Farm Blog - Living on a Hawaiian Nature Tea Farm

Cover crops minimize top soil and OM loss from heavy rain

2011-12-22T23:34:00.002-10:00

Though I was aware of benefit of cover crops in fields, after so many days of heavy rain I instinctively felt the real benefit and cover crop use.

Our primary use of cover crops is to let the plants do the work. It's vague when we just talk about it. Of course we can list the benefit of using cover crops.
- protect top soil
- improve/maintain natural tilth
- hold water
- aerate soil
- break up compaction
- add OM
- add nitrogen (legumes)
- smother unwanted weeds, or at least control better
- attract beneficial insects
- stable habitat for pests and predators
- reduce disease occurrence
- buffer and harsh environmental impact

The list goes on and it could be more specific to each type of cover crop used.

In past several days I have realized that the benefits are much more than what's listed. Consider all the lost top soil, organic matter, soil structure, natural habitat. It's much harder to rebuild than to protect them. It takes many years to build rich soil. As long as cost of production, work, materials are cheaper, it's still viable option to do conventional farming with chemicals and big machinery, but this is all changing fast.

As I walk down by the rows of tea, soil is well-drained and soft directly benefiting from cover crop presence. Also top soil and OM are kept in place in the form of plant matter. Different niche of cover crops also gives different functions. Some bunch grasses hold better grip with thicker root mass, while crawling habit of certain legumes and grasses catch loose runoff sediments and OM.

Each year weather pattern is becoming more unpredictable and intensifying. It's very crucial time to develop ways to protect our valuable farm resources with minimal effort. The work itself is not so hard to do. The hardest part is taming our greed and ego.

What's next to eat local?

2011-05-23T23:59:00.000-10:00

My next question is "what's next?"
I remember talking to Richard from Honey company that we always have to stay ahead of the current movement like organic and local, and being able to see and do the trend before they arrive.

Because big companies can catch up and come up with their version of organic and local and green, and change the law and change the perception through media, small businesses and producers have to be able to really see ahead.

Often times these new trends are only authentic part of good business practices so if one can maintain their core belief about good business practice instead of swinging left and right to tune in with what's popular trend, I believe that they are automatically ahead of the trend.

People are saying small farms are good, and I wonder how big companies can make themselves look small entities. They already do by buying up small companies.

so dry

2011-05-23T23:57:00.000-10:00

It's been real dry these days. Exposed soil is feeling dry, but weeds never stop growing. There are areas with nice mulch and under the mulch there is nice moist ground. only if my mower wasn't broken, I would be mowing.

Spring green tea harvest finished in time

2011-03-25T01:05:00.000-10:00

Just finished our first flush green tea yesterday and started raining. What better timing there could be!

We just had our slow drying and roasting left to do. Most of our teas are just waiting for the final roasting.

so we did our quick sensory evaluation (品茶)

Most of the spring green harvest is fairly tippy although we emphasize more on aroma and flavor profile itself than shape of the leaf. Flavor is light, but more potent. The color of dry leaf is dark green to black, but infusion brings green color of green tea.

Liquor is light yellow, and extraction is moderate.

Aroma is fresh and green. I always had trouble describing green tea as grassy, but some people might confuse as flavored tea or oolong due to sharp aroma of kama-ka, which is a unique characteristics of Aoyagi style of pan-fired green tea.
Astringency is low to moderate. Some Japanese tea farmers described as clean astringency as opposed to residual astringency of low quality sencha.

Spring tea is particularly more difficult to process due to higher moisture content. Occasionally, I see some uneven heating (oxidation) and broken edges on some teas, but I process all our spring tea by hand to ensure good thorough heating and even drying.

In fact, machine can do a decent job and sometimes even more uniform and clean heating, but I noticed that machine processed tea doesn't retain the same premium green quality over extended period of time.

釜香　Pan-fire Aroma

2011-02-13T22:32:00.001-10:00

釜香は釜炒り茶がなんで香りのいいお茶になるのか、の香りの秘密。５年かかって、なんとか釜香がわかってきた。

日本の釜炒り茶は香りがなんとかいっても、煎茶みたいに味のお茶になっているとおもう。品評会も入賞するお茶は煎茶の入賞するお茶とすごく似てきて、うまみ中心のフレイバーが評価のベースになっている。

何年かまえに熊本の五家荘で今でも釜炒り茶をつくっている船本さんのところに行ってきた。手炒りのお茶を作っていて、釜香のヒントがでたとおもった。

釜炒り茶はこげが入ると、味が煙くなる。でも焦げるくらいの気持ちで炒らないと、釜香はでない。

わたしも何回も失敗して、こげと炒り足りない間のデリケートなバランスの釜香が、炒っているときにその香りがときどき鼻ににおいがする。　花の香り。ウーロン茶みたいな深い花の香りじゃなくて、さっぱりした花の香り。何の花か？　できたと思って、お茶にいれると釜香はなくなっている。　青い鋭い香りはでるけど、違う。

