. Other inedible species growing as well, with mycelium reinvigorated on logs, in soil, and leave debris and wood chips, good time of year to start planting mushrooms and doing lab work. If we only had all the wood chips and spawn ready for the season, maybe next year. Good time to plant trees as well. Get stuff in the ground so in can be watered in during the rainy season.

Nov. 27^th

The gulch garden is looking very robust and vibrant; all of the tropical crops are doing great in the polyculture planting style. The vegetable crop, especially salad and cooking greens are doing well next to the longer term crop, but the roots crops seem like they are growing well. Harvest yacon and ginger, both crops produced well in polyculture. Seems that the soil could have been prepared more deeply, growing better tubers. But tiller was broken when planting happened. I have grown better yacon in raised beds. The ginger was planted late and formed good rhizomes, but it did not reach full growing potential because of short season, nut now we have lots of plant material.

TO GROW TOMORROW’S LOCAL FARMERS

“Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime…”

Investing in farmer training is a long term investment in the local economy. All funding goes towards quality educational programming that facilitates rapid transformational growth, giving young people the skills to farm, care for themselves and their families, and be leaders in their community.

Donations for HIP Agriculture will go towards student scholarships and expanding our capacity to provide quality instruction (i.e. farm tools, farm lodging and insurance, guest speakers, facilitators and staff, and site field trips). Your contributions enable us to provide student scholarships, host field trips, and develop our campus infrastructure.

To donate please contact Dash at 889.6316, or by email at hipagriculture@gmail.com and we will help you make a tax-deductible donation to Hawaii Institute of Pacific Agriculture. Mahalo!

Checks may be made payable to:

Hawai’i Institute of Pacific Agriculture

PO Box 497

Kapaau, HI 96755

Thank you for your donation!

On Tuesday we spent time thinning the sprouts we planted earlier, and saved those for a future salad (although we ate enough of them while thinning). We spent the afternoon learning about how to go about permaculture design, which retrofits unsustainable land use into practical, beautiful, productive gardens. Our plan is to design and implement a plan for the macncut orchard and leave a lasting impact on this land, for the better.

Tuesday night was also the full moon! We brought food and drink down to the ocean and celebrated in front of a bonfire. Some went home eventually, but others slept on the beach instead. The night after was just as bright, so Leslie led us in moonlight yoga during an intermission at Dash’s jam session up at the main house. The moonlight is beautiful, and bright enough that we considered night time gardening. But the new moon isn’t too bad either! That’s when the stars really come out. I’ve never seen stars so bright before.

Wednesday was spent learning practical uses for bamboo. I learned that I can EAT bamboo, which is news to me! We made a few vases, cured bamboo for building and harvested shoots for building and propagation.

Tyler and Anya made hula hoops the other day, which is a major hit among the students and interns during free time. We’re learning all sorts of tricks! Life in the macnut orchard is ideal. We’re experimenting with jams and cooking up all sorts of treats with the resources we have down here. The kittens—James Brown and Koa—continue to hunt, but haven’t yet caught on to eating the mice. A new cow was brought onto the property and eats our grasses and blocks the pathway down from the main house, but is generally very friendly with us.

Today (Thursday) we did a workshop with Madame Mindy the Mycologist, learning all about the vital role mushrooms play in forest ecosystems. Mindy got us in the mood with a meditation that focused on what being a mushroom is like, and then we expressed mushrooms through drawings before she got down to the discussion on mushroom identification, structure, ecological importance and uses for healing the Earth.

One of the coolest concepts we learned about was mycoremediation. Mushrooms have the tools to break down wood, but also to break down long-chain toxins (like petroleum). That’s right, mushrooms literally EAT oil—and then we can eat the mushrooms. We set up shiitake starts in a box of petrol-painted coconut husks. The mushrooms will flower in the weeks to come, and I’ll be darned if I don’t eat that shiitake for breakfast when they bloom! Until next time,

- Emily

We set up this blog to show the world what we’re up to, learning about bringing people and the land together in a happy and harmonious way.

