We’d love to hear about your garden, please contact us:

 

Kandice & Rodney Crusat

P.O. Box 6932

Ocean View HI 96737

(808) 929 8198

 

Email: kandicecrusat@gmail.com

or rodzukes@gmail,com

 

In the spring of 2016 the birds finally discovered our garden and we had to put netting over every bed. If you look closely you can see the netting. We made PVC supports on the ends as well as the middle of each bed, then draped the netting on top and used PVC clamps we ordered from Johnny’s. At first we just draped it to cover right to the top of the tiles, but the birds figured out how to get underneath. So we doubled it so that it hangs over the side a foot or so. Occasionally some birds figure out they can sit in the top of the netting and it sinks a bit so they can reach the leaves. This is usually the finches who like vegetables like broccoli.

 

Most of our raised garden beds are 32” off the ground and constructed with dry stacked hollow tile.

 

In Hawaii there is rarely any dirt to plant in so we have to have our dirt brought in by the truck loads.

 

All Hawaiian dirt lacks most of the basic nutrients and has little composted material. The dirt we order comes in a mix of red dirt, lava cinders and macadamia nut husks. This is still not very good for growing most vegetables, herbs and fruits so we add more fertilizers and compost to it all on a regular basis.

 

We use Gardener and Bloom compost and Bio Flora fertilizer. Both are organic and do wonders for our Hawaiian soil mixes.

We order our seeds from Johnny's Selected Seeds and usually choose the organic selections.

100% Neem oil is the pesticide we use, mixed with Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap, both are organic.

For veggies we grow lettuce, micro greens, carrots, Chinese cabbage, broccoli, green and purple head cabbage, bok choy, chard, turnips, mustard greens, beets, xlg. bush beans, Adirondack blue potatoes, Okinawan potatoes, onions, garlic, scallions, fennel, cherry tomatoes, ginger, galangal and 3 types of turmeric. We also grow mushrooms in a mushroom house.

Our herbs are basil, parsley, dill, stevia, cilantro, chervil, hyssop, borage, valerian and catnip.

We planted grapes, blackberries and stone fruit trees like plum, nectarine and peaches. At this 4500' elevation we can grow many things that will not usually grow in Hawaii.

We are avid composters and have a worm compost bin as well as regular compost bins.

About every 4-6 weeks we start a new batch of vegetable and herb seeds in flats of 72 cells. The cells are sterilized before use by dipping into a bleach and water mix and left to dry in the flats. We use a fresh, unopened potting soil for each batch we start. About 10 days after we plant the seeds, they are ready to transplant into the beds. In our area of Hawaii we can grow everything year round, so we start only enough seeds in each batch to last us for 4-6 weeks.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Download our free PDF recipe book which has lots of healthy home grown product recipes.

 

Mala-O-Ao

 

Garden in the Clouds

 

A Raised Bed

Organic Garden

in Hawaii