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How Does This Garden Grow? |
For the first time since its founding in 1990, the Common Heritage Corporation (CHC) will open its cooperative garden for public demonstration on October 25th at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai'i on the Big Island. The quarter-acre plot has yielded more than 100 varieties of fruits, vegetables, and herbs -- all having a surprisingly high sugar content and aroma. "All we do is bring deep ocean water to the surface," aid John Craven, CHC founder and president. "Nature does the rest."
The garden uses cold seawater pumped from an ocean depth of 2,000 feet and run through black plastic irrigation pipes embedded in the soil at root depth. As condensation occurs, the plants are watered. But far more is happening beneath this sun-baked, desert surface.
The temperature difference between the root and the fruit pumps nutrients into the plant, much like Mother Nature does in Spring or Fall. Exploiting the biophysical applications of cold, gardeners can induce and break dormancy in a plant at any time. This manipulation produces three or four harvest cycles in one year -- a veritable "Super Spring" 365 days a year.
In keeping with the Common Heritage Corporation's mission to establish self-sufficient, sustainable communities in coastal zones and islands having access to deep ocean water, the "cold-ag" cooperative garden is a first step.
The University of Hawai'I Sea Grant College Program provided "seed" money for CHC's initial test crop of strawberries and co-sponsored with CHC a 1992 conference on the use of low cost cold in tropical agriculture. A January 31st garden demonstration will be dedicated to Hawai'I State Senator Richard Matsuura, a champion of the "Blue-Green Revolution."
To find out more about the Common Heritage Corporation, check out its web site at http://www.aloha.com/~craven/.
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