私もこの青いさっぱりの香りが釜香とおもったこともあったけど、自分で出せないから、釜香は釜炒りのこおばしい香りでいいのでもない。

こおばしいだけなら、ローストのレベルででる。釜香じゃない。

船本さんが言ってたことで、「釜炒り茶の本当の香りは、みる芽じゃ出ない。」
リーフがソフトすぎて、思い切った炒りに耐えられないんです。

ウーロン茶をみればよくわかる。ウーロン茶はみる芽で摘まない。香りが死ぬ。出開きが基本。そんな硬い葉だから、揉む機械も台湾式のものじゃないともみきれない。

「おいしいお茶がのみたい」の波多野公介さんも、お茶の香味は釜炒り茶が一番よく出るといっている。でも本当の釜炒りの香りがでているものはいくつも飲んでみたけど、ほとんどない。今の日本で釜炒り茶を飲む人も煎茶みたいな釜炒り茶を飲みたい人が増えてるから。それとも、地域の食べ物が日本どこでも、もっと同じようなスタンダードなものになっているから、お茶もそれにあったような煎茶風の釜炒り茶になっているからか。

日本の釜炒り茶が釜香がでないのは、品種がやぶきたがメインになってるのもあるとおもうけど、肥料つかいすぎもあるとおもう。肥料いれると、成長はいいけど、葉が薄くなる。葉が薄いのは煎茶とか、抹茶とかは有利でも、釜炒り茶の釜香にはよくないとおもう。

簡単に言うと、釜香はいつもこげの裏側にある味みたいなもの。おもいきりで焦げるくらいの気持ちで、どの釜炒りの製法にもこのこげが出ないようにする対策がある。一回の葉の量、回転のスピード、水分とか、あと一回でできる処理の量でも、ぜんぜん変わる。ステンレスか、鉄釜かでも違う。

あるときに中国の安徽省の緑茶をいくつかもらった。とくに太平猴魁と六安瓜片は釜香のことがよくわかる。太平猴魁は中国の大葉の緑茶の品種で、大きいものは１０cmくらいのものもあった。野生種、在来種は小さいものがおおい、でも香りはいい。六安瓜片の珍品の香りはおどろいた。最初はジャスミンのフレーバーのついたものかとおもったけど、袋をあけて何日かあとでほとんどなくなっていた。葉の端の焦げかたも、あるのはわかるけど、煙くさくない。

焦げるのが問題じゃなくて、焦げ方。焦げても、煙くささじゃなくて、釜香に変わる炒りかた。今年のTest Batchで完全に焦げしすぎたとおもっても、できてその日にテイスティングしたら、ぜんぜん煙くさくなくて、ジャスミンとオーキッドの香りがある。でも３日で消えてしまった。

有機も化学肥料もなしで３年して、うまみのくささがなくなってきて、香りが落ち着いてきた。虫の害もほとんどなくなった。

最近の私の作る手炒り緑茶はウーロン茶かと聞かれることがおおくなった。最近はあんまり手炒りもしないけど、毎年新茶すこしだけ「初心」をわすれないようにで、手炒りもする。

Flavored Green Tea

2011-02-13T20:36:00.000-10:00

We just made a test batch of interesting green tea. Perhaps it's the unique characteristics of our new select variety that resides well in sweet honey flavor. We just call it "Honey green", but it sounds rather confusing as if honey is added to the tea.

The tea itself is a little bit off from what I consider as final product. I wouldn't serve it like that. so I started blending, flavoring and roasting at various degrees.

Certain spices work well with this honey green, but from the name implies, honey seems to work the best.
I normally don't add extra flavor to tea unless the tea is intended to be flavored, even milk or sugar, but if the tea demands it and there is certain kind of harmony between the tea itself and the extra flavor, I think it is delightful and I would publicly embrace tea flavoring.

chocolate oolong tea

2011-02-03T20:07:00.000-10:00

This is one of my biggest challenge. chocolate typically doesn't go with tea very well, but wouldn't it be great if it did?
I've been testing special blend which might go well with chocolate. Chocolate goes much better with oolong than green, but just don't quite harmonize yet. Perhaps it's extra spice.
Hot chocolate oolong tea, untraditional mix with a bit of surprise. I'm almost there, ask me at farmers market, you may get to try it one of these days.
Taka

アヒ・ポケ丼 Ahi Poke Donburi

2011-01-31T01:30:00.000-10:00

Ahi Pokeとご飯の丼にアボカドをつけただけ。でも、すごくおいしくなる。

これに、唐辛子をかけると、ピリとしていい。

ラーメンにもアボカドをいれると、おいしい。

アボカドは意外なところでおもしろいです。

End of the year cleaning

2010-12-26T20:30:00.000-10:00

It was always the end of the year that we did cleaning where we normally don't get to. Things like windows, walls, under tatami mat, etc, and even where we normally clean, we paid extra attention to do deep cleaning.

Having learned from the last few years mistakes, we started cleaning early this year. Perhaps it just coincided with our construction project clean up and just kept going. Now we are about 2 weeks into deep cleaning. Basically we took everything out of our tea processing space and cleaned every corner of the space and even applied fresh coat of paint. Also, work shop space was re-organized with extra metal shelves.

Even all the extra cleaning effort, more craps keep coming out. It's just amazing to see how much crap piling we normally do.

Thanksgiving chicken

2010-11-25T22:40:00.000-10:00

We cooked one of our chickens instead of turkey tonight. It was small and tough because free range pasture raised chicken. It made my mouth a little tired to keep chewing, but I feel good about eating chicken that I know how it's raised.
I forgot the name of the dish, but chicken was lightly fried and then cooked in red wine.

