News Article Featuring Hawaii Edible Landscaping & Sustainable Design ( Malama Aina Permaculture )
Big Island Weekly
BIG ISLAND GREEN
Don’t Mow!
Create an edible landscape….
By: Diane Koerner
Experts agree that adding a piece of produce to every meal can reap great health benefits for your family and your environment. Even more so when that fruit or vegetable comes from your very own yard.
Edible landscaping keeps the aesthetics of traditional landscaping, but uses food plants to create a yard that produces delicious yields, teaches Wade Bauer, a Landscaping & Sustainable Design consultant.
Even if you only have room for containers on your lanai or a 4-foot square garden bed in your yard, you can still pick a salad for lunch, grab some mint for a cup of tea, aloe for burns or insect bites, or a host of herbs to spice up your dinner, just steps from your kitchen.
For those with more room, you could enjoy picking your own bananas, papayas, citrus fruit, avocados, coconuts, ulu, cacao, as well as other less familiar yet delicious, easy-to-grow plants such as rollinia, sapote, cassava, plantains, chayote, edible hibiscus, Chinese yams and air potato.
There are many benefits to planting an edible landscape, says Bauer. Most importantly, you and your family will have access to the freshest, most nutritious and delicious organic food. Most produce loses its nutritive value quickly after being picked, is often picked before it’s ripe so it can survive shipping, and may be sprayed with chemicals. When you grow your own, you can ensure maximum nutrition by using organic methods and adding natural soil amendments for optimal nutritive value.
Malama aina, caring for the environment, is the second major benefit of edible landscaping. Imagine the fossil fuels wasted in shipping in our food supply from the mainland, where it was grown by large agribusiness using gas-guzzling tractors. Maintaining a lawn also takes its toll in energy use – both in the fossil fuels used by smelly lawn mowers and your own efforts that could be put to better use in gardening food plants.
“Eating locally is an easy and delicious way to cut out a huge amount of wasted energy and pollution,” said Bauer. “It’s hard to get more local than a few steps from your kitchen door.”
Economics, saving money and increasing property value, is the third major benefit cited by Bauer. Strategically†placed trees can provide shade, making houses and lanais much more comfortable and cool, reducing the need to use fans and air conditioners.
“Edible landscapes and gardens can pay for themselves in the fruits and vegetables they grow,” said Bauer. The return on your investment in planting an edible landscape could be reaped in just two or three years, depending on the plants chosen.
Edible landscaping also offers food security, a major worry when you live on an island that could easily be cut off from mainland supplies. “Having food already growing in your own backyard keeps you prepared for the worst and, in the meantime, you are enjoying the best of foods on your table,” said Bauer.
So think about it… do you really need all the lawn you have or is there room for edible plants? Bauer’s landscape designs still maintain small areas of lawn (often with certain plants that require less mowing) to provide play and lounging areas.
You can get started growing your own food very easily and†affordably, assures Bauer, by choosing the right plants and putting them in the right places. “Even a single fruit tree, or a small raised bed for salad greens makes a difference,” he says. “Start with something that you eat frequently and that has a fairly high price at the store.”
Because of the varied climates on the Big Island, asking your neighbors who have gardens, or other local experts, what†grows well where you live can save you time and effort.
In addition to private consulting, design and installation through his company, Hawaii Edible Landscaping & Sustainable Design, Wade Bauer teaches a class on Permaculture and Gardening on Thursdays at 9 am at Hawaiian Sanctuary at mm 12 on Highway 130, just south of Pahoa. One hour of classroom time is followed by two hours of hands-on application planting, harvesting and using the plants discussed. Past topics Bauer has covered include staple crops that thrive in Puna, high protein crops for the tropics, and perennial vegetables. For a limited time, the introductory tuition fee for each participant is only $10.†
For more info, call Bauer at 248-245-9484†or go to
Hawaii-Edible-Landscaping.weebly.com.
Photos:
1) Kitchen herb and perennial salad garden Kapoho Hawaii designed by Wade Bauer.2) Wade Bauer enjoying rollinia grown as part of an edible landcaping project.