The course involves a heavy dose of learning in the field – our hands are always in the dirt, working with the soil to create food for ourselves and the community. It’s only been a week, but we’ve experienced so much! Here’s a summary of what we’ve done so far:

On the Saturday before classes, students who arrived early went to the Breadfruit festival in South Kona. Roasted breadfruit is the bomb! We loved it so much, we went home with our own breadfruit and fried it up in the bonfire for Emily, who arrived late that evening.

Monday we met Uncle Kai, who officially welcomed us into the course. We learned the course chant, which goes like this:

E ho mai

i ka ‘ike mai luna mai e

O na mea huna no’eau

O na mele e

E ho mai

E ho mai

E ho mai

It is recited three times in a row. We sing out the chant every weekday morning to call good energy to intentions of the day. We toured the campus and learned the farm rules. Students live in the macadamia orchard in tents, adjacent to an outdoor kitchen where breakfast, dinner and sometimes lunch are served.

We jumped straight into the gardens on Tuesday, weeding a patch of vegetables. Honuhonu and cane grass were the main plants needed to be weeded from a patch that included bananas, eggplants, collard greens, papaya, lettuce, chard and kale. We played some music as we weeded, approaching the work, which we prefer to call “hana,” with a clear-headed optimism and enthusiasm that is so important to creating a relationship with the crops we grow.

Rachel in the newly planted garden with seedlings popping up behind her.

On Wednesday we got our first chance to plant seeds and starts in another garden by the banana grove. Have you ever looked a banana plant and thought about how much they look like giant stalks of wheat? The banana fruits are like the grains growing out. It was a beautiful spot to garden. Some of the seeds have already sprouted! We set up a watering schedule to keep the new seedlings healthy and happy.

-Emily

This weekend we went to an Ulu Festival on Saturday (Ulu is the hawaiian word for breadfruit) and also visited a couple of farms and helped out in exchange for some crops. Sunday we went to the local elementary school and helped out on the gardens there… HIPA is very involved with the community and goes to the elementary school every week to teach the kids how to garden and educate them on the importance of sustainable farming. They are also very connected with the other farms on the island and there are many trips planned to see how other farmers are growing and harvesting food sustainably as well as the various methods they employ. At Neil and Sophia’s farm that we visited, we learned about some of the agroforestry methods that they spent a lot of time learning about in South America.

This week’s educational theme is permaculture which has to do with farming systems and how every plant has a function in the system and works to ensure that all parts of the system maintain a healthy, beneficial relationship with each other so that the system as a whole can thrive.

Yesterday, a very wise medicine man named Uncle Kai came to speak with us about the importance of living in accordance with nature and creating a peaceful and harmonious environment. He shared a bit of the extensive knowledge he has acquired about the endless medicinal properties of plants and how we can live sustainably by using all of the gifts provided for us by mother earth. I was deeply touched by his words and wisdom.

Today, we spent a couple of hours studying the official permaculture handbook and also learned about the different climates of Hawaii. (Hawaii has 11 of the 13 climates of the world) We also have been studying the traditional Hawaiian ways of farming (dividing the island in sections where each section maintains some piece of each climate so that they could harvest different types of crops and they would exchange them amongst each other.) We spent a few hours in the garden weeding and spending time learning to identify the vast variety of plant species growing on the island. Then, we took the time to simply observe a certain piece of land and sharing our notes. We have been overviewing the current state of our planet and the necessity of becoming less dependent on importing goods and using fossil fuels. By working with the land, growing and harvesting our own food, herbs and medicines, we are not only keeping our connection with our food, our bodies and the earth close and intimate, but we are creating a positive impact to the earth by cultivating life and restoring balance and nutrition. By moving towards independence and creating a supportive, productive land space, we are moving away from dependence on imported goods that require so much energy to process, manufacture and ship.