Green tea for medicine

2010-10-16T00:41:00.001-10:00

I watched The Gerson Miracle. It also reminds me of MOA natural farming and healing, but also made me think about how green tea may not be benefiting us.

There are so many researches done on green tea revealing how it can be healthy. Antioxidants are talked about everywhere you go and people talking about how habitual drinking of tea can benefit our health. Test results and the numbers are convincing, but I just feel that there gotta be something other than or more than antioxidants that benefit our well being and ultimately cure us.

Why in the original text of Lu Yu's "cha jing" describes tea as a medicine, but we consume it as beverage that acts like medicine and even Eisai "kissa yojoki" he describes tea as the best medicine for the heart which in turn controls all organs.

In Gerson therapy, coffee is consumed for cleansing, perhaps if tea is prepared correctly, it will have immediate cleansing effect.

Freshness of green tea is directly influencing its effectiveness as antioxidants. More fresh than dried processed leaves are fresh leaves, which may need to be prepared in a certain way to keep the enzyme active while still consuming green tea's fresh active ingredients. Would that combination of these in the body possibly create different effect on our body instead of oxidizing to oolong tea?

Heating the leaf in processing inactivates the enzyme and supposed to make green tea, but can it actually be disabling the essential elements in green tea? I've had fresh green tea brewed in hot water, but this also cooks green tea and enzyme gone....

How about juicing the green tea and consuming it immediately to intake both enzymes and fresh juice? Any combination with other foods?

Learning from Eat Local Challenge

2010-10-06T23:40:00.000-10:00

It's unfortunate that eating local has to be a challenge. Foods coming from close to home seem more natural choice, but since we live in an age of processed food and transportation, it's cheaper to produce with cheap foreign ingredients and industrialized food system. Price tag is especially a determining factor in recession.

We ate lots of vegetables. Main source of starch was taro and sweet potatoes. surprisingly enough if we look hard enough there are plenty of local source of vegetables. Some are not organic and hard to tell if the farms are conventional style. We can't look up.

Sometimes farmers don't bother to change a few little details to be certified organic. As long as people know that I don't use any chemical fertilizers and pesticides and non-GMO, etc, then most people are fine with it. Basically organic but not strictly to the NOP rule. often times they have lots of details that NOP organic rules don't allow such as field design, compost prep, amendment sources and ingredients, animal use in the field, etc...
At least, what matters the most is visibly natural than industrial organic on paper.

I had our farm tea after every meal which gave me peace of mind however unsatisfying the meals were. Since we drink tea after every meal, it became the way to conclude our meal time. It somehow gives a moment of peace and satisfaction. I noticed that there were lingering unsatisfied feeling of not having rice and certain spices like black peppers and shoyu, but tea just removed all the discomforting feeling temporarily.

Vegetables were plentiful between local farmers and our own garden. Our garden was not very well maintained since we put more effort in tea field and getting ready for new baby being born, but still had 5-10 different kinds of vegetables and herbs ready for harvest.

Vegetables from garden.
Taro, Sweet Potatoes, Carrot, Turnip, Green Onion, Komatsuna, Mizuna, Okinawan Spinach, Edible hibiscus, kale, lettuce,
Herbs
Rosemary, thyme, basil, ginger, turmeric, oregano, chives, lemon grass, garlic chives, parsley, ....

there are more wild vegetables growing here and there in jungle style like Fukuoka seedball style. like mustard and daikon, kabocha are found occasionally.

Challenge
Real challenge of eating local was not eating processed foods and convenient foods. Like noodles, snacks, canned stuff, prepared meals, etc. We just had to spend more time in the kitchen which took 2-3 hours more time each day. Instead of eating cereal or oatmeal, or rice, we just had to cook full meal.

Perhaps it's also a challenge to not just eat local, but natural and home prepared foods may reveal something else. If I lived in Japan, where I come from all the things I normally consider healthy diet can be obtained locally and even my family grows rice and various vegetables there so it's not the matter of local=healthy. The equation changes completely.

Why do we have to insist on local food only? I remember my grandmother telling me that she could live longer when I offered her some exotic vegetable ingredients because she thought by eating more variety of things she is balancing her diet and not being monotonous.

Anyway, I felt a lot of "why do we have to do this eat local challenge?" while actually still doing local ingredients only and pretending to feel good about eating local. Since I have a difficulty believing eating local is genuinely for good cause. Other than bragging rights, is there much more to be

Eat local movement is good for securing local food source, and finding out how much local ingredients are available for consumption for casual shoppers (non-gardeners), but we shouldn't mistake for only Local=healthy. Moreover, developing healthy local food culture seems important to get us healthy and also to create healthy network of local supply of food ingredients and being ahead of corporate take over.

I might have complained about not having rice daily, but I wasn't going to quit. Everybody else was more than ready to quit. I think only a few spices and oil was the only things that wasn't local.

While my living off the land experiment for 2 months was more about securing available food of any kind like I start to think like starving wild animal in a forest, this eat local challenge seemed more about realizing what would happen if we didn't have what we have.

