Not Another Crappy Day in Paradise....Part Six

[Veg N Out]

Right on I just remember your plan was all skunkdawgs all the time so when I saw the mixed bag I was like, "plans changed?" Ill be watching! Hope theres no issue with chopper this year, they really are a PITA ...I would trade warm rains for frozen ones bro...easily..you guys are living the life!

 

[MrSterling]

Lots of good points there OH.

Can I ask what you mean regarding wanting to vape chem trim or herer flowers?

 

[Dirtboy808]

Rain Rain

Rain Rain

No need water they are sucking up from the bottom. lol
The ground is soaked. Getting a real green house this year then will make my own micro climate.

 

[oldhaole]

Well what do you know?...we had a little rain last night. A shower was pushed all the way down the hill to this area. And now it's gone.

Dirtboy...a greenhouse would definitly make your life easier....just think...dry flowers...throw a dehumidifier in there....and it's all good. You can still vege outside....when they bud...inside they go...

A greenhouse would make the rain a non factor. Think of how good it would feel, just when you go to bed, listening to the rain on the roof....and not caring, because your girls are safe and dry in their home. You'd sleep a lot better.

Mr Sterling.... Hawaii runs a year or two behind the mainland. The new vape pens have just begun to catch on here. Once you buy one...you need something to put in it.

Sorry to do this to you guys...

But we gotta bust out the wayback machine...no worry...short trip.

A decade ago Maui grew 70% Sativas and 30% clones. That ratio has gone clone heavy in the last few years. Now the ratio has gone to 20% Sativa to 80% clone....if that. But the clones don't have the yield to carry the island thru summer, when clones are the only game in town.

Dutch Treat

Either a Gorilla Glue or a Triangle Kush...dog ate the tag.

The consumers...sorry. should I say patients? Whatever, prefer clones. The growers too. Trees are way more work than clone punching. The only way to thrive, growing Sativas, was to send them offisland, or better yet, to hold them to summer...when it gets dry, the market becomes far less picky.

Enter the vape pen. No OD grower I know has an abundance of clones to grind down and BHO it. They use the trim...and it tastes like crap. I'd much rather grind down a qt lb of Sativa flowers and make the BHO from that. Better end product, and a new outlet for the big trees.

One Sad Skunkdog

Veg...When I was talking to you I had the right idea. But the grass is always greener...blah blah. Then our mutual friend said "you wanna try these? If your gonna mess up... this is the time to do it. I may strike gold....still....lesson learned. The nice thing about clones is you can easily change gears.

For the record I'd trade some warm rain for some of your summer humidity. Again thanks.

jip...ty.

 

[JOJO420]

Within a 12-hour period ending at 11 a.m. Friday, Hilo International Airport saw 4.59 inches of rain while Pahoa received 4.53 inches.

This was on Friday, it has been POURING around the clock since, with no signs of letting up. I have rivers running through my yard that lead to ponds in the low spots that are getting bigger by the hour. The frogs are gonna love this.... My chickens are soaked and muddy,they love it. They have coops they can stay dry in with layer pellets to eat a plenty however they choose to go forage in the rain. Its really funny to see a soaking wet silkie, they are funny enough looking already.

Its definitely winter in Hawaii

Here are some pics of the flooding in Hilo .

Not to mention the Mauna Kea Summit Road is closed, and is expecting 12 " of snow today. Its gonna be feet of snow up there when they reopen the road so we can all go play in the snow

 

[JOJO420]

More Pics of the Feb 2013 storm. These are from upcountry Maui .Hope your doing ok out there OH, n Grey. I'm thinking of you guys

The first pic is
Flooding in Upcountry Maui washed away a cottage and a shed on Kaluanui Road.

Second pic is
Makawai River on Maui flooding through streets

Third pic is
Makawai River on Maui

Fourth pic is
Pūʻohokamoa Falls East Maui

And the 5th pic is

Flooding in Upcountry Maui washed away a cottage and a shed down Kaluanui Road.

