Other than Farm Blog

 Pests and disease are inseparable parts of tea farming, thus pesticides to prevent and treat the pest and disease problems.  In this series we will look at: 1. The relationship between wild grown tea plants and pests 2. How modern tea farming amplify the pest and disease problems, 3. How and what pesticides they use to treat the problems, 4. As a consumer how to avoid heavily sprayed tea 5. Organic and wild harvest tea Part one focuses on the first two topics. 1. The Relationship Between Tea and Pests Wandering into old mountain forest of Japan, I have encountered wild tea plants growing sporadically in their own natural habitat.  There are not abundant tender supple tips to harvest, but in general plants are healthy.  The wild tea shows small signs of pests and disease, but it is minimal.  The plants vary widely in their leaf shape, size, color, and even growth form.  Some even appear as bonsai trees found in Japanese garden.  The plants ...

Lately I'm more excited about edamame harvest than tea.  Like many legumes soybeans have symbiotic nitrogen fixing and  bacteria living in the roots to increase nitrogen in soybean plants as well as soil. Soybean's root system is also known to natural farmers to improve soil conditions and water infiltration by breaking hard pan or impermeable layer. Also residual leaf litter is great for surface mulch yet it decompose quickly to allow next season of cropping.    Many farmers use soybeans as a cover crop or green manure to till into the soil to increase the soil nitrogen, but I find that waiting for soybeans to actually go to seeds and let the plants harden or increase in carbon ratio has a greater effect on improving soil texture, especially when the soil is less than desirable condition.  In our tea-soybean cropping system, soybeans enrich the soil when tea is still young, reducing the use of fertilizers, plowing and even compost.  And tea in the followin...

The year 2012 was full of wonderful developments for our family farm. Here are some highlights to share. Waimea Tea Farm In January, we received a visit from Dafna of  Roots of Hawaii , a purveyor of our tea at farmer's markets on Oahu.  We discussed the creation of herbal blends using our teas and set the intention for making new products using other Hawaii ingredients. In February, during a family trip to Japan, we were notified that we were awarded a USDA Value Added Producer's Grant (VAPG).  When we returned home, we harvested our First Flush Premium Green Tea and First Flush Premium Oolong .  In March, we expanded our operation to begin harvesting tea grown on neighboring farms! In April, we harvested our Island Green Tea , and tried out a new variation –  Island Green Tea  Orchid Dew , with great success. In June, we received notification that we were awarded a USDA Rural Business Enterprise Grant ...

It's so humbling to see weeds grow so fast and occupy their niche while tea plants are growing so slow.  Ecological farming teaches us to look at weeds differently. Weeding can be such a tedium if one keeps fighting weeds, but it can also be enlightening experience if he is humble enough to see the purposes each weed has.  Many low growing weeds start from seeds and they need disturbed soil.  Forest fire, animal activities, etc can create disturbed soil.  Many so-called noxious weeds grow particularly well on disturbed soil.   Farming especially tillage and weeding is also disturbing soil so weeds are just a nature's response to lost balance.  Keep the cover on.... by keeping ground cover, weeds germination and establishment significantly decrease.  Simply favoring one type of weeds that do not interfere with farming activity can reduce other unwelcome weeds.   For example, Honohono grass (also called Spreading dayflower, l...

We've been waiting for green tea harvest from this young field. While plants are young, it's good time for handpicking though it's not the most productive form of tea making. We had clear blue sky this morning unlike most other days and went ahead with harvesting. While plucking our way through the tea field, fog drifted in and and soon enough rain started to sprinkle. We were just finishing up with the harvest. Rain is always a big factor that determines our harvest quality. Understanding and being able to predict weather forecast is a big advantage to getting better tea quality.

Though I was aware of benefit of cover crops in fields, after so many days of heavy rain I instinctively felt the real benefit and cover crop use. Our primary use of cover crops is to let the plants do the work. It's vague when we just talk about it. Of course we can list the benefit of using cover crops. - protect top soil - improve/maintain natural tilth - hold water - aerate soil - break up compaction - add OM - add nitrogen (legumes) - smother unwanted weeds, or at least control better - attract beneficial insects - stable habitat for pests and predators - reduce disease occurrence - buffer and harsh environmental impact The list goes on and it could be more specific to each type of cover crop used. In past several days I have realized that the benefits are much more than what's listed. Consider all the lost top soil, organic matter, soil structure, natural habitat. It's much harder to rebuild than to protect them. It takes many years to build ric...

It's been real dry these days.  Exposed soil is feeling dry, but weeds never stop growing.  There are areas with nice mulch and under the mulch there is nice moist ground.  only if my mower wasn't broken, I would be mowing.