Eat Local Challenge Week

2010-09-29T21:31:00.000-10:00

Eating locally produced foods became green trend now. My wife is excited to cook and eat local foods for 1 week that involves me and my son and her mother too. Personally, I don't mind eating 100% locally as long as food is good.

so why should we eat locally produced foods anyway? beside to avoid cooporate industrial food culture, large scale chemical farming and global distribution and long distance trucking being great concern to us.

fresh and has better nutrients because the harvest is at the optimal stage.
less transportation, less fuel used
farmer's market and food stand require less packaging.
require less or no chemicals (fungicide etc) and irradiation to preserve for long distance shipping and even required by law sometimes.
garden can store food in the landscape. fresh herbs, perennial vegetables.
wild harvest (fish, mountain vegetables, game animals) are typically not available at stores
locally produced foods are better adapted for our food culture and environment we live in.
taste better
we know where the foods come from or at least easier to find the producer

My biggest problem is eating rice. Since I grew up in Japan and eating rice has been a big part of my food culture so I don't know how long I can last without obsessive craving.

I grew mochi rice last year, but seasonality is not distinct to produce full yield. If I only want to get rice as a backup option, this will suffice, but it doesn't change the core problem of why we should be eating local food. We have lots of taro to eat from our garden. perhaps 100lb still stored in the ground.

Taro harvest - Eat local challenge

2010-09-26T23:53:00.000-10:00

Eat Local Challenge start this Sunday. It was a good timing so we decide to harvest 2 rows of taro, perhaps 20lb or so. There are some big ones and small ones. They are all good cooked together in pressure cooker with peel on. Once they are cooked, they peel real easy. We harvest taro once or twice a month so not so much different from our ordinary routine of harvesting. Taro doesn't store very well, but they store well in the landscape.
Natural farming crops are supposed to store well in ordinary storage condition so maybe i'm not doing something right. Taro also contains much water, so likely to rot, but cold storage may improve. Typically my grandmother was storing her taro in cool, but not freezing condition to keep it alive and keep it from sprouting until spring. If I can get enough refrigerator space, it may store well.

Photos show our harvest of taro. Not too bad for using no fertilizer at all. Natural farming taro (or any other vegetables) are extremely efficient. This is one thing I notice throughout in natural farming crops. because they are not provided with luxurious load of fertilizers and amendment, they adapt their natural nutrient cycle and local environment. and the resulting plant proportion is small and symmetrical leaf shap, yet large corm in proportion. sometimes even surprises me with such small leaves with decent size corm.

Another way of looking at this is that taro carry no excess weight from overeating. One thing I noticed was that the taro had weak root system. Not very thick, I should say, not too thick since there was reasonable amount of root holding up the plant and perhaps enough to get the plants' nutrient functions going. Perhaps it's part of natural farming plant efficiency to use least amount of energy to produce the most.

In the end, taro doesn't need large leaves or too many leaves. If their leaves are small, they can be planted denser together and still have good per unit area yield. Perhaps I need a comparison study to test standard yield. I planted about 1-2 ft apart, but felt it was too far apart and letting too much light through.

She is supposed to be our tea farm intern, but harvesting and separating taro and huli for next planting. Taro is pretty simple to manage. I don't think we do anything more than plant, weed and harvest.

Why is it challenge to eat local? what's the core problem?

2010-09-25T00:47:00.000-10:00

Thinking about Eat Local week, I came across some things that caught my attention that eating local seems like it's much more than just foods coming from local source.

In many ways, we think it's hard to eat local. Typically it's more expensive to buy local foods, they are not available at stores and it takes more energy to prepare meals from local ingredients. Of course, it's easier to pop frozen pizza in the oven, or go eat out.

OK, so if we live in a rural farming community like Hamakua coast on the Big island, where we are, it's still hard to get everything local because we have to plan ahead. It's not very flexible. Yes, once a week to farmer's market trip requires more planning than going to grocery store when we feel like it or when you can find time between work and kids demanding your presence.

Yet, my greatest concern is that our imported food culture has forced the environment to adapt us instead of humans adapting the environment. Like Hawaii already had a local food culture completely self-sufficient until new comers brought their food culture and changed the local foodscape, which in turn we have to import all the ingredients on the recipe to make thanksgiving dinner and fast food hamburger lunch.

Yes, I brought rice culture and I know giving up rice is not easy when growing up with it for my whole life, but how much commitment should it take to live on the new land or is it just a resort?

For example, to make thanksgiving dinner in Hawaii we don't grow those irish potatoes for mushed potatoes but taro and sweet potatoes and most people don't eat much turkey, but pigs. and we don't grow wheat to make pie crust and cranberries for sauce.

Adaptation can be good so instead of making mushed potatoes, we can make poi (mushed taro) or even my favorite mushed ulu (or bread fruits). and make kalua pork (shredded pork) instead of turkey for thanksgiving dinner. and what do we use for pie crust? and is thanksgiving really a part of Hawaiian culture?

I know some Japanese immigrant neighbors who have been living here for a few generations brought their original culture, adapted and replace with local ingredients. Hapuu fern is a local tree fern that Hawaiians didn't eat, but Japanese immigrants found a way to make it palatable by boiling it for a long time and removing the bitter clingy taste. It's texture is almost like a pickled bamboo, it's crunchy and not much flavor. so they added a little flavoring to make it savory. I can understand why it appealed to Japanese immigrant, but not Hawaiians.

