Taro in the Rain

 The homestead farm has seen 45 inches of rain so far this year. Almost all of it has been in light amounts of night time rains. The result is that the ground is always wet to some degree or other, Mosses grow everywhere, the grass and plants are growing exceptionally well....except of course for those varieties that don't like their feet wet. I'm living in a rainforest now. 

Every morning the taro leaves look so pretty covered in rain drops. 

This variety is termed Zuike. Not Hawaiian. The unique characteristic of this one is that it is so low in oxalates that one could eat it raw! I'm finding that it grows really well with lots of rain. 

Mana Piko

Today I finally got to a project that I've been promising myself I'd get to......planting taro keikis. It's way overdue. I've been growing several varieties of taro for a couple of years, gradually building up the population. At last it's time to prepare the keikis for sale.

With all my varieties, I started out with one plant of each variety. Each year I would increase my inventory. Weeeell, it didn't always work out. Sometimes the mother plant would die for one reason or another.  And when the pig got loose a while back, she tore up the taro patches. So that was a major set back too. I lost a couple of varieties back then. But what survived is now doing well and ready for potting up. 

First variety I'm tackling : Mana Piko. Being a mana type, I sometimes see double crowns growing atop the corm. It's really strange to see. No other group does this but the manas. 

It looks like I have around 70 keikis. This afternoon I got 50 trimmed up and potted. Now it's a case of tending them and letting them grow.

These will live in a mini greenhouse until ready fior sale. 

My First Taro Giveaway

Something I enjoy doing is encouraging other folks to try growing food. So with the local Volcanoes Park unit having a holiday event, I saw it as an opportunity for a taro huli giveaway. Perhaps some gardener out there would be successful and develop an interest in growing taro too. 

I figured on taking a dozen different colorful types, ones that might catch someone's eye. Plus I chose the easiest ones to grow. 

Each huli needed to be gathered then trimmed up. And since these were heading to the National Park, they needed special preparation. Each had to be hosed and washed, removing all the soil. Then they were soaked in a bleach solution for 10 minutes. Once dried, they were then dipped in a sevin solution. All this was necessary to make sure that diseases and pests wouldn't be taken into the park. Without these procedures, the taro would not have been allowed onto the park grounds.

The white and orange survey tape serves as labels. Each huli was labeled with its Hawaiian name. 

 I brought 100 taro starts. Being that it was my first giveaway, plus the fact that I couldn't stay to attend the event to answer questions and offer help (I had an obligation elsewhere), I thought I'd start small. It would be a nice test. And if there were any left over, I wouldn't be swamped with trying to get them replanted into my gardens. 

ps- Update : all the taro starts were taken. Whoopie! 

Garden Bed #3

(Bed 3 = 192 sq ft)

After finishing beds 1 & 2, I thought about what to plant next. Up at the house garden beds, I have taro that is overdue to be separated and replanted. This seemed to be the highest priority, so I choose the six most overdue varieties. Looking the plants over, I choose the best looking starts, cleaned them up, and planted them. Freshly planted, they look like green or purple sticks lined up in a row. 

As you can see, this garden bed gets shade very early in the morning. By 10, it gets full sun the rest of the day. Most crops have done just fine in this location, so I fully expect the taro to do okay too. 

I'm getting more careful about making garden labels. For short duration crops, a yellow stick & permanent magic marker works fine. But for crops staying in the ground for 5 or more months, I'm resorting to more durable markers. For the taro I'm switching over to repurposed pcv pipe painted yellow and labeled using black paint. 

Last task.......apply mulch. In the taro patch I'm using 3 day old grass clippings laid down 6 inches thick. At 6 inches it's fluffy, but in a couple days it will settle down to be about 1 inch deep. In two weeks I'll reapply the mulch so that I will end up with about 2 inches of mulching material. Then about once a month, as needed, I'll add more mulch to keep the ground well covered and the weeds under control. Taro is a crop that can't compete with weeds and grass, so weed control is important. 

Taro Propagation - Via Corm Buds

Cleaning out one of the bean growing beds, look what I uncovered.......some lost taro corms. 

As soon as I spied them I recalled that I had rested some freshly harvested taro atop the cut log edging, and apparently forgot about it since the bean plants, at the time, covered them over. 