Big Island Weekly
BIG ISLAND GREEN
Don’t Mow!
Create an edible landscape….
By: Diane Koerner
Experts agree that adding a piece of produce to every meal can reap great health benefits for your family and your environment. Even more so when that fruit or vegetable comes from your very own yard.
Edible landscaping keeps the aesthetics of traditional landscaping, but uses food plants to create a yard that produces delicious yields, teaches Wade Bauer, a Landscaping & Sustainable Design consultant.
Even if you only have room for containers on your lanai or a 4-foot square garden bed in your yard, you can still pick a salad for lunch, grab some mint for a cup of tea, aloe for burns or insect bites, or a host of herbs to spice up your dinner, just steps from your kitchen.
For those with more room, you could enjoy picking your own bananas, papayas, citrus fruit, avocados, coconuts, ulu, cacao, as well as other less familiar yet delicious, easy-to-grow plants such as rollinia, sapote, cassava, plantains, chayote, edible hibiscus, Chinese yams and air potato.
There are many benefits to planting an edible landscape, says Bauer. Most importantly, you and your family will have access to the freshest, most nutritious and delicious organic food. Most produce loses its nutritive value quickly after being picked, is often picked before it’s ripe so it can survive shipping, and may be sprayed with chemicals. When you grow your own, you can ensure maximum nutrition by using organic methods and adding natural soil amendments for optimal nutritive value.
Malama aina, caring for the environment, is the second major benefit of edible landscaping. Imagine the fossil fuels wasted in shipping in our food supply from the mainland, where it was grown by large agribusiness using gas-guzzling tractors. Maintaining a lawn also takes its toll in energy use – both in the fossil fuels used by smelly lawn mowers and your own efforts that could be put to better use in gardening food plants.
“Eating locally is an easy and delicious way to cut out a huge amount of wasted energy and pollution,” said Bauer. “It’s hard to get more local than a few steps from your kitchen door.”
Economics, saving money and increasing property value, is the third major benefit cited by Bauer. Strategically†placed trees can provide shade, making houses and lanais much more comfortable and cool, reducing the need to use fans and air conditioners.
“Edible landscapes and gardens can pay for themselves in the fruits and vegetables they grow,” said Bauer. The return on your investment in planting an edible landscape could be reaped in just two or three years, depending on the plants chosen.
Edible landscaping also offers food security, a major worry when you live on an island that could easily be cut off from mainland supplies. “Having food already growing in your own backyard keeps you prepared for the worst and, in the meantime, you are enjoying the best of foods on your table,” said Bauer.
So think about it… do you really need all the lawn you have or is there room for edible plants? Bauer’s landscape designs still maintain small areas of lawn (often with certain plants that require less mowing) to provide play and lounging areas.
You can get started growing your own food very easily and†affordably, assures Bauer, by choosing the right plants and putting them in the right places. “Even a single fruit tree, or a small raised bed for salad greens makes a difference,” he says. “Start with something that you eat frequently and that has a fairly high price at the store.”
Because of the varied climates on the Big Island, asking your neighbors who have gardens, or other local experts, what†grows well where you live can save you time and effort.
In addition to private consulting, design and installation through his company, Hawaii Edible Landscaping & Sustainable Design, Wade Bauer teaches a class on Permaculture and Gardening on Thursdays at 9 am at Hawaiian Sanctuary at mm 12 on Highway 130, just south of Pahoa. One hour of classroom time is followed by two hours of hands-on application planting, harvesting and using the plants discussed. Past topics Bauer has covered include staple crops that thrive in Puna, high protein crops for the tropics, and perennial vegetables. For a limited time, the introductory tuition fee for each participant is only $10.†
For more info, call Bauer at 248-245-9484†or go to
Hawaii-Edible-Landscaping.weebly.com.
Photos:
1) Kitchen herb and perennial salad garden Kapoho Hawaii designed by Wade Bauer.2) Wade Bauer enjoying rollinia grown as part of an edible landcaping project.