Spring 2014

This Spring has just blown by.  Jennifer and I spent January in New Zealand, a wonderful trip to a magical place.  We cruised 4,000 kilometers in our camper van, taking in the Southern Alps at Mt. Cook, hiking almost daily on long empty beaches or mountain trails, touring wine regions, just having a bucket list blast.

Eric & Jennifer picking up our camper-van in New Zealand

Still working my day job Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, which allows me 4 day weekends to pursue my gardening hobby.  Keeping up with our greenhouses, mostly for our greens and morning green drinks.  Have reconditioned the bottom gardens, where I have replanted sugar cane, kept the pineapples weeded, planted taro and sweet potato and green beans.

Ariel View of Farm with Hilo in upper left corner

I have recommitted to making all the Korean Natural Farming ingredients and have been spraying weekly.  This means Fermented Fruit Juice, Fermented Plant Juice, Fish Amino Acid, Lactic Acid Bacteria, Oriental Herbal Nutrient, Calcium from egg shells in korean rice wine vinegar.  This weekly spraying has made a significant difference on plant growth and health.

I have made IMO again.  Started with IMO one (bamboo leaf mold in rice), and threw it away three times until I nailed it.  Then IMO two mixing that rice mold with brown sugar.  Then mixed with the inputs mentioned above into mill run to make IMO three.  Added wood chips at this stage to get more fungus in the mix.  And finally mixed this with soil and more of the inputs to get IMO four, the finished product.

IMO #3 pile (my best ever)

I mixed dolomite (calcium and magnesium), bio-char into my new planting beds and topped with a thin layer of IMO four, then put grass clippings on top to protect the IMO four from the sun.  The grass clippings also keep the soil moisture in while preventing weeds from sprouting.

This past week I got 29 Buckeye chicks sent via US Postal Service from a special breeding operation in California specializing in heritage American breeds.  They only send straight run, so half will be male and half female.  These are dual purpose birds, meaning both meat and eggs.  So I'll keep the best roster and all the females, the other boys will consumed by us.

Buckeye Chicks in their new home

Fall 2013 Update

Mid October 2013 and Jennifer and I are planting seeds for one last planting.  It might seem strange for you folks living in Seattle, Denver or Madison, but upon opening my eyes waking up from a great nights sleep, I glanced at the digital readout on our weather station and the temperature was 74 degrees F.  So we put on our shorts, flip flops and headed out to our gardens.

Our seed starter bed 

Oct 2013 Jennifer showing off her produce

Tomatoes, lettuce, beets, comfrey, arugula, chard, and kale.  Yes, plants still growing very well.

Picture from earlier Summer post.  Same greenhouse as above just planted

Orange tree is full of fruits.  Fall is harvest time and I love my fresh squeezed OJ.  Check out the microbe population growing under the tree.

Washington Navel Orange tree

Microbes huge populations of white hairs helping feed the oranges

to GMO or not to GMO???

The papaya ringspot virus (PRV) devastated papaya production on the Big Island of Hawaii in the early 1990's.  Commercial papaya production virtually ended as the virus completely wiped out all Solo papaya production.  Fortunately, Dr Gonsalves and his team foresaw the impending disaster (the virus was already in Oahu but not the Big Island) and started work in his laboratory at Cornell University a decade in advance of release and commercial production of "Rainbow".

Naturally Farmed GMO "Rainbow" papaya

At my day job I am General Manager for the largest papaya exporter to the US Mainland.  We exclusively produce GMO "Rainbow" papaya.  Papaya is always in the top five most nutritious fruits anyone can put in their body.  Is our Rainbow papaya safe?

Well the Japanese government recently approved our Rainbow for sale in Japan after 13 years of reviewing the science.  Believe me, if there was even a small shred of evidence to the contrary, it would never have been approved.  It is safe!!!!!!  It is HEALTHY!!!!!

Naturally Farmed non-GMO papaya

On my weekends I have been a student of Korean Natural Farming.  The whole point is sustainability.  If you have to import fertilizers, commercial or organic, it is not sustainable.  So what about GMO's?

Well take a look at the evidence presented in photos above.  Non GMO get the virus and die.  GMO Rainbow thrive and give us all the papaya we can eat.  Both are identically naturally farmed.  No pesticides or herbicides.

Planting more Sugarloaf Sweet White Pineapple

Jennifer watering in liquid IMOs

August is typically the month when the Sweet White Sugarloaf Pineapple is in full harvest mode.  With all the tops on the fruit we will have it is time to prep more beds.  Because plants often need two years to bear fruit, weed control is very important.  Using weed mat has proven a good strategy with pineapples.

I ran the spader implement on our real tractor over the bed several times to loosen the soil and till in the weeds.  Next step was to use my Japanese hand held digging fork to take all weeds and roots from previous crop out.  This is time consuming and hard work, but helps keep this old guy in shape.