I am learning to think outside of the box in terms of not only being aware of the current state of a natural space but how it had evolved and all of the elements contributing to its growth/decay, the many parts that contribute to its whole including the nutrients it is given from the soil and sun, as well as its potential for expanding growth. I have gained a whole new respect for water and dirt and I feel totally fulfilled by working so closely with the earth and cultivating plant life that will in turn provide me the food that I need to live. I am learning so much more than I had expected and the satisfaction that I am experiencing is greater than I could have imagined. I am overwhelmed with happiness and thirsty to continue expanding my knowledge and experience.Here at HIPA, we share the belief that it is absolutely essential that we develop new ways of being self reliant and less dependent on outside sources so that we are not only prepared for the inevitable depletion of our natural resources to come in the future, but also so that we are living sustainably and responsibly right now. By doing this we are not inflicting harm on our Mother Earth but we are actually taking care of her, respecting her, nourishing her and facilitating her ability to flourish.One of the unique features of Hawaii is the fact that it has the potential to be completely sustainable and does not need to import any goods from other parts of the world. One of the goals at HIPA is to spread this idea and they are at the forefront of this movement. The wealth of knowledge here is unbelievable and everyone here has a specialty that they use to contribute and teach. A few of the specialty areas that we will be examining in the upcoming weeks include: mycology and the cultivation of mushrooms, using biochar to sequester carbon to make a compost that will maximize soils nutritional value and put carbon back into the ground, composting food and waste for healthy soil and feeding it to the worm production, creating water catchment systems and gray water systems, building low impact structures with the bamboo that is so plentiful, plant and flower identification and the medicinal properties of a plethora of plants and herbs and how to use them.A few of the things growing here that I have learned about so far include turmeric which is highly medicinal, ginger, awapuhi which is used as shampoo, bananas, papaya, starfruit, tangelos, sweet potatoes, taro, breadfruit, jackfruit, rambutan, noni, coconuts, bamboo, macadamia nuts, dragonfruit, suranam cherries, chard, kale, cacao, coffee and kala. I have been eating tons of raw food straight from the ground and it is the best food I have ever eaten.  Some of my favorite new things that I have tried for the first time are soursop, star apple, jackfruit and breadfruit. The freshness is unbeatable and I feel so good and healthy. I have been working harder physically than I ever have and have more energy than I ever have. The transformation I am experiencing is incredible.

There is a beautiful trail to the ocean and chain of gulches and valleys along the oceans that are spectacular…The land here is very sacred and is a wonderful place for me to grow spiritually. I am becoming more in tune with the universe and developing a stronger connection with mother nature as well as with my inner self. The people here are so wise, so motivated and dedicated to bring about positive change in the world, very hard working and full of love and compassion. This opportunity is giving me so much hope for my future and the future of our planet and humanities role here on Earth. They have a created a beautiful, positive place to spread the message of sustainable living. Living in this vibrant community has already brought me so much joy and expanded my creativity and thirst for bright new ideas for the world. It is a truly amazing experience to not only have lecture and interactive classroom time with like minded, creative, intelligent individuals but to actually experience first hand work in the field.. I am learning what I want to learn about and I am also living it! It feels great and I am so happy to be here!

-Rachel

HIP Agriculture represented the young farmers movement at the Kohala Country Fair today. At our booth we sold fresh squeezed orange juice, starfruit and gave out samples of macadamia nuts from our orchard. We also talked to hundreds of community members and visitors throughout the day about our education programs, upcoming events, (like our end of course fundraiser with Medicine for the People on November 18th!), and ways to stay involved with HIP Ag. The event was high energy, the students and staff had lots of fun, and we were very well received by the community who feel in alignment with our dedication to education and getting young people involved in farming to make positive changes around environmental issues.

The fall course is going great, energy is building and a lot of excitement about the wall street protests, encouraging us to keep working hard to create alternative sustainable systems of living.  - Dashiell, Executive Director