They're beyond eating now, but they present a great example of another way to propagate taro. The corms have dormant eyes in them, and under normal conditions, they never grow to fruition because you cook and eat the corm. But in this case, the abandoned corms slowly began to awaken. The eyes near the soil came to life and set out shoots and roots. 

By carefully cutting the corm into chunks, I can now plant each of these shoots and they will grow into a nice taro plant. This is not the usual way that I propagate taro, but it's a very useful method to use under special circumstances. 

Just recently I had one of those special circumstances come along. I had a new taro variety, called Nuie Ula'ula, that has been growing for awhile. Then all of a sudden I noticed that the top had rotted off. Geez. I lost a variety that I had made a trip over to Maui to acquire. Sad. 

I dug up the  base of the plant in hopes of finding an oha (baby offshoot)......

I was in luck. Five of the dormant buds were sprouting in the corm. I removed the rotted part of the corm, and by replanting the corm on its side, I will be able to get new plants. So all it not lost afterall. With a little time, I will end up saving this variety in my garden collection. 

New Taro Varieties

Curious "K" wants to know which new varieties have been added to my farm. The new additions are all Hawaiian types. 

Apuwai

Manapiko

Manini owali

Lauloa ke'oke'o 

Niue ula'ula 

I'm planning on opening up new growing areas so that I will be able to add more varieties in the future. For right now I'm focusing on propagating the plants that I have in order to be selling potted taro next spring. 

Current Taro Varieties

"W" asked what taro varieties am I growing. I'm constantly adding new varieties when I have the opportunity, but this is what I currently have: 

...Bun long. Also called, Chinese taro. This is one of my favorite table taros. 

...Mana ulu. A yellow Hawaiian taro, it's a nice eating taro.

...Pololu

...Piko ula'ula

...Araimo. Japanese taro

...Kumu ula'ula

...Lauloa ele'ele omoa

...Moi kea

...Manini kea

...Piikea

...Elepaio uli'uli. An interesting variegated taro.

...Apu

...Ula'ula Moana

...Piko ula'ula 

Above looking down on the plant from above, the corms forming at the base of an Araimo plant. These corms can be used like a boiled potato for stews or a side dish. 

I also have.......

...An unknown "white" variety that prefers semi shade and is a robust grower. 

...A yellow cormed variety that is most likely a Polynesian type. 

...An aggressive purple stemmed one that may be a Filipino type. 

...Another purple stemmed that is a Caribbean type. 

I'm gradually phasing out my unknown varieties as I acquire known Hawaiian types. No particular reason for this other than I like the idea of growing Hawaiian varieties. But I do plan to keep the Caribbean variety because it's rather ornamental. 

Thinking of ornamental, I forgot to list Mojito, my black & green variegated taro. 

Black Variegated Taro

I've been growing an interesting looking taro as an ornamental, something to use in flower beds. It's a black variegated one. A couple of years ago I found a single plant for sale in some store somewhere here, and snarffed it up. Mine! Ah-ha! Had no idea what it was, but I lovingly took it home and planted it by my front door. 

Since then it's propagated dozens of baby plants. This taro now resides in numerous flowerbeds. 

I just recently learned its name ....... Mojito. 

Now that I know it's name, I googled it. Boy, I found out I'm growing it all wrong! I've been growing it dry land style. The Internet seems to agree that it should be grown in wet soil or as a pond plant in 1"-3" of water. Um, how about that. And the Internet is calling for full sun or partial shade. I'm finding that my own plants prefer full sun. Those getting shade are smaller and less robust. Yes, they survive, but not as well as their full sun siblings. 

Now that I know it tolerates having its feet constantly wet, I plan to try some in one of the ponds. But I will continue to grow most of it dry land style since that method works for me. 

By the way, I've never tried tasting this taro. But I have cooked up the excess and added it to the chicken feed. 

Taro Flowers

I've been asked if taro produces flowers. Yes, it does. But I've never been able to predict exactly what triggers the blooming. It doesn't happen the same time of the year from flowering to flowering. Nor is maturity or age of the plant the determining factor. I've had both young and old plants bloom. And not every plant pushes blooms when the others around it are flowering. I've kept note of which plants were propagated from the central huli and which from the side corms. That gave no consistent conclusions either. 