This storm is no joke over here on Big Island either, its raining really hard with sustained hard rains.. Cant hardly hear a thing except the rain on the tin roof and water dripping into puddles.. Im glad I only have veg plants right now Stay dry my friend.

 

[oldhaole]

Ever been driving down the road...nothing happenin'...got time to burn....Ya got a schedule....but your making time....

Then the pilot screams 'Left turn Clyde!' and jacks the steering wheel.

Suddenly tire are screamin'....traffics goin' the wrong way...and you are off on an adventure.

You either love or hate that kinda shit. And I'm bored...wana wander. Take this growlog on a road trip.

Well I'm gonna give you the chance that I never got....If you want...I'll gladly drop you off at this payphone....stop reading....get the fuck out. Come back next installment....no hard feelings.

We're here....you commin' with me....or ya can call your mom for a ride home...Well????

Come on...were burnin' daylight.

Now you can wait...I need a coffee...It's story time.

"Don't it always seem to go, ya don't know what ya got til' it's gone?"....some chick sang that a long ways back...true then, true now.

That was Lahina.

Time for the wayback machine again...don't worry it won't bite...we've done this before.

Hop to 1830...Lahina was the first capital of Hawaii. The white man....was starting the first of many schemes to rip off whatever they could. Started with Sandalwood....soon that was gone. Whale oil? Soon most of them were gone. What next?

A group calling itself American Factors consolidated a number of small sugar plantations on the West side of Maui into one. Since this was the first area settled it became the first of the large plantations.

West Maui is geoligicly way older than East Maui. The valleys are deep, lower down the land is dry, but as you head up the mountain it gets wetter. At one time the cane grew up to the 2500 ft level...but the land was unirrigated, hard to harvest, and junk. Eventualy the top fields were abandoned.

Hop to 1855...Your a Chineese laborer about to touch off 25 lbs of black powder deep underground. The sugar needs water...and you are halfway thru the cliff bringing the water to the cane thru this tunnel...The charge explodes, the entire side of the cliff peels away and falls 3000 ft to the bottom of Kahoma Stream. So do you.

Ooops...That sucks...gotta work on this wayback machine.

Hop to 1981. Pioneer Mill berms and gates everywhere. First company on the island to do so....Life continues on. At the same time a 20 year old kid looked up the hill from his job waiting tables, and says...."That's a beautiful place to plant weed. The next week he and a friend hopped the berm and found paradise.

OK...out of the wayback machine...what's left of it anyway.

Sorry if your sitting at the bottom of Kahoma stream....we won't be comming down to get you anytime soon. I'd call your mom...there's a payphone around there somewhere.

"Right turn Clyde!"....back on the main road...adventure over.

This, boys and girls is called the hook. Maybe not as straight or sharp as you'd like...but I got some of ya. In fairness, probably left a few behind...but we all know where they wound up.

Keep in mind this will probably happen again.

 

[johnipedestran]

I was already hooked. I spent some too little time on Kauai and still have good friend there.

Good picture, tough for the Chinese.

peace
jip

 

[oldhaole]

Just a fast edit on the Kahoma Stream Tunnel...If your here...and actualy want to walk the five mile tunnel ....you still can. It still functions...there's just no cane to water.
Be advised. About two miles in your gonna see daylight. But don't go to it. When they dropped the cliff, they scratched a watercourse around the hole,

The hole served as a place to dump the overburden. Then they built a small rock ledge to keep the water in the ditch. Since your eyes are adjusted to the dark...all you see is daylight. Step into that daylight and you die. A rock thrown from that point takes 21 seconds to hit bottom. So will you.

Your natural inclination is to head to the light, my first time in, my partner told me what to expect. Now I'm telling you. Keep your feet in the water...you'll be fine.

 

[BIGBADBAZ]

hey good luck with the rest of your grow and i must say you live in a most
beuitifull place in the world atb matey! as alwayz nuff respect.....