Other adaptation was bringing and growing some edible plant source. Avocados and bananas grow like weeds and produce much foods. Chayote is a squash that just takes over and give us many squash looking vegetable that can be pickled or cooked. also some beans are pretty wild and wildest guava makes good jam, but why are they not being sold at stores? Too much work and too little money to be made, perhaps. Even people don't harvest macadamia nuts because they don't earn much money anymore.

Anyway, we tend to look at large scale farms and gardens to produce typical kinds of vegetables, but we need to look at a bit further to find what local foods really mean. It's not just what we can grow locally with imported fertilizers and amendments and machinery and even labor...., then it's just a new type of branding. I noticed that some manufacturers claim because they make their products here with all the imported ingredients, suddenly it becomes local. It's a very gray area indeed. Is it local or is it not?

A village without war and peace from One-straw revolution

2010-09-16T00:26:00.002-10:00

Next week, September 21st, Tuesday is the International Day of Peace (peace day) so here's another peace topic.

Why is it so hard to keep peace in this world? If making peace or keeping peace is so easy, there wouldn't be major conflicts and wars being repeated in human history. Then, is it natural for humans to make war?

Perhaps what is perceived as natural to most humans is far deviated from the rest of the natural world so that what is natural to us is no longer true naturalness.

Peace is a relative state that is dependent on the state of war, thus the best way of making peace seems to be getting rid of the notion of peace, that is, getting rid of the duality and relativity of peace and war.

If we look at the world as competition or cooperation, we are still looking at the world through relativity. There will always be high and low, strong and week, winners and losers.

The following is an excerpt from "A Village Without War and Peace," a small chapter from "The one straw revolution" by Masanobu Fukuoka.

"The world itself never asks whether it is based upon a principle of competition or of cooperation. When seen from the relative perspective of the human intellect, there are those who are strong and there are those who are weak, there is large and there is small.
Now there is no one who doubts that this relative outlook exists, but if we were to suppose that the relativity of human perception is mistaken - for example, that there is no big and no small, no up or down - if we say there is no such standpoint at all, human values and judgment would collapse.
“Isn’t that way of seeing the world an empty flight of the imagination? In reality, there are large countries and small countries. If there is poverty and plenty, strong and weak, inevitably there will be disputes, and consequently, winners and losers. Couldn’t you say, rather, that these relative perceptions and the resulting emotions are human and therefore natural, that they are a unique privilege of being human?”
Other animals fight but do not make war. If you say that making war, which depends upon ideas of strong and weak, is humanity’s special “privilege,” then life is a farce. Not knowing this farce to be a farce there lies the human tragedy. "

"The ones who live peacefully in a world of no contradictions and no distinctions are infants. They perceive light and dark, strong and weak, but make no judgments. Even though the snake and the frog exist, the child has no understanding of strong and weak. The original joy of life is there, but the fear of death is yet to appear. The love and hate which arise in the adult’s eyes originally were not two separate things. They are the same thing as seen from the front and from the back. Love gives substance to hate. If you turn the coin of love
over, it becomes hate. Only by penetrating to an absolute world of no aspects, is it possible to avoid becoming lost in the duality of the phenomenal world.
People distinguish between Self and Other. To the extent that the ego exists, to the extent that there is an “other,” people will not be relieved from love and hatred. The heart that loves the wicked ego creates the hated enemy. For humans, the first and greatest enemy is the Self that they hold so dear.
People choose to attack or to defend. In the ensuing struggle they accuse one another of instigating conflict. It is like clapping your hands and then arguing about which is making the sound, the right hand or the
left. In all contentions there is neither right nor wrong, neither good nor bad. All conscious distinctions arise at the same time and all are mistaken."

Because we favor love, hatred is generated. Favoring one thing will inevitably create the opposite. How can we not see it this way? Are we too arrogant and mature to learn from infants? Because we are supposed to be teaching them? and we know better about the world?

It seems that who know how to run the world is only making the world less pleasant place to live. If we know what we are doing, why is the earth is only getting worse?

In Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching" (translated by Brian Browne Walker, 1995) relative existence of things also appear in chapter 2,

"When people find one thing beautiful, another consequently becomes ugly.
When one man is held up as good, another is judged deficient.

Similarly, being and nonbeing balance each other:
difficult and easy define each other;
high and low rest upon one another;
voice and song meld into harmony;
what is to come follows upon what has been.

The wise person acts without effort and teaches by quiet example.
He accepts things as they come,
creates without possessing,
noruishes without demanding,
accomplishes without taking credits.

Because he constantly forgets himself,
he is never forgotten."

Inner peace through tea

2010-09-09T06:18:00.018-10:00

Tea and peace are always connected together. Tea is a drink to calm and excite. Peace is ...what is peace? Peace gives great productivity and creativity to our mind. Peaceful time throughout history in many nations, people and culture proliferated. Peace gives people a creative outlet because there is less to worry about danger and possible control by instability of social conditions.

Tea is popularized by the practice of zen buddhism and mindfulness. Drinking tea was not only for its health benefit, but also to practice being mindful and to live the moment.