It was always the end of the year that we did cleaning where we normally don't get to.  Things like windows, walls, under tatami mat, etc, and even where we normally clean, we paid extra attention to do deep cleaning. Having learned from the last few years mistakes, we started cleaning early this year.  Perhaps it just coincided with our construction project clean up and just kept going.  Now we are about 2 weeks into deep cleaning.  Basically we took everything out of our tea processing space and cleaned every corner of the space and even applied fresh coat of paint.  Also, work shop space was re-organized with extra metal shelves.  Even all the extra cleaning effort, more craps keep coming out.  It's just amazing to see how much crap piling we normally do.  

Eat Local Challenge start this Sunday.  It was a good timing so we decide to harvest 2 rows of taro, perhaps 20lb or so.  There are some big ones and small ones.  They are all good cooked together in pressure cooker with peel on.  Once they are cooked, they peel real easy.  We harvest taro once or twice a month so not so much different from our ordinary routine of harvesting.  Taro doesn't store very well, but they store well in the landscape. Natural farming crops are supposed to store well in ordinary storage condition so maybe i'm not doing something right.  Taro also contains much water, so likely to rot, but cold storage may improve.  Typically my grandmother was storing her taro in cool, but not freezing condition to keep it alive and keep it from sprouting until spring.  If I can get enough refrigerator space, it may store well. Photos show our harvest of taro.  Not too bad for using no fertilizer at all.  Natural farmin...

Lately, turkeys are coming to visit our tea fields every day.  Not just visiting our farm, but I see them all the time, almost it appears that they decided to permanently squatting on our farm. We recently put down fall / winter season cover crop after all the laborious maintenance, and as soon as the cover crops germinated, something is chowing on them.   For a long time, I thought it was some insect pests or cutworm.  Over time we selected resilient cover crops and even ones that birds don't care so much.  Also, they must establish well, and once established they recover easily and easy to manage. Yes, we had it for the last few seasons, but somewhere along their path, they seem to have changed their diet and preference for foraging and behavior pattern.  or maybe foods are scarce with economic recession and all.  Perhaps they are just pulling them out to get to my nerves. Whatever the reason is, it is really working to affect my mental cal...

When we talk about sustainability, we are too bound by our perception of sustainable and natural.  Many people choose hybrid or electric car over gas, or local foods over imported foods, but are they really sustainable. I have seen many farmers talking about local organically grown vegetables seeming more sustainable while using lots imported soil amendments, minerals, fertilizers, machines, tools, petroleum products and fuel.  If things are grown at right place, right time, it takes lot less energy and materials to grow. I am not saying that we do perfectly sustainable farming.  We use a tractor and fuel too.  I just want to say that instead of using our perception to achieve what it feels like sustainable or politically agreeable term of sustainability like whether to use plastic or not, or put a solar panel up.  we should be learning from natural world since nature is self-sustainable..  Perhaps instead of putting one extra solar panel to light anoth...

"Nature has so many things that she is trying to reveal, but we just don't know how to look at them..."  I don't remember where I heard this, but every time I am out observing natural environment and can't figure out what is going on, it pops up in my head. Dry soil - first thing that comes to most minds are when soil goes dry, you have to irrigate.  Dry soil is generally considered not productive in farming.  It's true in common organic and conventional farming practice, but natural farming takes it quite differently In natural farming dry soil is natural consequence of seasonal changes.  There are wet season and dry season.  There are many plants naturally adapt the changes, but our vegetables and flowers cannot adapt this!?  Isn't there something wrong with us? I found this dry soil effect as part of fertilizer poisoning.  There was a seed germination experiment of brassica with moisture and fertilizer application and concentration of N l...

Summer is here.  Weeds are growing so fast along with cover crop and tea.  In some area certain kinds of cover crops are growing more vigorously than common weeds so that they suppress weeds quite effectively.  At the same time tea plants getting shaded by 6-7 foot tall grass.  I wonder which is better, cutting back weeds or cover crop.  At least the difference is more obvious in the soil. This is another cover crop post.  It may be obvious that I spend so much time studying cover crops. Being controlled by weeds A lot of times we go out to the field and do some weeding, we are controlled by weeds.  We have to go out there and remove weeds.  This obsessive thinking of getting rid of weeds create rather polarized view toward the nature.  Nature does not judge what good weeds are and what bad weeds are.  They grow where they are supposed to.  They grow where they are called for.  Each type of weeds has their own intention an...

