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Ahhhhh summer!

8/11/2016

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by Willow

Summer in Hawaii is outrageous for fruits! So many yummy things are coming to fruit, literally! It would be great if we had a bigger place so we could plant more fruit trees, but maybe in the future...

Last month [well, June, actually], I picked about 3 or 4 five gallon buckets of mangoes - wow! This doesn't include those that we just picked up when we walked by the trees and saw some mangoes on the ground. Many of them were the 'common' mango, which is small and fairly stringy [these were already growing on our property when we bought it], but still! We are also getting Keitts [these cut like butter! and they have an interesting tang to them], Julies [our favorite so far, but the Keitts are not far behind!], and a couple of unknown seedling mango trees that have just started to produce - one of them  produces a mango that is FOUR TIMES bigger than the Julie! Wow! However, the birds really like those, too, and eat most of them on the tree before they have started to ripen! Big Bummer! We're trying paper bags around the mangoes [birds peck thru plastic] to see if that works because we'd really like our work and effort in taking care of the trees to bring us some of that fruit! I have tasted one of these 'unknown' giant mangoes and while the flavor is 'okay' [good, but not as good as the Keitt or Julie], they are still outrageously huge! But, the mango season is almost over [although the Julies can have two seasons in one year sometimes]. The other fruits we are getting: tropical raspberries, soursops, jackfruit, bananas [of course!], papayas, white sapote, mulberries, avocados, acerola cherry, and probably one or two others I'm forgetting. Summer is the time of year when we get the most fruit off our land; winter [Dec thru March] is our slowest season [we might only get a handful of banana bunches, total, during those months, whereas we pick a banana bunch roughly every other day or so during the summer and fall]. Of course, we only have one or two of some of those trees, like we only have one acerola cherry, so we get limited amounts [although plenty for us!]. So summer is the best time of the year to be in Hawaii, although it does get pretty warm [comparatively] in August and September! It was 88 in the shade the other day. Ah.... summer! Lots of fresh and amazing tropical fruits! See our photo album for pictures of many of our fruits! More are posted regularly!

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Cowspiracy: The Vegan Documentary

11/20/2014

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Picturefemale turkey checking out the vegan garden!
If you haven't yet seen the documentary entitled Cowspiracy, I highly recommend it! This documentary exposes why environmental organizations do not discuss the largest producer of global emissions: livestock. If you have ever wondered about global emissions, environmentalism, sustainability, agricultural practices, the large numbers of fish being taken out of the ocean, how MUCH of an impact going vegan can make, and whether or not you can be healthy on a vegan diet, then this documentary is for you! Check it out, share it with friends and family [and anyone else willing to watch] and talk about it with people. It's one of the important documentaries of this period, and will hopefully help even more people make the decision to switch to veganism.

You can also learn about the film at this website.

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Tropical blueberries - they exist!

9/1/2014

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Did you know that there are varieties of blueberries and raspberries [and maybe some other 'cool weather' berries that I haven't yet learned about] that grow in the 'tropics' [or, at least, in Hawaii]??!! I learned about them approximately two to three years ago. Now we have two varieties of tropical blueberries growing; one looks like a regular blueberry and one looks very different and has a skin that you peel away to eat the fruit inside. I've had pretty good luck with the two tropical blueberry varieties [actually producing fruit], but not as much [at least not yet] with the raspberries. I'm still working on the raspberries - planing them in different places and trying different soil amendments and different water amounts with them. But, it really 'tripped me out' when I learned that these tropical berries actually exist [someone has been hard at work playing around with these typically cool-weather plants - thank you whoever you are!] and that they actually produce berries! What a great thing, to grow our own berries in Hawaii!! :)
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Organic gardening the Anima Journey way!

8/4/2014

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by Willow Aureala

There are a variety of soil amendments a person can use to grow plants organically. At Anima Journey, as vegans, we only use non-animal soil amendments for fertilizing. This way, we avoid supporting the slaughterhouse industry, as well as avoiding potential hazards of animal-based fertilizers. After reading an old book on organic gardening in Hawaii, as well as reading additional materials that are not Hawaii-based, and utilizing our own experience, we decided on a few organic soil amendments. We use the following soil amendments to fertilize our fruit trees and our garden beds:

Greensand: greensand is mined from deposits that were originally from the ocean floor. It contains 3% potash [potassium], as well as a variety of over 30 trace minerals. It is also long-acting so only needs to be put in the soil about every two years or so [of course, this will vary from place to place].

Rock phosphate: rock phosphate is made from the hard rock phosphate mining industry. The phosphate is reduced to a water soluble form and the sulfur bonds with the calcium to form gypsum. Soft rock phosphate is the soft colloidal clay that lies between the various layers of hard rock phosphate. The colloidal clay is washed off and what is left is a completely natural phosphate source and truly valuable fertilizer. It provides tremendous benefits to the soil, microbes, plant life and worms. [Hard rock phosphate is not bio-available for the soil.]

Agricultural grade spirulina: while unable to find any conclusive research on how or if plants can actually utilize the nutrients [especially nitrogen] in ag-grade spirulina, we decided to go ahead and buy and use it for fertilizer. We can buy it locally from a business that produces "Hawaiian grown spirulina." Our main source of nitrogen [which is one of the main items we struggled with for a long while - how to get a high source of nitrogen without using animal-based fertilizers or buying VERY expensive substitutes such as soymeal, which still had low percentages of nitrogen], and decided to try ag-grade spirulina. We really need to get a soil test done to determine the validity of the nitrogen in the spirulina, but that has proved difficult.

Dolomite: dolomite was recommended to us by a gardening store and supposed expert on bananas. Our bananas werenʻt producing as much as when we initially planted them, and so we were wondering if there was some nutrient, especially a micronutrient, that they possibly needed. While Hawaii has many different types of soil, and bananas do better in some areas than in others due to elevation, annual rain fall, and other environmental factors, we hope that the dolomite will prove beneficial for the bananas. Bananas are referred to as ʻheavy feedersʻ, meaning that they need to be fertilized more often than other fruit-bearing trees [although bananas are technically a grass], so we use all of the above more often on the banana trees than our other fruit and nut trees. Dolomite is a mineral, and has weak bonds of calcium and magensium, which supposedly makes it easier for plants to assimilate it.  It is different from limestone, and is also long-lasting in the soil.

So, there you have it! These are currently the soil amendments in use at Anima Journey. Of course, as we learn more about our local environment and specifics about the tropical trees we have planted, we may make modifications or changes. But, for now, these are the main soil amendments we use at Anima Journey to help our trees and plants grow and be healthy and produce yummy fruits and vegetables!
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Why grow your own foods organically?

5/1/2014

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In a recently published article by Organic Consumer's Association [see article here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob423.html], a staff member was arrested during a protest where she was protesting illegally made changes in USDA National Organic Program organic standards. Thus, growing as much of your own foods as possible benefits you, because you just don't know what the government will call 'organic' and 'non-organic' and you can be sure that you will likely disagree with some of their definitions!

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    I'm an idealist vegan, doing my part to make this world a better place, one grain of sand at a time!

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