Zen Master Zhaozhou of Tung dinasty and "Chichaqu" are speaking:

Master Zhaozhou to inquires with Monk 1: Have you been here before?
Monk 1: No, I haven't
Master: Have some tea
Master Z to Monk 2: Have you been here before?
Monk 2: Yes, I have
Master: Have some tea.
Temple manager: Master, for one who has been here and for one who has not, you give the same answer, to drink tea. What is the reason?
Master to Temple manager: Have some tea!

Drinking tea is an act of being present. Rich, poor, young, old, man, woman, all these differences are out of context. We change our attitude toward who we are dealing with. In tea service, all our social and economical differences are disregarded and we treat everybody at the table fairly and equally.

Fishing with 2 year old

2010-09-08T00:07:00.000-10:00

We got much of the summer field maintenance done in the tea fields, thanks to all the helpers. so I took my son along and went fishing. He is 2 and 1/2 years old. He is obviously too young to fish by himself so he just stand by my side and watch. At least he knows how fishing is done. I'm talking about shore fishing. Set up gear, cast and reel. Pretty simple. He can't cast, so I cast, then he reels in, bit awkward, but since he's my son, he got a natural touch of fisherman. He thinks casting and reeling is fishing because we haven't caught any.

In Hawaii, Papio is a popular game fish. It's a small Ulua, once it reaches 10lb it's called Ulua. I spent much of youth fishing in Japan and my college years flyfishing in Sierra Nevada mountains and all over Northern California, catching many little ones and big ones so I know a bit about fishing, but just doing lure fishing with a little kid isn't as easy as one would think. Perhaps I will use a bait next time.

Damn Turkey!

2010-08-29T16:35:00.000-10:00

Lately, turkeys are coming to visit our tea fields every day. Not just visiting our farm, but I see them all the time, almost it appears that they decided to permanently squatting on our farm.

We recently put down fall / winter season cover crop after all the laborious maintenance, and as soon as the cover crops germinated, something is chowing on them.

For a long time, I thought it was some insect pests or cutworm. Over time we selected resilient cover crops and even ones that birds don't care so much. Also, they must establish well, and once established they recover easily and easy to manage.

Yes, we had it for the last few seasons, but somewhere along their path, they seem to have changed their diet and preference for foraging and behavior pattern. or maybe foods are scarce with economic recession and all. Perhaps they are just pulling them out to get to my nerves.

Whatever the reason is, it is really working to affect my mental calmness so I tried various things. Throw rocks, chase them down the hill, daily patrol, they seem to modify their daily activities so that they just go hide for a while and come back and continue their activities.

My neighbor came one time with a rifle and told me, "they are getting to my garden too. Go take this rifle and shoot them." It is a good opportunity to resolve the trouble, but I want no wasteful kill.

Perhaps we'll have an early thanksgiving party.

I had my fall beans and peas planted by the house, protected in a cage, and finally they crossed the line. I pretend to be calm on the surface, but screamed in my head, "I'll kill you damn birds, you'll be in a soup by the end of the day".

At the same time, calm and observant side of me tells me, "what would natural farming solution be?" Even though intense madness and frustration, I have to ask myself, what's the natural farming solution?

I went down to observe the pattern of their foraging. There is definite pattern of their travel and foraging behavior, and what do they actually eat from the seed mix that I use?

One most obvious thing was that they did not go in where weeds were tall on both side of the rows of cover crops. That's interesting. Personally, I get the same kind of feeling. When there is tall weeds growing, I would rather go around. Perhaps, weeds are acting as barrier. Perhaps it's a visual obstacles that discourage them to enter certain part of the field.

I remember the story of crows in Japan. Farmers suffered so much from crow damage and they came up with physical protection like putting a strong net over their crop, and metal sheet. All these protect them physically, but if they are not placed correctly, crows go around to get the tomatoes or peck through the net to get their fruits, or simply pull off the protective cover.

I had a small garden in Japan once and crows are known thief in vegetable gardens. Always hanging out up above. As soon as people leave, they come down to get what they want. They got all the time in the world to do what they do. Highest priority in their life is to get foods and go rest.

One farmer's observation gave me a big clue. He didn't call himself a natural farmer, but patiently and carefully observing crows' behavior revealed much things. "Crows don't like to get into bushes or weedy patches where they cannot see their surroundings. This is exactly opposite of how people want to maintain their farm and garden. Tall weeds makes our work more tedious and hard to find some crops. We are also at risk of getting snake bite, ticks, even some large animals, but this is exactly what the birds didn't like either.

Going back to turkey story, I noticed from a little weed patch that blocks the entry of these birds into now prolific cover crop germinants. This is only my observation and the clue should be giving me how to improve the situation.

Nature is self-sustaining

2010-07-02T06:15:00.001-10:00

When we talk about sustainability, we are too bound by our perception of sustainable and natural. Many people choose hybrid or electric car over gas, or local foods over imported foods, but are they really sustainable.

I have seen many farmers talking about local organically grown vegetables seeming more sustainable while using lots imported soil amendments, minerals, fertilizers, machines, tools, petroleum products and fuel. If things are grown at right place, right time, it takes lot less energy and materials to grow.