All the cover crops are big and some are taller than myself.  I went to care for tea plants that are totally buried in cover crop jungle.  I cut back some 7ft tall cover crop grass and uncover tea plants.  While I was doing this, I realized that certain cover crop plant grow only in certain places. Whether it's soil condition or shading or moisture condition, some plants just don't do well while some other ones grow prolific.  For example, grasses grow in rich soil much better than legumes or vetch and clover type.  Then I also realized that when I planted cover crop there was some rich soil and some poor soil.  Parts of the field where some trees dropping their leaves were naturally richer in soil condition and it made total difference in how cover crops grew. Typically richer soil favored grasses and even legumes germinate, they tend to get overgrown by grasses while poor soil favored legumes and grasses stay small and look stunted.  The same thi...

There goes mushrooms. There is precise timing of mushrooms appearing in the field, which we replicated in the jar.  What really build soil?  This is a century old convention and tradition many farmers and gardeners claim that adding dark compost and lots of bugs in it, but is this really the best we can do?  A lot of times we neglect to look at the signs.  Signs are on the crop and in the soil.  If we look at the plants and notice any disease or insect pests, there is apparently something happening.  What do we do?  spray pesticides or pick by hands,  they are both the same.  If a gardener continue to pick by hand just to say her vegetable is organic, it is probably worse.  You are still looking at the superficial label only.  You gotta fix the cause.  When the pests appear, it is only the consequence of what she does.  It's all what's in the soil. So look at the soil.  What's the sign in the soil.  You he...

I have been trying to establish an outdoor mushroom culture directly in the ground, but not very successful so instead I started indoor culture and naturalize the outdoor patch from that. Here is some jar culture of Pleurotus ostreatus.  This is an easy mushroom to grow.  In fact, this batch got contaminated with green mold, but miraculously recovered and mycelium completely dominated the substrate afterword.  This gives me a clue about contamination and succession of mushroom mycelium.  Natural environment is more complex array of microorganisms and potentially contaminating ones, but as long as the growing condition shifts to what's more desired by mushrooms, then the previous contaminant organisms just give their place to succeeding mushroom.  In this case, easy sugar and starch got consumed by green mold and some bacteria, but once they are consumed, it no longer needed to be there and mushroom that can decompose more complex fiber and lignin was call...

we got 5 inches of rain in a day and a half.  It was raining so hard that water was spilling over gutter.  From previous storm experience, when this hard rain happens, series of runoff water ponds fill up and bottom pond which has about 100 plants of taro are planted will fill up 2-3 feet deep. Even though it was raining so hard and some rows of tea and vegetables are getting puddled, there are always some spots in the field that never get any standing water.  and more surprisingly, it feels so dry to touch. Generally the dry spot in heavy rain has such high level of biological activity.  I am not talking about worms.  When I find worms, typically the soil does not have this dry texture.  Most time it is mycelium, actinomycetes and high level of carbon based organic matter that keeps soil from compaction. Raw wood chips or lightly composted wood chips mixed in the soil in aerobic condition can create hospitable environment for those organisms and keep th...

Lately weather hasn't been reliable.  It's our winter weather, Rain.  I took a chance since it started out with good weather  in the morning.  by the time I started withering the sun has gone behind the cloud occasionally peeking out, but got just enough outdoor withering.  I will be watching tea indoor all night. Leaf is in good condition.  Flush has vigor and not too stiff, not too tender.  I just have to work on making it a little more even. Every time I am very impressed by how tea react to soil condition.  Tea is not vegetable, it's more like herbs.  We don't want tea to taste like vegetables.  It loses potency and wildness.

Beside my truck is stuck in the muddy driveway, I have chayote cut up and salted and need to be dried before I can pickle it.  Somehow electric food dehydrator or oven don't do the same.  It needs to be in the sun for a good few days. It is conventional knowledge to use the sun to dry vegetables for pickles.  They preserve better and have better flavor.  Plus no electricity needed. I remember my grandmother drying some pickling melons on a bamboo tray until it's really soft.  Sometimes when we don't get enough sun shine, they start to get moldy.  Drying also prevents mold and removes excess moisture out of pickling vegetables.  What can I do?  I'll just use oven or go to Kona and just leave it on the back of truck if I can get the truck out.

Muddy driveway is a typical example of compaction +standing water + kneading of wet dirt.  This would create a great rice paddy to hold water, but when it happens on a driveway, only my truck slides down the hill and can't get back up to the house. I left the truck in the field and walked back up.  4 years ago the truck was stuck for 2 weeks due to continuous rain.  Over time I improved driveway conditions by adding rocks and stones around the field, but still not enough.  Today actually it felt different.  rocks were slippery.  Tires are big mud balls and have no traction.  Best thing to do is just lay gravel or don't go driving down when wet.