Planting Medium for Root Vegetables

Vegetables will grow in pure cinder.  There is free mulch at the county dump down in Hilo, though, if you are looking for green waste to make compost out of.

It's nice to know I can get the green waste at the dump. I'll probably grow it myself on site to get huge quantities of it but the dump would be a good place to get it when I'm starting out.

Are you saying that either pure cinder or compost will work fine for root vegetables? If you're planting leafy vegetables do you still need to add a lot of materials to get a deep planting medium or do they grow fine with a small amount of soil?

Root veggies I'm not so sure about in general, but specifically potatoes and sweet potatoes seem to do just fine in mulch. Native Hawaiians used to go into the forest chop down hapu u make a cage of their trunks and fill the center with their leaves and plant SW P in that. But down here at 50 ft makai we used mulch mixed w/ soil and did great, -only weevils found my crop on first rotation so I'd watch out for that too. I'm the second person down here thats discovered this starting from clean cuttings. Must be the weevil sweet spot. 

A hawaiian boy I know said his grams used to pile up two feet of soil and get ginormous 2 foot potatoes, so I'm thinking generous soil if you can come by it would be best for that type of thing. 
 

Though, having said that I talked to one of the guys at the hilo dump where you get the mulch and he says that he gets a big load of it every 3 months, leaves it in a pile and by the time he's ready for the next load its soil. It's fast out here, you just would want to add nitrogen cos that's eaten away in the process. 

Pigeon peas which grow like crazy provide tons of green mulch and fix nitro at the same time and make nutritious peas in winter and down here at 50 ft makai they do fantastic. Short lived perennials going to 15 ft in height. You can trim them for mulch at will they don't care and will fight you back. 

I've noticed our leafy veggies do well given full sun in our 3 to 4 inches of soil. Though we mulch. But I do need to add an organic fertilizer, I use very little, a sprinkle every 2 months and they do great. And we cultivate the worms which for me is the best long run bet. 

Hey Ivy,
I just planted some plants of a mesclun (not mescalin) mix that I got from a local nursery and I immediately thought of you.  We are supposed to have a cooler and wetter winter than normal so winter gardening may get interesting.  Hope things go well for you on your 'plantation'.  Hopefully I will be going through the joys of starting from scratch in HHP in a little more than a year.
Allen
Baton Rouge, LA and HPP

Hey Alan, haha dude, every time I see my mesclun aka mescalin wink wink seed package I think of you too, actually-and getting schooled on national internet ofcourse. ;)

Haa. 
Dude I hope you get out here sooner than later! Chug chug!
Let us know how the winter garden progresses. That'd be interesting. 

Stuff's going great over here. I got one of those clip on mosquito repellents so when I get up later { awake till 3 am writing, tried to get up but dying so going back to zzs for a few} I'm going ape poo on the garden. My only regret was not getting more citrus trees planted when we first got here. My neighbor who did @ the same time has tangerines and limes already. 

Plant It Hawaii sale is on the 13th I think (check their site).  The grafted citrus I got from them this spring threw fruit immediately, but I did cut if off for better production during the tree's lifespan.  I'll have full on citrus next year, no doubt.

Root veggies I'm not so sure about in general, but specifically potatoes and sweet potatoes seem to do just fine in mulch. Native Hawaiians used to go into the forest chop down hapu u make a cage of their trunks and fill the center with their leaves and plant SW P in that. But down here at 50 ft makai we used mulch mixed w/ soil and did great, -only weevils found my crop on first rotation so I'd watch out for that too. I'm the second person down here thats discovered this starting from clean cuttings. Must be the weevil sweet spot. 
A hawaiian boy I know said his grams used to pile up two feet of soil and get ginormous 2 foot potatoes, so I'm thinking generous soil if you can come by it would be best for that type of thing. 
 
Though, having said that I talked to one of the guys at the hilo dump where you get the mulch and he says that he gets a big load of it every 3 months, leaves it in a pile and by the time he's ready for the next load its soil. It's fast out here, you just would want to add nitrogen cos that's eaten away in the process. 