I am not saying that we do perfectly sustainable farming. We use a tractor and fuel too. I just want to say that instead of using our perception to achieve what it feels like sustainable or politically agreeable term of sustainability like whether to use plastic or not, or put a solar panel up. we should be learning from natural world since nature is self-sustainable.. Perhaps instead of putting one extra solar panel to light another room, we can use natural light to illuminate the room.

Yes, nature is truly self-sustainable. If we human are all erased from the surface of the earth, nature will go on with its own business bring the lost balance to stability. As long as what we do is in harmony with nature's course, she can maintain herself and benefit us at the same time.

Dry soil effect - 乾土効果

2010-07-01T23:15:00.001-10:00

"Nature has so many things that she is trying to reveal, but we just don't know how to look at them..." I don't remember where I heard this, but every time I am out observing natural environment and can't figure out what is going on, it pops up in my head.

Dry soil - first thing that comes to most minds are when soil goes dry, you have to irrigate. Dry soil is generally considered not productive in farming. It's true in common organic and conventional farming practice, but natural farming takes it quite differently

In natural farming dry soil is natural consequence of seasonal changes. There are wet season and dry season. There are many plants naturally adapt the changes, but our vegetables and flowers cannot adapt this!? Isn't there something wrong with us?

I found this dry soil effect as part of fertilizer poisoning. There was a seed germination experiment of brassica with moisture and fertilizer application and concentration of N level.

A1 - control No N fertlizer Moisure low Germination success - high	A2 N fertilizer applied Moisture low Germination success - Low
B1 No N fertilizer Moisture high Germination success - Mid	B2 N fertilizer applied Moisture high Germination success - high

A1 is no fertilizer applied and moisture is kept moist but low, just enough for the seeds to germinate. This is similar to natural farming condition.

What's so great about this experiment is A2 and B2 tell us when N fertilizer is applied or high concentration of N is present in the soil, germination is greatly affected by moisture level. This is also sometimes referred to as fertilizer burn or nitrogen burn.

Nitrogen and Moisture

Since nitrogen is highly soluble in water, concentration of nitrogen is highly affected by moisture level. This is why in fertilizer based farming both chemical based and organic requires irrigation in dry period. While natural farming actually improves growth when soil start to dry.

I have repeatedly experienced that plant growth suddenly improves when the soil start to dry when there is no fertilizer applied. Occasionally, there is residual fertilizer effect, but in natural farming when fertilizer is entirely cleaned out of the soil, it is said that the soil naturally create what is needed for plant growth.

Some researchers in Japan showed that available soil nutrient is generally not enough for plants to grow, but natural farming vegetables grow with such vigor that it is often confused with fertilizer effect.

Soil is much more than what nutrients are available to grow plants, but there are lots of microbial activities as well as yet unknown phenomena. First thing I notice when fertilizer is removed from soil is that certain types of microorganisms like mushrooms become more dominant. Not all kinds of mushrooms, but typically mushrooms are the ones that rely on carbon or lignin as source of foods. In natural world, there is nothing that applies so much fertilizer like we human do. Most cases here and there with bird droppings and so on, and most plants takes out nitrogen before they die in form of seeds or spores, and dispersed.

I noticed our native Hawaiian Ohia trees and grasses continuously dropping leaves to create constant cycling. Typically grasses and leaves that fall on the ground are hard, brown, and high carbon materials. Natural environment keeps high carbon environment. They naturally cumulate carbon. Soil builds more carbon and humus. Fertilizer burns carbon out of soil. If we work with nature, carbon is a part of solution and shouldn't be a problem.

Many things in nature are great at dispersing potentially harmful concentration effect. Pest and disease are part of this natural mechanisms of dispersion. We should be grateful that they are telling us that those vegetables that attract pests and disease have problems.

What I want to say is that dry soil shouldn't be a problem, but is a way for us to see how nature deals with seasonal changes and correct our behavior to respect and work with nature. Working with nature requires least work and most sustainable way of farming since nature is self-sustaining.

"Nature has so many things that she is trying to reveal, but we just don't know how to look at them..."
We just have to shed biases and look through pure minds.

Controlling weeds or being controlled by weeds

2010-06-25T05:54:00.000-10:00

Summer is here. Weeds are growing so fast along with cover crop and tea. In some area certain kinds of cover crops are growing more vigorously than common weeds so that they suppress weeds quite effectively. At the same time tea plants getting shaded by 6-7 foot tall grass. I wonder which is better, cutting back weeds or cover crop. At least the difference is more obvious in the soil.

This is another cover crop post. It may be obvious that I spend so much time studying cover crops.

Being controlled by weeds
A lot of times we go out to the field and do some weeding, we are controlled by weeds. We have to go out there and remove weeds. This obsessive thinking of getting rid of weeds create rather polarized view toward the nature. Nature does not judge what good weeds are and what bad weeds are. They grow where they are supposed to. They grow where they are called for. Each type of weeds has their own intention and purposes. Dandelion grow in disturbed open field and hard packed ground because they can stabilize the disturbed condition.

Controlling weeds
You want to be in this position when it comes to weed control. Since it's farming, we still have to get the result and get harvest in one way or another. In natural farming we have to remember that plants build soil since there is no fertilizer applied. The best way is to select the desired plants for the current soil condition. or we can also mix various types of cover crops, vegetables and weeds then they find where they belong and create beautiful landscape based on where they are most needed. This idea somewhat harmonizes very well with Mr. Masanobu Fukuoka's seedball technique.