Right now I'm seeing lots of flowers developing among the taro plants. And not just one variety, but several different ones. But to stay with the lack of predictability, many of the varieties I'm growing are not showing signs of getting ready to bloom. Go figure. 

All my taros have similar flowers......a long, narrow spike. The length varies. The color ranges from pale yellow, to peachy, to strong golden. Some of the long spikes will stay closed. Others flare open to some degree. Some varieties produce a single flower per plant. Others will make up to four to five flowers, one right after the other. 

Some flowers are fairly short, perhaps 5"-6". The one below is huge. 21 1/2" long! 

I've never seen any of the flowers naturally pollinate. No fruits or seeds produced. To date I haven't tried hand pollinating. Perhaps one day I'll try experimenting just for the fun of it.  I am assuming that taro's natural pollinator doesn't exist here in Hawaii. Just a guess though. 

The above taro variety is blooming for the first time for me. I've been growing it for four years now with no blooming. Two of the plants are producing flowers which arch back and flare open at the base to expose the stamens and pistils. 

And it appears to be a variety that will produce multiple flowers per plant. It's already pushing the next flower down the stem......

It's the pale colored hook just emerging out of the leaf stem and at the base of the current flower stem. 

Using Taro to Shade Out Weeds

I've toyed around with using various crops to help shade out "weeds" and improve the soil for future garden plots. Tropical grasses are my number one weed, and they are very hard to eliminate without using a herbacide or else covering the ground in black plastic (or something else durable and solid) for many months. I decline to broadcast spray herbacide and I'd like to come up with a solution that doesn't involve spending lots of money. Giant rolls of black, heavy grade, durable plastic sheeting aren't cheap. I'm cheap, rolls of plastic aren't! 

Since I already have a decent amount of veggie producing beds, I'm not in a real hurry to get more ground into production. So time is on my side. This gives me time for tinkering around with ideas. 

I have some sort of a taro that really likes to grow here. It produces giant leaves when fertilized with manure, thus creates dense shade beneath itself. So I've been using it to help get rid of weeds. 

Above, I measured some of those leaves. Many were close to four foot long! Without lots of manure being used, the leaves are more usual 18"-24". But since I'm looking for complete shade, the manure helps make those jumbo leaves. 

The shade beneath this taro keeps most weeds from thriving. The weeds tend to be spindly and small. About once a month I'll throw some grass clippings between the taro plants to act as a smothering mulch. It works on just about everything but certain grasses. But the grass also gets spindly with weak roots. So it becomes fairly easy to pull out. After several months of grass clipping mulch and hand pulling what grass happens to survive, the area becomes almost weed free. Not quite, but much better than before. 

This particular taro patch is just about ready for converting to a veggie garden. The beauty of this system for me is that I don't have to dive in and plant veggies right away. There's no rush. The taro will still grow for a number of months, giving me time to get my act together. Plus....with all the manure and mulch being used, the soil has had a chance to become fertile and a home to scads of worms. 

This particular taro is quite "itchy". So I don't bother trying to use it for people food. But I will cook it on my outdoor wood burning cook stove for feeding to the chickens and pigs. The corms need 2-3 hours of cooking to make the pigs happy, but the chickens will eat it with much less cooking. The leaves and stems need at least an hour for happy pig food. Since I have a virtually unlimited supply of cooking wood, it doesn't cost me anything to cook it for so long. I wouldn't bother with it if I had to pay for fuel. I would just add it to the compost pile instead. 

Taro & Standing Mulch Update

Each week day I work on a number of different projects rather than just focusing one one until the job is done. I know that most people don't work this way, but sticking with one project till the end seems too much like a job to me. I left those boring drudge jobs behind several years ago. This system that seems hodgepodge to some people works just fine for me. It keeps me interested and enthused with my homesteading efforts. 

Thus this post......this is an update on my new taro patch and standing-mulch project. I started several weeks ago clearing out a brushy area, using the cut up brush as a coarse mulch for the baby taro plants. I cut stuff as I needed it, leaving the rest for the future when I needed more. As I cleared the brush I planted taro. So this is what it looks like today......

The taro in the foreground has produced large leaves because that was the first patch I planted. The further you look back, the younger the plants are. The babies that I planted today you can't even see. 

