Kay Gelfling

Tourism, the military, and the wealthy absolutely put the island in jeopardy. Native Hawaiians had sophisticated agricultural technology and society, and were self sustaining and successful before colonization. Unfortunately big businesses and more powerful countries forced their hand. Now the situation is messy, because the imposed systems are unhealthy and the old systems (of community and agriculture etc) are squashed. This forces almost everyone to need a money job and creates this reliance on tourism etc. with the land primarily in control of big business owners and the US government. If the goal was to create healthy systems I believe healthier systems could be created. The current structures of power benefit from the current system so they are unlikely to change right now.

An idea I overheard was for everyone who pays property tax to pay an additional tax to the native tribes or to a Hawaiian sovereignty organization in their area. Perhaps power could start to flow differently.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8R8Fc66/

Bugs!

In my area, the water department has special, cheaper rates for water for agricultural use. We have to prove we have a farm business, and we have to have a backflow prevention system which must be certified once a year by a plumber. As long as we do the paperwork we get a very good rate on water. Not every area has this, but it might be worth contacting your water department about.

Chlorine can kill beneficial bacteria in your soil. I prefer to build up good bacteria as much as I can. One way to get rid of the chlorine is to build some tanks to hold water before it goes to the farm. The tanks need to have a way to let the chlorine off gas, such as being open to the air. (However, you don't want a bunch of branches or junk getting in there, there are many ways it could air out.) Tanks could also increase your water pressure and give you a small buffer from any shortages.

If it's allowed in your area, you could later attach water catchment to the tanks.

If you have some slope on your property, you have some better options to irrigate without so much expensive piping.

I am so excited for the harvest event. I have booked the red cabin. Muahaha! See you there!

Although for me, I couldn't buy tickets this year because I can't get away during that time, I would have absolutely *loved* to go to the PTJ with the kid support. It sounds phenomenal. I'm keeping my eyes out and if it's in the stars to try to happen again, I will do my best to get the schedule lined up in time to be free for it.

Thank you! I will check that out!

That's fascinating! Thank you very much for your responses!

Were the grounds you used leftover from coffee making, and may have had a reduction in caffeine, or were they fresh ground beans?

I'll have to read up on Epson salts for my soil type. They seem so salty! But they might be fine!

I'm curious to know if anybody ended up trying coffee foliar spray (or any liquid caffeine such as tea) and if so what were the results?

Plants make caffeine as a natural insecticide and it seems that it is also deadly for slugs and snails at 1-2%, which is about the amount in coffee. However, it may also be bad for many plants as caffeine seems to be allelopathic and may cause leaf burn? Caffeine also can be anti fungal and antibacterial, I wonder if that would be bad for soils or good bacteria?

In general, if I could get a good-bacterial foliar spray that I could trust, I would use that. I'm not sure if that would help my situation.

I have a big snail and slug problem. Older plants get along okay, but for herbs and baby plants, I'm searching for a solution that doesn't require transplanting. I would like to plant in place in the garden, but those babies are no match for the army of slugs! Manual stomping has been insufficient.

Caffeine also is harmful to ducks, but I have no data on how much it would take to harm ducks. I would like to have ducks in the future, but I am usually travelling for about three months each year, which makes animal systems hard for me at this time. Hopefully it would wash off long before duck time.

If caffeine foliar spray is useful, leftovers from the day's brew could be sprayed occasionally on the babies.

So: anybody tried it?

Oh wow! I had forgotten about this thread.

I remember this parcel, it was gorgeous. It did sell at auction, I was not able to find enough angel investors in the time before the auction. I found two! But I needed ten. It would have been an amazing project. I learned a lot trying to make it happen.

I do think that angel investors are looking for much higher returns, at least double their money. I only found investors who were planning to live there. That would have been fine, but the timeframe was too short.

If someone was interested in starting a project like this again someday, I wonder what strategy would be best? One strategy would be to purchase the property, see if county approvals come in (which may take a year or two) then if they do not, sell the property and try again with a different location. Another strategy would be to find a property seller who is in no hurry and doesn't mind getting these zoning etc applications during their ownership.

In the first scenario, I don't think most angel investors would want to sign up for those kind of wait times. Even if they did, you would have to have angel investors sign up for (not send money, but keep it available) the project before you had a parcel, so you could be ready to buy at the right moment. That also seems unlikely. In the second case, most sellers would likely not want to have to wait longer than necessary for a sale. In both cases it would require a partnership with people who are more interested in seeing the project successful than in the immediate monetary transaction of being an investor or a seller.

In retrospect, I think being a large land owner yourself through normal means may be the best way to start a project like this, despite the financial requirement.

To be honest, I would love to see you take a year off (more time than that?) and do all these kinds of wonderful things. You have already done so much. What would you need, to feel comfortable taking a sabbatical?

I have no basis for knowing the numbers. Just in my opinion, I would say out of 1000 random Americans, you might get 50 who would sign up. I'm not sure if any would make it through obstacle course to 18 years, but a number above zero and below one seems reasonable.

I don't mean to be discouraging. Swimming against the culture stream requires a special set of strong muscles. Some of us who can't swim against the current might be able to slow the current down a bit.