Hands in the Dirt

After this I spaded in some dolomite lime (calcium and magnesium) and watered in some of Drake's oxygenated liquid IMOs.  Then it is back to hand work, shoveling trenches on both side of the garden row and burying the sides of the weed mat.

Now the fun part, planting.   We remove the bottom leaves of each top to expose root nodes.  This allows the tops to root quickly.  Then I cut a small X in the weed mat with a knife and push the new plant into the soil through the weed mat.

Peeling back leaves to expose the roots

The new tops will take two years to fruit.  We will plant all the tops from our harvest and all of the kekeis located at the bottom of each pineapple fruit.  This could be several hundred new plants.  We will leave the suckers on the older plants which are harvested this year.  There is two suckers per plant and they will each produce a pineapple fruit next Summer.  Voila, a bit of hard work now, and sweet pineapple for years to come!

New babies planted!

Mid-Summer 2013

Harvesting String Beans

The first half of 2013 just whizzed by but not without accomplishments.  We installed a 4 inch line on the Hanawai, added a second 48 volt Harris hydro alternator and we are now producing 20 Kilowatts of power per day from our river.  The additional ag dwelling is completed, insides caulked, painted and the pine interiors sanded and coated with a water based varathane finnish which totally brings out the natural woods brilliance.  Our daughter Kaitlin is expected to move in to the blue cabin soon.

Jennifer shows off her Kale and Amaranth

It is only in the last month that I agian have concentrated on my gardens.  If you neglect them, the grasses take over.  So I have been digging out the wainaku roots in my greenhouses.  This requires digging down three feet and sifting through each shovel of dirt to remove the roots.  So as not to have to do this again I am utilizing my son's Drake method of changing the soil chemistry.  The microbes are either bacterial (grasses) or fungal (forrest).  We are attempting to be more fungal which we expect will be less atractive to the invasive grasses.  Drake is using  a living compost pile to inculate batches of liquid IMO which is then applied to our garden beds.

Drake making liquid IMO adding oxygen for 24 hours before spraying on plants

We have planted our greenhouses with big beef steak tomatoes to be trellised up to a single leader.  This leaves lots of room for more low profile vegies down below.  We have scaled back in area, but are trying to be more intensive with that smaller space.  This means less weeding as the vegies help shade out areas weeds would normally fill.  Our plan is to have our greenhouses produce our green drinks.  So we've planted kale, spinnach, chard, cilantro, celery and lettuce.

Newly planted Greenhouse

We continue to drink our smoothies blended in our Vitamix from our papayas, bananas and sugar cane juice.  So tastey.   With an abundance of free electricity we can dehydrate our excess fruit.  Our sugarloaf pineapple patch is in its annual harvest season.  Dried pineapple is the bomb and apple bananas aren't bad either.

Eric in his Pineapple patch

Kaitlin and Jennifer Sugarloaf Harvest

12/21/2012

Sunrise Blessings

The Mayan Calendar starts counting in 3114 B.C.  Wow, that is more than a few moons ago.  Despite the craziness of our world today, including insane tensions and transitions in the Middle East, our daily lives and the human race march on.  For me it is about the rhythms of life.  Almost daily I am blessed with incredible sunrise paint-scapes of multi-colored clouds at sunrise as the world turns another turn.  This morning a sliver of a new moon was just above the horizon as the sky turned from the blackness of night into another brilliant day.

Mauna Kea at sunset and our nearly completed Kitchen/Living Area.

Getting near our goal of completing the infrastructure to be self sustaining, we crossed the $200K mark today.  It ain't cheap to build.  But I am blessed to have the resources to do make this happen. 
Thank you!

My dream is to enjoy the rhythms.  I may get my wish soon. 

Halloween Night

Trick or Treat

We are so remote, no child has ever knocked at our front door in the seven years we've lived here.  They probably know they would receive an avocado or rambutan as their "treat" and are off to better pickens where they can get their high fructose corn syrup rush.  So I am spending this uninterrupted time posting to my blog.

Additional Farm Dwelling Oct 31

Humble first steps.  Foundation for Drakes bedroom starts to rise.

Our goal for 2012 was to get the infrastructure built.  We just might make it by 12/21/12.  Our main kitchen / living building got the dry wall textured today.  We'll paint the inside this weekend and cabinets and floors should go in soon.  The three detached bedrooms are getting the interior finishing touches done, wood floors, bathrooms tiled, etc...  The electrician is connecting the main unit to the bedrooms tomorrow in underground cable.  The trenching was fun, ask Drake.   The plumber will be installing solar hot water next week.

New shed before putting the tin roof on.

View from new shed

Our new shed is up, roof on, water tank full.  Animals and their Natural Farming habitat is so close to being ready.  Working hard trying to cross the finish line and meet our 2012 goal.