Back where the younger plants are is the area that was covered in brush several weeks ago. All that brush has been snipped up and used as mulch on the taro. The process took several weeks, adding light layers of mulch repeatedly over time. The coarse mulch layer is about 10 inches thick in the foreground. The neat thing about this type mulch is that it won't form a water impervious mat. Instead, it allows rain through, keeps the soil moist, and blocks weeds. Pretty neat. One of the reasons it doesn't mat is that the brush stems are cut up too and incorporated in the mulch. Yes, very stemmy. It keeps the mulch springy. Those stems will gradually degrade. When this taro is harvested in a year, all the mulch gets dug into the soil, including any stems that haven't rotted. It greatly improves my otherwise pathetic tropical soil. 

In the far back of the picture the ground shows greenery. That's where I harvested standing mulch but am allowing it to regrow. I did not remove the roots. As I expand the taro patch, I will totally remove the brush and roots in order to plant taro. In the meantime, the brush will regrow greenery that I can use as more mulch material later on. One other point about not removing all the brush prior to actually using the space. The greenery will shade the soil surface, keeping the sun from killing the soil microbes. Since I use organic material as my fertilizer, healthy soil microbes are important. 

Garden Atop Concrete

My kitchen taro garden is atop a concrete pad. For real!!!! And I was told by many that it couldn't be done. Ha! 

The concrete pad is actually to top on the cesspool. No ick factor here because nothing, zero seeps out of the cesspool top...ever! Very little goes into this large cesspool, nor does it fill with water. So it's chance of overflowing in my lifetime is virtually nil. But the cesspool top takes up a large section of the yard outside my kitchen. Rather than staring out the window at a cement slab, I decided to cover it with compost layers. 

Everyone warned me that I'd never be able to use it for a garden and that I'd be lucky to get grass to grow there and stay green. Initially I did grow a lawn there, but I'd rather be growing food. So the grass was flipped and I planted taro. It thrived. 

I've harvested quite a but of taro from this garden atop solid concrete. Ha, told ya so that I could do it! It just took very fertile compost/soil and water. I'm constantly adding discarded fruit, weeds, and grass clippings. Plus a light layer of volcanic cinders to keep things from getting too mucky, gloppy. 

Today I harvested some of this organic "soil" from between the rows. 

I scraped it right down to the concrete, so you can see how shallow the dirt is that the taro grows in. The color of the material is quite dark. It's moist and a bit gloppy because of the rain. 

And it was loaded with worms! I'm transferring this "soil" to a bed that is being created for growing gourds. The gourds should really love it. 

The trenches between the taro rows are now empty. I'll spend the next week filling them up, thus starting the cycle all over again. It's a great way to utilize discarded fruits, weeds, lawn clippings, manures. It fertilizes the taro at the same time. 

If I didn't have a gourd project that needs this new "soil", I would have just shoveled the material onto the taro rows. It would have made the dirt deeper for the taro to grow in. But alas...so many projects, so little soil. 

Living Mulch

I've read many accounts on the Internet about living mulches. I admit I have been skeptical. I wonder how many of those accounts were based upon practical experience. Too many suggestions that I've taken from the Internet didn't pan out. (I plan to list them in a separate blog entry for you.)

One idea that I tested was the living mulch. The idea is that you would grow an understory plant that would keep weeds out but let water in. And supposedly be ok with the veggies that you're trying to grow. I've seen all sorts of ideas that other gardeners are supposedly successfully using claiming that veggie plants thrived, but I have to say that I have my doubts. 

I've read claims of growing veggies amid a short growing grasses. Some claim miracle results using clover. Yet others claim the direct planting right into their lawns works great. Yet other gardeners claim they never weed their gardens, they just clip the weeds short, thus the weeds themselves are the living mulch. But my own experience and tests show that isn't quite right. The grasses and clovers compete too aggressively. Even the weeds. The test veggies that I grew using these living mulches did quite poorly compared to the control plants grown without the living mulch. Thus my own conclusion......I won't use grasses or clovers as living mulches. 

I believe in shading the soil surface for a number of reasons. Thus I've been interested in various mulching techniques. Presently I use grass clippings, but I've wondered if I could use something for a living mulch that could take over the shading task after the clippings start decomposing. I reasoned that the living mulch would have to be something that would spread and fill in the space. Be long enough lived to survive until the main crop was ready for harvest. Not be an aggressive feeder. Not have an aggressive surface root system. Not grow in such a way that it would smother and kill that main crop. The main crop I am targeting is taro. Future experiments will test other main crops. 

