OPEN FARM DAY

Saturday September 19th 10am -3pm

Mauna Kea Tea will be holding a public open house for an informal sampling of our tea . Please stop by to share tea and talk story from 10 am and 3 pm or reserve a seat at either the 10:30 am or 1:30 pm focused tasting session.

Also available for sale:

tea accessories (tea pot, cups)
Tea Cups by local potters
Potted tea plants, etc

If you like to participate in advanced tasting sessions, classes and natural farming workshops, please check our event list for future classes and workshops.

If you are interested in a farm tour that offers a full tea experience indluding garden tour and tea tasting, check out our Farm Visit page.

Earthworms are not there when soil is clean

I am more and more convinced that earthworms are there to clean the soil. I first didn't really understand the significance of this statement when I read this thing about earthworms in an natural farming article, but as I continue more observation, it became more clear that if you see earthworms in your soil, the soil is still transforming.

Most obvious evidence is that where there is great forest, there aren't many earthworms. The soil is clean smelling and that forest ecosystem is mature and stable. and if you plant in this soil, a lot of things grow healthy, not necessarily big, but healthy.

Most organic gardeners tend to (want to therefore they do) think that the healthy forest soil has a lot of earthworms, but in reality soil with low nitrogen litter like fallen leaves have very few earthworms. on the other hand, places like under fruits trees or fresh mowed grass tend to have more earthworms due to high protein contents.

I am talking about low N, fibrous high carbon leaf litter and branch type of forest soil.

This also explains "cleanliness of soil" as opposed to "soil fertility". Many people talk about soil fertility being important factor, but not so much about cleanliness. Fertility is important because that's the soil's capacity to hold and create nutrients. It's hard to keep soil clean especially if you are sincere believer of "ORGANIC" culture.

If one knows what it means to grow healthy vegetables, I am not saying big or lots, but healthy and pure tasting, typically he or she first look, smell and feel the soil and it should resemble that of a great forest. and not any forest, but where the leaves provide dark black soil of high carbon environment.

Earthworms are signs of high organic matter in the soil. Most typically half-decomposed organic matter. Many organic gardeners think this is great since it says that you are working hard, and putting compost and organic fertilizers in the soil, but what they are doing is really uncleaning or contaminating the soil.

I still get a few earthworms when the field is going through transition from new to established beds and see various growth forms both natural or forest-type growth and organic growth. Best way to learn this is to find a good dark loamy soil in natural forest.

I am still skeptical about what I have so far at the farm is truly from the clean soil, perhaps there is transitional release of nutrients from weedy disturbed soil to mature beds, or whatever it is. need to see the result. Try the rot test.

Mr Mokichi Okada never laid out how to do it beacause it all varies depending on each situation. where you are. what soil you have, what climate, vegetation and etc. I am slowly understanding the depth of this simple natural farming as I shed typical organic farming and chemical farming theory.

Tropical storm dumped a lot of rain

Hurricane felicia downgraded to tropical storm and to tropical depression, yet still brought a lot of rain. It was only 60 mm or 2.5 inches of rain in 2 days, but felt like a lot.
The tea field looks quite happy with lots of rain. Never have drainage problem since we are on the hillside with lots of weeds growing and holding soil.

This year it is wet like how it used to be around here. Last few years have been dry, but finally good to get some decent rain.

Could natural farming carrots taste so gentle and pure?

I thought wild growth form of vegetables are mostly bold and pungent and have really wild quality, but this year we got good carrot growing in what is generally considered poor red clay soil, yet the flavor is so gentle and pure and mild. We eat it raw, cooked and sauteed, but all feels so different from regular store bought carrot.

Perhaps the variety of carrot has something to do too. Oxheart carrot from Seeds of Change.
http://www.seedsofchange.com/garden_center/product_details.aspx?item_no=S10919

Soil amendment I used was old leaf/wood branch compost. I shouldn't even call it compost because USDA NOP organic rule specifies that compost has to have c:n ratio between 25:1 and 40:1 and has to be cooked at a temp between 131F and 170F for 15 days and turned at least 5 times.
C:N ratio is really high, by calculation probably around 60:1 or higher. I think it's more like 100:1. and why carrot still grow so well? I don't know. I don't grow vegetables by scientific theory.

My hypothesis is that it is the surface area of these leaf and branch materials are small compared to shredded and ground up stuff. so they don't have to break down as fast to demand so much nitrogen to cause nitrogen deficiency.

Also when the soil is in high c:n ratio, the soil is really low bacterial activity level which inevitably shifts the system to fungal cycle. which means fungi break down the high C stuff while feeding the plants with necessary nutrients similar to mycorrhizal fungi.

Here is a link to a product from fungi perfecti. Although I didn't use this, it gives you an idea of how it works. I generally assume that there is already enough spore in the soil or leaf mix that I add to the soil.
http://fungi.com/mycogrow/index.html

Most gardening books say carrots need good loamy soil. Our carrots are growing in really heavy clay soil, and perhaps that is why our carrots look round like kabu or turnip.

Carrot leaves are also very light green as if there is not enough nitrogen. This is typical look of natural farming vegetables. Healthy soil feeds the plants, not human with fertilizers and compost.