 

[Canniwhatsis]

Love the trips in your threads. Makes me wish I was a good story teller, but f**ked if I've got any good stories to tell! So my threads are pretty bland. :



You planning on doing ANY tree's this year?

 

[JackCough]

Man how I love the way back machine.!!

Man how I love the way back machine.!!

Might need a tune up. Tried to use the yellow users manual inside but wouldn't you know it someone tore out the page I needed. It's at the Jaggar museum when you need it next time.

Fishing: A jerk on one end of the line waiting for a jerk on the other.

 

[oldhaole]

Canni...Will there be any trees? What do you think? Bother to read the first page?....I'll save you the trouble of going back.

Yes, there will be trees. In our perfect world there will be nine of these....all looking like this.

Until those are ready we'll be doing some of these;

God...I love this place...Easiest place I know of to live. The people are so great.

Get a call this morning...look down, see my partners number.

'Morning Sunshine...What's happening?' I start...

'Got somethin' for ya'...he replies...'You busy?"

'Hell no, come on over, burn one.'

Half hour passes....hear the bigger truck commin' up the hill.

Look what he brought. Mulch. Not just any mulch either.

Durring the last storm, one of his Koa trees fell. Planted about 15 years ago, the center was rotten...and down it came.
Koa...not rubbish Haole Koa...the real deal Koa. You know...the stuff the canoes are made out of.

He cut the tree up...ran it thru the chipper....this is the best mulch money can't buy. Will use it in the next batch of dog shit compost. Too bad I can't fold it into the aged stuff. Most of it will be put under the big plants. After the plants get pulled, turned into the soil. What a gift. It'll keep on giving.

Weather has been holding. One sunny day after another. The wind has been blowing....suppose to keep it going into next week. PM is scarce and budrot is non existant. I usualy wait to a junk cloudy day to harvest....so this may take awhile.

Pulled the roses....fuckin' mutts are now chewing driplines....So they will have to go underground....driplines...not the mutts....

And that be the state of the garden....Once we clean out these clones....bust out the trees.

Not exactly a literary masterpiece...but it's all I got....unless.

What? Wanna go to Lahina? I got nuthin' pressing me....you good?

'Left turn Clyde!'....sorry...I have me a rented Wayback machine. They have my credit card....so we only have one jump this post.

When we last left our intrepid hero...I've always wanted to start a post with that phrase....gazing at the green hills surrounding work....He know deep in his heart that these field must not go unplanted. That would just be wrong...on so many levels.

Sorry...Change gears...

Pioneer Mill was long and narrow. It streched along the coastline for some 15 miles....but was a mere three miles wide. No field was more than 1000 ft high. Some fields were even planted oceanfront. Some pushed up against the subdivisions of Lahina Town.

My friend Daryll's mom had a house in one of those subdivisions. My first patch I walked across the caneroad and into a field. A good two hundred yards. That year we planted five patches. A single patch had four or five groups of four or five holes. Each hole had three or four starts. All we just walked to. Farthest one out was a half mile from civilization.

Come harvest time we took them all. Five for five. On one of those harvests we heard the distinct sound of cane breaking. It makes a pop whe stepped on or broken. We were not alone. Others living in the subdivision were doing the same thing.

Another problem was Daryll. I did the work, planted the starts, picked the areas, dug holes...pulled males....everything...but since I used his axcess he took half. On the other hand he knew where the plants were and didn't swipe any ...so we'll call it a wash. Since we started late, the plants were in the eight ft range. A total take of 15lbs...of which I got half.

So we had a plan...a place...potential galore....but personel had to be changed....gently. We scratched the surface...but we had a long way to go.

"Right turn Clyde!"

BIG....Ty for the good wishes and I agree with you...105%.

John...Hooked huh? Then I've done my job.

The first Chineese had it rough. But they were smart too. As soon as their contract with the mill was up they were gone. Since they knew the mill had nothing to offer, they couldn't even bring women with them, many married local women and started their own farms and stores.

They were the first layer of the melting pot that is Hawaii.