Mr Fukuoka describes that we just have to know that we don't know anything and nature has her own way of doing things and we just need to assist the great cause.

Plants decide where they should grow, that's why seedballs make perfect sense

2010-06-23T22:45:00.002-10:00

All the cover crops are big and some are taller than myself. I went to care for tea plants that are totally buried in cover crop jungle. I cut back some 7ft tall cover crop grass and uncover tea plants. While I was doing this, I realized that certain cover crop plant grow only in certain places.

Whether it's soil condition or shading or moisture condition, some plants just don't do well while some other ones grow prolific. For example, grasses grow in rich soil much better than legumes or vetch and clover type. Then I also realized that when I planted cover crop there was some rich soil and some poor soil. Parts of the field where some trees dropping their leaves were naturally richer in soil condition and it made total difference in how cover crops grew.

Typically richer soil favored grasses and even legumes germinate, they tend to get overgrown by grasses while poor soil favored legumes and grasses stay small and look stunted. The same thing happened throughout our fields.

Mr. Fukuoka describes in his book that his trial to find good cover crop was long journey, tried so many and learned from trial and error. He finally reached conclusion that seedballs as a mix of various types of seeds are the best way to build soil naturally. They find when to germinate and where to grow.

We have tried so many different types of cover crops from commercial high yield cover crop to vegetables to neighborhood noxious weeds. Over time I realized that our approach in establishing cover crop system was more and more similar to seedball style. In natural farming we just need to know that we don't know what nature does. We can provide options and nature will pick which one to use.

There goes mushroom, soil health and cleanliness

2010-05-10T03:20:00.000-10:00

There goes mushrooms.

There is precise timing of mushrooms appearing in the field, which we replicated in the jar. What really build soil? This is a century old convention and tradition many farmers and gardeners claim that adding dark compost and lots of bugs in it, but is this really the best we can do? A lot of times we neglect to look at the signs. Signs are on the crop and in the soil. If we look at the plants and notice any disease or insect pests, there is apparently something happening. What do we do? spray pesticides or pick by hands, they are both the same. If a gardener continue to pick by hand just to say her vegetable is organic, it is probably worse. You are still looking at the superficial label only. You gotta fix the cause. When the pests appear, it is only the consequence of what she does. It's all what's in the soil.

So look at the soil. What's the sign in the soil. You hear that soil is full of diverse community of microorganisms. Billions of them in a handful of soil, but which ones? Most of them are harmless, but when we farm or garden, why are we adding more harmful ones to the soil? What kind of farming practice is that so that we have to keep moving to new patch to get the clean condition again, often called crop rotation.

Well, the biggest sign in the soil is earthworms. Somehow gardeners worship earthworms and falsely came to believe that earthworms are the sign of health. It's the opposite. They are the sign of your soil rotting and they are there to clean the soil.

When the soil becomes clean, you barely find any earthworms and most pest problems go away too. It's not mystery and I'm not making this up either. There are many natural farmers who already do this with amazing result.

Look at the crop. When you find your lettuce or spinach or peppers or cucumbers melting and turning into slim, this is a sign. The crop is not healthy. They are taking up the rot in the soil and the plant itself is rotting. And the most scary thing is when we eat it, we are rotting ourselves too. Then we get sick.

While most farmers try to maximize yeild by giving fertilizers and killing with pesticides, soil health and crop quality should really be measured by not just available nutrient level and yield, but health of people who consume the crops and cleanliness of the soil itself.

Growing mushroom - indoor culture to outdoor

2010-04-25T06:42:00.000-10:00

I have been trying to establish an outdoor mushroom culture directly in the ground, but not very successful so instead I started indoor culture and naturalize the outdoor patch from that.

Here is some jar culture of Pleurotus ostreatus. This is an easy mushroom to grow. In fact, this batch got contaminated with green mold, but miraculously recovered and mycelium completely dominated the substrate afterword.

This gives me a clue about contamination and succession of mushroom mycelium. Natural environment is more complex array of microorganisms and potentially contaminating ones, but as long as the growing condition shifts to what's more desired by mushrooms, then the previous contaminant organisms just give their place to succeeding mushroom.

In this case, easy sugar and starch got consumed by green mold and some bacteria, but once they are consumed, it no longer needed to be there and mushroom that can decompose more complex fiber and lignin was called for.

This condition also applies to gardens and farm fields. If we can keep the field clean or get the field cleaned by some organisms, then beneficial fungi can start growing, which in turn create nutrient cycle without fertilizers and potentially harmful side effect like pest and disease problems.

Often times, where I find mushrooms growing in tea fields and vegetable fields is barely disturbed by pests and diseases. The soil drainage is so good that right after heavy rain, it already feels dry to touch. Also, it keeps the soil dry in moist environment and keeps certain pest problems like mildew and fungal infection minimal. Though I haven't grown any tomatoes or cucumbers in recent years, I can't tell if this works as good as it should, since I don't mind not having tomatoes and cucumbers in my diet much, but we got some seedlings of cucumbers this year so we'll see how it goes.