Recent content by Niele da Kine

For mulberries or basically any kind of cuttings, a couple of feet is cut off the end of a branch. Not the new growth but the part where there's brown bark. The leaves are all taken off except for a very few at the tip. Then it's poked into the ground and watered for a week or two. That...

Lately I've discovered potato forks. Works a treat for digging out Guinea grass, which is the bane of my gardening existence. Previously, it had been some sort of a mountain climbing pick axe thing. Sort of a small curved hoe on one side and a pick on the other with about two feet of handle...

That's air layering, we use it for when a cutting most likely won't work. Find a nice branch, scrape the bark off in a circle around where you want the roots to come out, dust it with rooting hormone if you have it, pack wet moss or rooting medium around it and then cover with plastic. Wait a...

We generally start things from cuttings, it's easier. But, we're pretty lazy gardeners. Lately, it's been bay laurel cuttings. I want a dark green vertical hedge at the top of a slope and bay laurel will do nicely. Since we've had enough rain lately, we just stick cuttings in the ground and...

We freeze bananas - when a stalk of bananas goes off, there's too many to eat at once so we stuff the freezer full. Peel them, lay them out on a tray, once they're frozen then stuff them in a bag. Or just stuff them in a bag and break off chunks when they're wanted. Take the morning's...

Today we harvested a few apples (Pettingill, small sweet but with a bit of 'zing', but it's a very young tree so just a few apples), several red sweet peppers, some purple kale, a few tomatoes (Black Cherry & Bedouin), some mulberries and some tea leaves. Also mint and mamaki tea, so we had a...

Really raised beds (they're actually terraces for a steep hillside) has made gardening sooo much easier! Waist high weeding is way better than weeds down at toe level. Now it's really easy to pick out tiny weeds before they have time to do much more than sprout. The raised beds are lined...

Finally finished the newest raised bed garden. It's planted with red lettuce, marigolds, U of H open pollinated sweet corn, cucumbers and 'Black Cherry' tomatoes. There were some old cantaloupe seeds planted along the edge but none of them showed up. There's now some sort of watermelon seeds...

Rainy season seems about over, we had a whole week without much rain. There was a bit last night so didn't have to water the garden today. The new lettuce is just sprouting so it should be moist and not dry on the top layer otherwise we'd not bother to water it. The temperatures are staying...

On our island, when someone dies the remaining family can get a doctor to come by and certify the death and then if the family buries the body in 72 hours it only requires a $15 form filed with the County noting where the body was buried. I'm pretty sure you have to bury them in either your own...

The angora wool has a certain value, but it is only about $5-6 per ounce which is profitable, but there's a lot more money in selling yarn or finished items. Ten ounces of angora fiber is about $50. Or that same ten ounces of fiber can be made into yarn. It's usually mixed with very fine...

Kiawe is mesquite so you may be able to find mesquite smoked goat cheese? I think Surfing Goat Dairy is on Maui? Maybe it's on Oahu, they're not on our island. We have a goat dairy up mountain from us, but they don't surf. Farmed koa is legal and the seed bank is already in the soil. Just...

Sheep think they're really tasty, I don't suppose the weed is in areas you can get sheep to help?

Sure you could do Fraktur. Most of it is the equipment. Get an ink pen and a flat nib. Hold the nib at an angle usually about 45 degrees. Dip the pen lightly into the ink and practice making a few strokes without making blots. To start the letters, make a small horizontal 'Z' shape for the...

Sourceing anything is gonna be problematical, I think. Until we get the big plant shows back, about all I have available is the pitiful offerings of the big box shops in Kona or Hilo. Usually in the spring and fall, there's a big plant show in Hilo that has everything that isn't usually...