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Planting in Areas With a Small Amount of Soil
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Posted by kyosan (My Page) on Mon, Sep 4, 06 at 20:40
| I have a lot in Hawaiian Acres subdivision in Puna (about 1300 ft elevation) and was wondering what kind of things I can plant there? I would like to plant fruit and nut trees but wonder if I can plant regular sized trees? There is only a couple inches of soil covering my lot. Mahalo. |
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RE: Planting in Areas With a Small Amount of Soil
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| Aloha kyosan, I've lived in Leilani Estates, elevation about 950' for 7 years. My lot is all A'a lava, no soil. I've been able to grow just about anything I want by poking cuttings in a crack or just setting the plant on the ground and covering the rootball with cinders. The only real problems I've had is with bugs and having a few plants drown out from prolonged heavy rains. |
RE: Planting in Areas With a Small Amount of Soil
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Aloha leilaniguy;
I'm not sure whether my land has A'a or pahoehoe lava underneath. From what I've read A'a has good drainage and is suitable for planting lots of things. I stayed on my land for about a month, 25 years ago, and from what I remember I didn't see puddling there after it rained so the drainage is probably OK. My land is located in Hawaiian Acres on Road 1 and between roads E and F. I wonder if anyone that lives in that area would know whether the land in that area has A'a or pahoehoe lava underneath? Or does it vary from lot to lot? The amount of rain is another factor. My lot is about the same elevation as Mountain View and Mountain View has an average rainfall of about 200 inches. I'll have to plant things that like a lot of rain throughout the year. The list I've come up with so far is: guava, vegetable soya beans ('Kahala' variety), roma and cherry tomatoes, 'Ben Hu' pummelo and 'Dwarf Cuban Red' banana. I'm considering planting: 'Poamoho' pili nut, black mulberry, white sapote, jaboticaba, loquat, poha, mountain apple, wampi, rollinia deliciosa and 'Fuyu' persimmon. Any advise would be appreciated. Mahalo. |
RE: Planting in Areas With a Small Amount of Soil
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| The terrain does vary every few hundred feet all over Puna, so your land may have both types of lava. Everything you mentioned should do well, in fact loquat may do too well, here at my place it's been invasive, seedlings all over. I had good luck 2 years with beans, then rust set in. No bean crop since. Your best bet for successful tomatoes would be to pick green or grow them in a screenhouse, the fruitflies are murder here. I used to live in H.A. on "G" rd. near "8" fifteen years ago, very similar to here in Leilani, maybe a little drier. |
RE: Planting in Areas With a Small Amount of Soil
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| Aloha all, I echo what leilaniguy said about planting -- with it so tough to dig holes, just planting on top with cinder is best. We use large rocks to form raised beds. We did try to dig partial holes for fruit trees, and then mounded up with cinder, and it worked well. You'll get more rainfall at 1300 ft than we do at 1100 ft. or leilaniguy at 970. Last winter was so wet that many things had great difficulty. Our citrus didn't even flower. They're doing fine this year. Veggies -- we've found that carrots, onions, broccoli and such grow OK outdoors. We use a raised bed in the greenhouse for greens, and large 15 gal. pots in the greenhouse for tomatoes and slightly smaller ones for peppers. We're trying peas outside in raised beds this year, and are racing the cardinals for the strawberries. Corn has germinated nicely, we'll just have to see if we get a crop! We moved here from Maui (Haiku) 3 years ago and are still experimenting. Fruitflies are indeed bad, and have made it tough even to get bananas to survive to picking state! Mountain Apple seem to be getting the Ohia rust, which distorts the leaves badly. You might want to reconsider that one. |
RE: Planting in Areas With a Small Amount of Soil
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| You can get free mulch/compost from the dump in Hilo. Load up your truck with it or a big plastic bin or buckets and take it in your car if you don't have a truck. You can use this rought mulch to keep seedlings from getting drowned out in the rocks. Just dump it over the top and mix in some soil. It works great for holding water as well. |
RE: Planting in Areas With a Small Amount of Soil
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| I live in HPP at only 37 foot level and I had some holes pounded in the lava. This did two things - cracked the lava so it would drain and also gave me a area to put some soil in. I have a lot of plants in and they seem to be going great. |
RE: Planting in Areas With a Small Amount of Soil
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| Mix some hydrated lime in with the compost so it will kill the coqui frogs before you take it home. No need to give the little buggas a free ride. I've got two different planting areas by my driveway. One has about three feet of soil in it and the other about five feet. The one with three feet of soil has a banana plant growing about ten feet tall and the one with five feet of soil has a banana plant fourteen feet tall. Same variety of banana planted at the same time. So I'm guessing the quantity and depth of soil will affect the size of the mature plants as well as the growth rate. |
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