Last Week At The Farm (4-9 April)

This was a short week since we left to attend the Specialty Coffee Association meeting in San Diego.

This week we focused on continuing to clear the upper portion of the farm. The guinea grass is very tall (around 6ft) and there are many vines that have grown over the trees creating a very dense wall to get through. This has be cleared first and then the area can be stumped. Almost the whole farm was this way. Even the fence lines are so overgrown it has started pulling them down. The below image was of the removal of stumps, but it shows how tall the guinea grass is in the background. That is what we have fought against on the whole farm. Everything you see once once covered like that.

We were lucky to have my son and his friend volunteer their time to help us out for a couple days. They were able to help us tackle a few projects that we needed younger bodies for (fence posts and pulling stumps). Two big projects they tackled were clearing an easement that was impassable and removing stumps in an area we are planning on placing a high tunnel and small produce garden. We will need to remove more stumps in the future if we decide to do processing on the farm. The decision point for on farm processing vs house processing is the amount of humidity and rain on the farm. Our home location receives way less rain, has higher winds, and less humidity.

What we worked on

• Assessed damage from Kona low 1 and 2

• Cleared out overgrowth around existing coffee trees

• Stumped trees

• Removed some stumps

• Planted a few citrus trees, Gliricidia and Ko (sugar cane)

• Cleared easement at top edge of property

  
  

What We’re Seeing

Earlier in April Hawaii had two Kona Low storms. We were lucky that our farm faired pretty well. The chickens (best workers on the farm) withstood the storms like champs. We noticed erosion and areas that flooded with more erosion from the second Kona low than the first. The storm helped us see how water flows through the farm and where to plant erosion control to prevent future erosion issues.

We made the hard decision to stump all trees. Originally we were only stumping a third of the farm and trimming the other trees down to couple verticals. However, we decided with disease/pest pressure and soil health concerns that stumping everything was the best long term choice. This will give us a couple years to work on soil and controlling the coffee berry borer and coffee leaf rust.

What We’re Learning

No matter how much you think you have accomplished there is always so much more to go.

Next Steps

Now that some of the sections are cleared we will need to start building soil health. We will start adding cover crops and mulch from the trees we have stumped. The hope of the cover crops is to add more biomass to the soil and break up the compacted soil. I am thinking of trying a few different mixes to see what works best. We have had sorghum sudan recommended as part of the mix due to the immense amount of biomass it creates. I am just concerned because it can get very tall and I fear it will be lot for me to manage. If anyone reads this an has any comments or recomendations I'd love to hear (butterflyandmolefarm@gmail.com)