Salad Garden Update Everything is almost ready!

Hello Bloggers,

I am back with a garden update. I have had some interesting battles over the last month and a half with whiteflies and to no avail with the treatments I have tried. I lost most of my big boy hybrid tomatoes and have had all the peppers stunted also. The pepper sprays and cleaning leaves daily is not effective enough. I am about to harvest my lettuce for the salad and could do it now but waiting on the second round of tomatoes from early girls to finish up and maybe a few okra will be ready as well. My cilatro has been growing like a weed, but choreander not so much. The carrots have finally taken off but are very small and from seed is a longer process to harvest so probably will not have carrots for a months or so. The hawaiian gourd plant is getting big and doing well. Sweet potatoe is going crazy its taking over but is going to be a great harvest for this plant. Parsley is starting to wilt but still big and watermelleons are just starting to fruit. the garden oberall was successful so far and I only lost cucumber,big boy tomatoes, and most of the carrots. I have gotten more seeds so wil be adding to the garden soon several sqaush types, eggplant, peppers and cantelope. Thanks for reading Jon M Ellison

KanuHawaii Extra Credit post

Hello bloggers,

Its Jon here and wanted to tell everyone about this website and its positive impacts for communities in Hawaii. heres the link http://www.kanuhawaii.org/

The site is nice and well put together and has a wealth of info on Hawaii and sustainability. One thing that caught my eye when looking through the links and content was the campaign tab with all there current and past campaign's to make Hawaii more sustainable and green. The eat local challenge was cool and is simular to the planet green channels' tv show called 100miles. The idea here is to eat only things from local producers of vegetables, meats, and products. I have been slowly trying to do this entirely for a month to see if I could but am haviung trouble finding all the outlets for island produced local kine grinds to buy. I have only bought maui beef, maui grown veggies, and reduced my frozen food intake which have huge carbon loads getting them here. I have not turned on my oven in seriously 3 months and has made a huge difference in costs, carbon footprint, and health for my family. I would like to eventually make it completely Hawaii produced goods once I have all the places selling, seasons things are available, and with a cost effective manor and my personal garden going with more of a variety then my current salad garden going now. With these processes in line I will break free from the jet fuel for food situation we all have if we eat something not from Hawaii. I like the website hasd so many other ideas and cool stuff I would have never thought of thats easy to do and woudl truly help us all like carpooling and how much is saves annually or maybe to just get your voice heard and how to get yourself and your green messages out through local and state gov. agency and these are just a taste of whats going on inside their site so check it out! good stuff and even if you do not live in Hawaii the info is good for anyone world wide so cheak it out and see what Hawaii is doing to save the PLANET! Go Green Hawaii
Aloha for Reading Jon M Ellison

Jon Ellison: Contribution Green Power Science

Hello bloggers

I want to tell eveyone about a cool youtube channel I subscribe to that has a wealth of cool green stuff to build and use. heres the link--> http://www.youtube.com/user/GREENPOWERSCIENCE



This video is a cool ideafor a suntracker for your solar panels DIY style to save money and resources getting one made and shipped in to Hawaii.It can be made from old car parts for free in a little time. He has so many cool videos I have watched them all and will be trying some of his ideas soon. I recently got an old satalite dish I will make into a parabolic mirror to mess with free hot water ideas and maybe a solar cooker for food! heres the solar dish video.



Well just wanted to share this with you guys since these projects are green and really cool to do for free or very inexpensive to reduce.

APA- Site Author Dan Roughhaus and has a website also www.greenpowerscience.com he has had this channel may 27, 2007 and has 17,000+ subscribers to his youtube channel.

Communication, Media, and Social Change

Hello Bloggers,

My post today will talk about the links off the module in this post. The first link was http://broweryouthawards.org/ a website about young people trying to make a positive change around the world with New Leaders Initiative supported by Earth Island Institute a global organization for making change for tomorrow. This site was nicely done and had lots of stuff and interviews with young people around the world doing their part to make our World a better place. I thought Robin Bryan and his mission to save boreal rainforest was amazing and impressive how much he has done. He has saved over 1 million acres from industrial logging which is amazing at the age of 21. I next looked at http://mediastudy.com/media.html which was a kind of plain website that had some interesting stuff about media and eye opening stuff about television programming and its effects on people. I read about the society of TV eradication and they said an hour of violent TV watched can cause violent behavior in its viewer a very disturbing and interesting study. The GO video was cool and had a lot of questions about GMO that they answered and talked about I feel really bad that GMO's could and have already begun to destroy the purity of seed stocks of certain plant species and that they threaten to contaminate the rest of natural genetics out in the wild from stray pollens.

~Sacred Demise *Extra Credit*

The interview with the author Carol Baker of her book Sacred Demise has been a eye opening interview for sure. The lady talks about our collapse of indutrialism supported society and an economic change for supplies globally. she said she thought it began july of 2008 and now its going to become more exspensive and less available for world resources. The perspective is a little excessive to me personally although I do agree with alot of what she says. I do not think we will become starved and collapsed civilization but rather transform our consumptions perspective and norms to accomidate these resource availability changes. Ideally we would need to figure out transportation first because each person who fly's produces 2.5 tons of carbon each way, making Hawaii the most non-green economic engine driven state probably in the US. We can and will change our ways to acert earth's systems to preserve ourselves. The world is a global village and we have to make changes to make our world survivable for humanity to grow. She talks about the denial in modern peoples society of America today with the perspective of a global system collapse. I think that this is probably the most important issue she covers and is a very interesting question to ask ourselves. What would happen to the people in cities and urban areas if we did have a serious supply reduction in resources? People in these settings are not as able to become sustainable where they live. I like the video overall after viewing the interview. I have lived in inner cities and rural areas throughout my childhood giving me a insight to both sides of life in America and will say I see the people in cities being in real trouble if this scenario ever did unfold for America. I like how she talks about taking responsibility for these outcomes from her generation. I feel she was pretty humble for admitting wrong for her generation and the story about her saying sorry to a young person for be apart of what has been done to our world. She says to them you may not realize now but later you will for sure and that she was sorry was really humbling and made me feel for her. I was shocked she admitted that her generation created alot of todays problems. I would recomend this video to watch and take in for your own choice. If you would like to watch it here's the video below from youtube enjoy and thanks for reading my post.

