Question: My daughter got inspired at school to grow a vegetable garden for our ohana. She wants us to eat vegetables that we grow ourselves. We want to encourage and help her. What are the best plants for success in Hawaii?
Answer: Beans, okra, starter plants of kale, tomatoes, basil, cuttings of Okinawan spinach.
Normally I would add Chinese peas for this time of year in Hawaii. They are easy and satisfying to grow and they are super ono to harvest and eat young right out of the garden. But it is so hot and we have so few tradewinds, you might not be as successful as you would under normal, cooler winter conditions.
My own father encouraged me to grow pole beans and an auntie taught me to grow papayas from seeds.
Here’s a fun one to try:
Lablab beans from seeds. The flowers are lavender, pretty and edible, but wait for the beans, which are also ono and edible. They are a ground cover that nurtures trees and heals our aina and they save water and prevent weeds. They are easy to grow from seeds.
One key with seeds or cuttings is to prepare the soil by loosening it with leafy compost, alien seaweed or cinder. Mix it up to a depth of 6 inches, or more ideally a foot. (Saves on going to the gym to build up your arm and leg muscles.)
When the soil is prepared, test that it drains well. How do we know it drains well?
Perform the scientific hose test. If the water sits there, like a bathtub with a stuck drain, you have more work to do.
Get out the pick and shovel and break up the nondraining layers, add more compost, wet it down and wait. Break up the layers with the pointy end of the pick, add more organics, wet down, wait and repeat. Amazingly, the organic acids in leafy compost or alien seaweed will help break up compacted soil.
When the soil drains well, rake it and shovel it into rows or furrows. Or make mounds to plant the bean seeds in. Place the seeds in the furrow, or puka, cover them with a half inch of soil, gently firm the soil (with your hands in gloves) and then gently water. Water daily, ideally in the morning.
Beans are fun for keiki (and all of us) because they sprout pretty quickly and grow well. Give them some support to grow, like poles, bamboo stakes or a trellis. If you have a chain-link fence, you can grow beans on that.
Lablab beans can also sprawl along the ground, and they make pretty flowering ground cover that in time produces edible beans. The flowers are also edible, but if you pick the flowers to eat you won’t get beans.
They make a nice ground cover under ulu and tangerine trees. And you don’t have to mow any grass.
I like to pick them young and tender. Like you do with Chinese peas, rinse, de-vein, chop into 2-inch pieces and gently sauté them in olive oil and chopped garlic.
Pole or string beans are fun and you can buy the seed packets and follow the directions (a good learning experience for keiki and ohana). Buy them at a garden shop or from the University of Hawaii.
Okinawan spinach is easy to grow from cuttings and there are all kinds of ways to cook and eat it: Raw in salads (younger leaves are best), in green smoothies in place of purchased kale, in soup, and chopped up and cooked in a tomato-based sauce for pasta.
Vegetable starter plants are available at many of our garden and hardware shops and even at some supermarkets these days. Plant them in your nice prepared soil. Make sure to plant them at the same soil depth as they are in the pot. Not too deep, not too shallow but just right.
The way to do this is prepare the planting puka and set the pot in it. Measure with a ruler to make sure that the soil depths match. Then gently remove the seedling from the pot and plant it. Gently firm the soil and water gently. As with seeds, water the seedlings daily. Water gently like the rain, not a blast of water like you are a firefighter.
Kale, tomatoes, okra and basil are some of the most successful to grow and eat. Keep track of when and what and how you plant. If you don’t have success, keep trying.
Heidi Bornhorst is a sustainable landscape consultant specializing in native, xeric and edible gardens. Reach her at heidibornhorst@gmail.com.
