A Day on the farm. Recent Activities

Good morning Kalaeha Farm, Ninole, Hawaii!

Up with the chickens. A new day and some new peeps!

Repurposed materials make a great chicken shack. The creation of uber worker Reggie.

Happy hens make delicious eggs.

Greenhouses provide plants and soil shelter from heavy rains.

Raised beds being prepared for a new crop of Kale.

Amaryllis add beauty to the farm and are a good cash crop.

Tuber Rose

WOOF-ers digging a new veggie bed on a sunny Hawaiian day.

Volcanic soils are augmented with rich compost.

Guavas grow wild here.  In this photo the product of some adventures in wine making. Fruit of the vine, guava wine!

The original building on the farm. Now in its 4th location.

The glass shack.  A one of a kind visitor's lodging on the edge of a rain forest ravine.

Dragonfruit,flower, a catcus-like plant which blooms at night.

June, Early Summer

Biochar has an ancient history and a hopeful future. 

Anne and Magi haul biochar to the greenhouse.

Here on the farm it is made and used as a soil amendment.  It helps stabilize the moisture and nutrients essential to plant growth and health.  Known as soil's best friend— because of biochar's physical and chemical nature, it has a unique ability for attracting and holding moisture, nutrients, and agrochemicals even retaining difficult to hold nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous.
It also is beneficial in the process of sequestration of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide gasses from the atmosphere, which are causative factors in creating the "greenhouse effect" and ultimately the warming of Earth's climate.

Later this month we will gather, friends and neighbors, and enjoy the bonfire that creates the biochar from waste wood, as we celebrate the onset of summer and the gifts that its bright sunshine brings us.

Happy summer!