Pigeon peas which grow like crazy provide tons of green mulch and fix nitro at the same time and make nutritious peas in winter and down here at 50 ft makai they do fantastic. Short lived perennials going to 15 ft in height. You can trim them for mulch at will they don't care and will fight you back. 
I've noticed our leafy veggies do well given full sun in our 3 to 4 inches of soil. Though we mulch. But I do need to add an organic fertilizer, I use very little, a sprinkle every 2 months and they do great. And we cultivate the worms which for me is the best long run bet. 

-hedrahelix

Thanks hedrahelix; you've really given a lot of useful information. I like the idea of multi-use plants so pigeon peas sound appealing. I'll definitely try that. I have eaten mature pigeon peas cooked (toor dal) . Is that what you are talking about or can immature pigeon peas be eaten slightly cooked like sweet peas.

Hey ;) That is indeed what I'm talking about, and from what Ive heard you can eat em during any part of maturing so yeah some ppl use em like green beans when young. 

I have a lot of rock and not so much soil. I live in Hawaiian Acres and one of the things I have done is just get in my van and drive around harvesting heaps of weeds - anything I can snap off by hand and pile up in the back of my van.  I have an area about 30 feet long by 12 feet wide that is essentially cinder and rotted weeds on top of lava rock, which is currently growing gorgeous yam vines, without further fertilization. Of course, the important point will be when I dig up the roots and see how much yammage I have.  My goal in my gardening efforts is to use only local, sustainable resources - but my modern-tech brain keeps wanting to go to the store and buy potting soil, or fertilizer or ground-up rock dust to make my garden better.  It is a constant struggle to fight off modern-tech-brain and work within the no-money, no-car, no-Wal-Mart conceptualization.        Has anyone thought about building a pidgeon house? Through-out history, they built them for the fertilizer (squabs and eggs were a benny). I see an awful lot of pidgeons around here, and if you  could build a two or three story round tower, lined with pidgeon holes on the inside, you would get a few hundred birds pooping into a small confined space  . . . .   voila, high-grade free fertilizer for the rest of your life (after the initial cost of the tower . . . ahem).  This might be a good cooperative community project.     Rocksandra

Dude that's rad. ;)

I've thought of doing that too with weeds, it's a great idea. They grow so fast it's a completely sustainable plan. Just be careful that you don't import fire ants, that's the only drawback I can think of, and oh, careful on the edges of roads where ppl might have sprayed round up and other suck ickies, espec if your getting it on you as you grab. 

But otherwise I think that's an awesome thing you're doin. Keep on kickin ass! I think your sw potatoes will be awesome. 

-I 

Plant beans in with your yams and they will provide nitrogen to your yams as well as give you beans.  When done harvesting the beans, compost the bean plants.  Works on all kinds of levels.

A pigeon coop sounds like a brilliant idea.  They make nice cooing sounds, too.  They are self feeding, too, once you get them established in their coop.  And if you get racing homing pidgeons you can race them.

Rabbits are good fertilizing units as well, they speed compost the roadside weeds into fertilizer which won't burn the plants even if used fresh and full strength.  Plus, according to some folks (cough, mumble *Hedra* mumble, mumble) they look like fuzzy bedroom slippers.

{and "spachkh, gurgle * Erin too*, hock, chhhhukk, grumble"}

Psst.. cos they do!

I mean not to be mean to bunny or anything, but don't you just want to slip your foot into him? I do. Then run around and watch the ears flop, maybe jump on a bed or two. 

Hey!  There's Cloud!  The grey one, Zephyr, aughta be around the corner somewhere.  That's even the short haired version.  They get way more bedroom slipper than that once their hair grows out.  They had a summer trim this year and looked particularly hairless.  They turn ti leaves into fertilizer - if you were a plant wouldn't you prefer fertilizer from bedroom slippers?

Now if we can just get them to do the rabbit thing and make more!