Taro does not do well with competition. So grass and weeds need to be kept under control. It is a long season crop taking at least 9 months, often more. It is very responsive to nitrogen feeding at the right time but does not want over-feeding the rest of the time. And it wants moist, shaded soil. I've been growing it using grass clipping mulch, which has worked pretty well. But because the clippings decompose rapidly, they need to be refreshed monthly. That's a problem for taro since it doesn't like you to walk anywhere on its roots. Applying new mulch means that I step near the taro, thus stunting its growth potential. 

I finally considered trying sweet potatoes. While the tubers are ready for harvest 4-9 months, depending upon the variety, they can be left unharvested. Sweet potatoes don't form dense root mats. Their large leaves well shade the soil surface. I haven't found them to be heavy feeders, though the extra nitrogen won't kill them either. It sounded good so I gave them a try. But I wasn't sure if the vines would smother the taro.

Guess what. Taro and sweets to together pretty well. At least so far. I've chosen a variety that is a bunch type with moderate runners and good sized leaves. So the main tubers are right under the heart of the plant. By planting the sweet far enough away from the taro, I could harvest tubers without walking on the taro roots. And by directing the vines towards the taro, the sweets act as a living mulch. All sounds good in theory, but would it actually work. 

So I planted taro. For the first experiment I choose a taro variety that is a strong grower and tall. And I planted the sweet potato cuttings in a spot that I could access without damaging the taro roots, plus importantly, in a place where I could also access the taro to clean up dying leaves if needed. Well, so far the experiment has been a raging success. But it's only been going along a few months, thus I will reserve judgement to when the taro gets harvested. The taro has been growing strongly. The sweet potato vines have been spreading and covering the surface without climbing over the taro. I initially mulched with grass when I planted everything but have not added more grass mulch since. Very little grass or other weeds have grown through the vines. 

Next time I will plant more sweet potato cuttings so that I see faster ground coverage. And I will try several different taro varieties with several different sweets, looking for the best combinations. So far I haven't seen any negatives, but then this has been a rather wet year. Will this method also work for drier years? We'll see. 

Here's another combination, a less vigorous taro matched to a less aggressive sweet potato. I'm interested to see how they get along together.......

Taro - Planting More

I'm planting a lot more taro. Why? Hubby is now pre-diabetic, so we are adjusting our diet. He is eliminating potatoes, sweet potatoes, wheat, and rice. So we will cook with more taro, which is something he can have. 

(Freshly planted taro huli .... a lehua variety.)

Taro grows readily here. I'm surely no expert when it comes to taro, but many of the varieties grow well on my farm. Up until now I used to grow it then use it for trade and to give away. But now I'm going to have to pay a bit more attention to the crop. I need to learn which ones we prefer and find recipes that we like. 

The first step will be planting more. I'm acquiring some new varieties to experiment with. Today I picked up a new red stemmed one that I'll try. And I harvested a lehua variety which I replanted today. I already know that we like this one made into home fries. 

A new variety for me that I picked up today. I don't know the name

of this one, nor what its best use will be. 

I prepared the new taro pieces for planting. These are called huli. Excess stems were removed. Excess tuber was also removed. Then they were cleaned up in general, removing anything that would rot. Looking over each one carefully, I don't find any disease or insects I should be concerned about. I've had success planting them immediately although it has been suggested that I let them dry out overnight before planting. Perhaps that would make a difference in an area that was wetter. But planting immediately has always worked for me. 

I plant each huli deep, 6 inches down, and about two foot apart in the row. I can't go deeper because that's as much soil as I have before I hit the lava bed. But as the taro grows I will add mulch, with the mulch layer getting quite thick. I find that it takes anywhere from 7 to 15 months till harvest, depending upon the variety. That's for the tubers. Leaves and stems can be harvested sooner. Plants used for leaves and stems get set back, not producing good tubers. So I keep separate areas for the two types of harvest. 

The planting method I just described is the simplest way for me to grow taro. But there are many other ways to do it. As I add new varieties to my garden I'll describe some of the other methods.