Worked for themselves...had kids became the first entepenures. For how they started their life here, they did quite well for themselves.

Jack....Your Wayback machine is the same 1981 model I use...missing manual and all...so I just kinda wing it. It'll be out of the shop soon...Looking forward to having it back in top shape.

 

[johnipedestran]

What about the seasonal burning of the cane? I used to stay in a neighborhood tucked up into south shore cane fields on Kauai. I distinctly remember around July the smoke being all in the neighborhood.

peace
jip

 

[oldhaole]

Yes, every two years the cane is burned. Burning reduces the volume of leaves taken to the mill. It kills the rats and other vermin that live there. The fire is a fast one, leaves burn, but the wet stalk is left behind.

We start about six months into the cycle, so by the time they burn, everything of value is long gone. Planting in an older mature field is ugly work...

After they burn, they strip the burnt cane from the field. Then they rip the field, replant and redo the drip system. It takes a couple of months for the young cane grow enough to keep the dust down. For that three months downwind is dustcity.

There is a continuing controversy here because sugar uses a lot of water and nobody wants to live downwind of a canefield for those three months where the dust flies.

 

[oldhaole]

Last week was productive.

Early in the week I put all the driplines underground. That was a gotta do. My wonderful puppies love driplines. They chewed every surface line out in the coffee...and were working towards the gulch. I'm talkin' seriously chewed....the biggest piece after they were done was about a foot and a half long. Those all need to be fixed....hell...fixed my ass...try replaced... or the coffee will die....that goes on the todo list.

Then it was the free Koa mulch....Still stoked about that.

On Saturday, my partner came up with his pole saw and whacked the trees and branches that had grown into the summer sun track, over the past few years. One Ficus sat in the way of the rising sun...and it had gotten big. With that tree down, the garden now has morning sun a half hour earlier. Also lopped a branch off the pepper tree. Now the last hole in the line gets almost the same sun as all the first hole.

And, best of all, I took four plants; Two Dutch Treats, a Sourdouble, and an L.A. Confidential....now hanging. New flavors ahead. It's been sunny and dry the whole of last week...Perfect finishing weather.

The garden is loaded to the letter of the law. There are twenty-one clones smiling in the sun. I doubt with the sequster in effect, the powers that be will not be flying Green Harvest this month. I hope not...only time will tell how this settles out.

Next up is the long season changeover. If there are to be trees, it's time to dig some big holes.... Buy and make the mix, load the holes...all that fun stuff. It's also time to get seeds cracking...in other words....

Movement. Start the boulder down the hill.

 

[inquest]

Gearing up for some trees, huh? That tease was a pic of a Black Thai you ran a while back, yeah? If you're runnin more of these, this should be good!

 

[Chunkypigs]

nice! your garden looks huge now.
your senate passed a legalization bill no?
1st state to go legal without a voter referendum maybe???

keep up the work outside while i trim in the cold.

 

[oldhaole]

Holes 101

Holes 101

Ahhhhhh....

Where do we start?

Gee Canni....Found that cord yet? It's in the clutter drawer.

Did you look?

Let's start with the weather...all good things must come to an end. The sunny afternoons are done with. A cold front is digging down toward us from the North. The front pushed the high that keeps the trades cranking away. No trades mean afternoon clouds, a light evening rain, and the plants sit all night wet...until the morning sun dries them out.

The worm turned....now Grey and the North Shore guys get the good weather...and I get the mold. OH well....

Last long season I kinda phoned the grow in. Yes. I was lazy. I still am...but thats another post...I'm sure you can hardly wait.

A hundred pounds of free 16-16-16 spread and turned, dig a hole, dump a bag of FFocean and I'm good. Planted seeds straight into the dirt...and had nothing but problems.

Served me right.

This year we're doing things differently...gonna put a little effort into this. Gonna have to bust a sweat. Let's dig some holes.

Before we start...this is boring. I know. But...it's one of the key parts of any grow. Fuck this up...and the whole rest of the trip is fucked up. Everyone had their own way of doing this...As long as it works...god bless. This has worked for me.