I sometimes still think about NPK and compost C:N ratio and stuff, and it always confuse me for what I do, but as long as it works....

Forgot picture. Perhaps next time if I remember.

Why organic vegetables rot and natural vegetables wither. - Book: "What apples taught me (ringo ga oshiete kureta koto)" by Akinori Kimura

We need more books like this in English too. How small apple farmer over years of experiments and observation finally finds a way to grow apple without pesticides or fertilizers (both chemical and organic).

Most important thing is to observe natural forest, but not any forest like Sugi forest is not suitable for vegetable cultivation, but deciduous broad leaf forest creates rich soil, and create the forest soil through natural process like growing weeds and beans.

What is most striking difference between organic and his natural farming is that his apples, vegetables or rice do not rot, but wither like how plants die back naturally and just dries up instead of melt into some black stinky slimy substance. His apple cut in half was left on top of refrigerator never rot, instead dried up.

What is causing the problem? Why organic vegetables rot while his natural vegetables wither or dry up or ferment. He points out that it is nitrate from unfinished high nitrogen compost and fertilizers are absorbed by plants. Especially manures used in compost affect in similar way.

He also goes on to say that vegetables or rice produced in conventional chemical based farming last longer than organic vegetables and rice in his rot test. It means organic cucumber rot before conventional cucumber.

Japan is a nation of small farmers and generally distributors demand that farmers use less fertilizers and pesticides or the distributors will not buy the vegetables from these farmers.

What does it mean to eat rotting vegetables? Vegetables in your stomach and intestine are rotting?

Anybody can do "rot test" easily at home. Get some organic spinach and conventional spinach and natural farming spinach (if you have access to it or if you can grow without fertilizer or compost) and stuff them into glass jars. Put plastic wrap on them and poke a few holes. Put them in sunny location. You might be surprised to see what happens.

木村秋則さんの本"リンゴが教えてくれたこと"

Tea study samples from Japan

I have obtained several unique teas from Japan when I was there in late July. Some sencha, some pan-fire green with various styles of processing and hand processing too. Some of which are not sold, only experimental varieties which I received in exchange
.
Most of these teas I already tasted at the farms that I visited, but I can look a little more closely to see their quality and processing style.

Great big iron wok

After so many years of searching for big thick iron wok for hand processing green tea, I finally found one in a rustic metal store in rural Japan, but I had no luck transporting it back to Hawaii. It measures about 1m diamter and 40cm deep. or pay big money.

The store owner said that the wok has been sitting there for over 50 years. Nowadays people like to use aluminum or stainless steel kinds since they don't need much maintenance like iron ones, but heat conductivity is totally different. They do not give the type of uniform high heat like iron one does.

I found bunch of small iron ones, smaller than 40cm diameter, that people would just give me, but too small. Maybe hobbyist might just like to make some tea with that although from my experience that small ones don't hold enough leaves and can't heat high enough to stop oxidation.

Mountain green tea grows in summer yet stays tender

I visited some mountain tea regions in Japan where air was hot in mid July. The heat is known to give great growth spur on tea, but also harden the tender leaf, thus summer harvest in Japan is generally considered to be less value.

I returned to Honokaa in early August noticing that all the misty rainy weather is keeping the air cool and demanding me to pull out long sleeve. Who would think you need to wear long sleeve shirt in summer in Hawaii? Pretty typical in our neighborhood.



Tea, on the other hand, enjoys this cool climate in summer and send out tender shoot even in summer. This makes me reconsider that summer harvest may actually be of good quality. Plenty of rain and occasional sunlight of Hawaiian mountain weather actually keeps it growing without too much hardening.

Constant breeze from the ocean is another thing that keeps our mountain slope nice and cool. Where mountain tea grows in Japan is typically up along a stream that keeps the area nice and cool, but I realized that it was actually not that cool, knowing that our summer is much more pleasant even with high humidity.

Mushrooms pop!

I see little mushrooms popping out of some logs. The log didn't have a label so I don't know which kind of mushroom it is, but most likely oyster or maitake. These are the kinds that I inoculated earlier.



I just hope that it is not wild poisonous mushrooms.

Shitake mushroom log cultivation in Japan

While visiting tea farms in the mountains of Kyushu in Japan, I also had a chance to observe traditional shitake cultivation. Mr Saeki who has been growing shitake for a long time showed me around his work site and where he rests his shitake logs. Although it was not time to do any work on shitake logs, it was nice to actually see it.



Old time they naturally inoculated with existing spores in the air and the forest, but he explained that it does not naturally happen anymore. What has changed?
They use mushroom plug spawn or dowels that is colonized by shitake mushroom mycelium similar to what we can get in the U.S. at various places.



Logs traditonally used for shitake cultivation in Japan is called "Kunugi" (櫟), a type of oak tree. There are a few other trees used too, but by far Kunugi is the most common one in the region.



He peeled a little piece of bark and showed me the mycelial colonization on the log. The log on the photo was 2 years after inoculation. Generally logs of this size, 5-6 in in diameter, is known to produce shitake for 4-5 years.

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Interested in growing your own mushrooms in a natural method on logs? Try getting some plugs from Fungi Perfecti - http://fungi.com/plugs/index.html