Start with Maui dirt. Some of the best in the world. PH here is 6.5 to 6.8. My land sits on a relativly new lava flow. Not more than a few tens of thousands of years old. Dirt collects in pockets over time. Water moves it to the lower spots. Dig down a few feet and you hit bluerock. So you gotta find low spots...like the bottom of the gulch, Or you can build a retaining wall, and backfill. Many spots have only a couple of inches of dirt...then bluerock. Can't plant there.

And the whole place is on a 20% grade... the side of the mountain.

So you have to find places with dirt...that can't be seen from anywhere off the property. That's kinda important. This is how people get caught. Stupid small shit. The first thing I did when I bought this property was to plant hedges, and trees, in the sight corridors. I walk my permiter once a month....looking for things that shouldn't be seen.

I'm wandering....The LA Confidential is good smoke....too bad it doesn't yield.

Where was I?...

Oh yea. Still have a lot of ground to cover...pun intended.

Holes!

Wana shoveljump?...you don't?

TO DAMN BAD!

Three feet by two and a half feet....eighteen inches deep. The object is to flip the soil. Take the first six inches off, that goes in one pile. Pull out all the rocks you find. Next six inches, another pile, last six inches, get rid of.

You get this;

I put stakes in to tell me where it begins.

Your 18 inches deep. Loosen the floor of the hole and then put the top layer of soil back in. Then put your goodies in the hole. Sorry for the crappy pic....but there are two bags of Fox Farm Ocean, one lb of bat guanno, five lbs of bone meal, Two cups of time release 14-14-14, Two five gallon buckets of Sunshine Mix #4, and two five gallon buckets of Dog shit compost. Layer everything in, try to keep the compost to the side of the hole.

Wait a minute... Dog shit compost?

I'll get back to that...hang on.

Now you lightly mix what is in the hole. Done? Throw the remaining middle layer back in. Mix again. Lightly.

Rake it out, pull the rocks....

One down...eight more to go. Give or take about sixty bucks of stuff per hole.

Now dog shit compost.

Ever been cutting the lush green grass and run over a pile of dogshit? You quickly learn that the places with the thickest grass have "presents" in them.

I have five dogs left. Two elderly ones and three young ones....Don't laugh...we had 11 a few years ago....Long story...

If life gives you lemons? Well if life gives you shit, make compost.

Don't get me wrong...it's only about 10-15% shit. The rest is everything from kitchen waste, to pulled weeds, to all the trim, to all the coffee cherry husks...anything organic goes in the pile. Every once in a while cover it with dirt. When the pile gets warm....your doing things right. Cover it with dirt again...then forget about it.

For about a year. The pile I'm working on now was asleep for two.

Good compost....makes a difference...and it's free!

Inquest...No BT seeds left. Regardless...I think it'll be good anyway. This year will be Jack Herer crosses. That plant shown was a regrow. Every once in a while you knock one out of the park.

I have one from seed Japaneese Hash regrow I'm working on this year. If it works...big if...it'll be pretty....if it doesn't...I doubt you'll hear about it again.

Chunky...it wasn't long ago when this was the gulch garden...had to go to the wayback machine for this shot...first year in the gulch.

Looks different now...a man and his shovel.

Legislature passed gas...nuthin'. First state to go legislativly?

Not this year.

Though I think the votes are there...We had a change in the Speakership this session. In order for the new speaker to win he needed Republican votes. Old guard Dems are pissed. They will give new guy nuthin'. Won't happen as long as Souki is Speaker.

One decrim bill left alive. We will know by the end of the week if it is still alive when houses exchange bills...I doubt it will pass though.

And just for your info we got down to 49 last night. We let the dogs sleep in bed to keep warm.

 

[Dirtboy808]

You going to start you seeds in your holes again? I'm getting my new spot cleared of trees. Love your spot!!! NOAA says we will be colder then normal but equal chances on rain this summer. DB