Aloha Jon M Ellison

Social and Environmental Justice in Hawaii

Hello Bloggers

I looked at the video links posted the other Hawaii and the video about Kahoolawe. The first video was so sad about the homeless and misplaced people of a sovereign nation. The video talks about the people who were homeless and have issues with western society perspectives. The video shows some of the homeless from Maui across from our harbor here in Kahului. The good update to that film is that there are no more homeless people there because the state helped them relocate into shelters, homes and apartments. The Maui news said only 2 of the 80+ people relocated from the harbor jetty refused help and remain homeless. The video talks about the problem with real estate prices being higher by five times the national average. The clip talks about tent city on Oahu which is apparently real bad and they interview some people living there. The people talked about the forcing of Hawaiians from all beaches systematically due to law changes and perspectives of these people and their way of life. The historical info was cool and had pictures of the annexation and talked about the overthrow and how Hawaii became a state mentioning the apology bill recently created from this.

I feel that Hawaii was unfairly changed and now had irreparable damage from this and is all from greed and consumption and resource. Until we as a society see that our lands and plants and animals among us are we truly have and when they are gone we will surely go after. I saw one of my professors from MCC Kalei and he talked about the military presence and affects briefly. That man does a talk about the affects and problems the military have and still cause for Hawaii in his class that's insane and shocking. He knows more than most if not anyone else non military about their presence and affects on the Hawaiian Islands. He is very knowledgeable and if you can check out a class from him.

I agree with the film that things need to change to better the people and create understanding between different minds so we can all live and be ourselves safely and comfortably. The link about Kahoolawe was good also and talked about the military impacts and history of the island. The impacts on the island after it were returned from the military. The clean-up effort being done and anti-erosion tactics to try and restore the biota to a healthier state are ongoing a expensive not to mention dangerous. This is a typical retard maneuver by our government back when people knew nothing and based their actions of a finite amount of knowledge. The army has always acted before they think properly about most things hence the national budget is 51% for the Military. I am glad we are still free in the USA but I feel we could have probably done it without ruining atolls and islands along the way. I would bet on it if we could go back and try again. The links were good and got me in touch with some serious issues right here in our own backyard not some far away city or plant that's needs help, but ourselves right here in Hawaii.

I hope we all help and heal this great place for our future generations to experience and learn from to be conscious and aware of our affects and change to influence everyone to be green and healthy for a better life for us all.

Thanks for reading my post Jon M Ellison

Sustainability and Education

I read the links and info for this section and learned a lot. I was interested in the website Children and Nature network. This site was cool and made well. I looked through the links and stuff in their website and learned about all the different social programs they are a part of to reconnect children with nature. The project for urban children and gardening what they called a learning garden that's interesting to read about it and its positive effects on the communities that participate. They are partnered up with the National Parks and do lots of activities. The video on their home page was interesting and talked about the education program within the Rocky Mt. National Parks and why it's important to preserve these things for future generations. I have personally been to that park and loved the visit and experience I had there. The park apparently has a worry that the future generations may not accept stewardship and could cause us to lose it forever. The junior ranger program is too cool right? I wish I could have done that when I was a kid. The internship programs are something that's great and they talk about the program and interview a girl getting her PHD from a fellowship and internship at the park. That would be so cool to go to a national park and get a grade for it. The girl was apparently a junior ranger when she was eight so the program does have a lasting positive affect through these social programs and learning opportunities. I have been inspired by this video and will definitely donate to the box next time I take my children to the national park here on Maui. We have a responsibility to ourselves to take care of our creator mother nature.

I also clicked through Dragons Eye and this was a great site and I wish it was on Maui for my kids because I would sign them up, but we do not have that here. The place is a great idea and really has a focus in the right direction for the future. They teach everything green it seems like. They talk about events, talks, and programs from solar power to microorganisms in the soil. The fact that it's a facility that truly is sustainable and off the grid making a great practice what you preach example for showing young people it can be done and is actually better for you and everyone around you. They are a working agriculture business that I found very interesting and how its can be a teaching tool as well as a means of sustaining the facility itself financially. I like this place and wish I knew about it when I live on Hawaii, but this inspires me to encourage a similar place to develop on Maui for a green learning outlet for kids that's not a expensive option like Waldorf. The club is great and seems to have a lot of community service related activities like their Earth day booth, or the service learning projects. The site is good and has lots of cool links and videos and would recommend anyone to check it out and get involved if you live on the island of Hawaii.

Greencollartech.com was the last site I will talk about in this post this is an ok site. I did not like the navigation style but did like the snapshot features to preview a links page before clicking it. The site has some information but not as much as I would have liked to read about. They have a green jobs section I clicked in hopes of seeing a job listing but there were none. There was a link that I read about the sustainable future for Honokaa NHERC. This looks like a cool class to take for a few days to learn more about sustainability in your area not just in general. After learning more about sustainability I have realized that what's good for one man is not necessarily good for another! The sun exposure times, wind speed averages, soil conditions, native plants and so on all affect ones' ability to create or maintain sustainable practices in some ways or another. The ability to learn from a professional perspective about your specific area is so lucky for the people of Honokaa. I have read about people having to pay money for assessments and studies to see more about a specific area, its opportunities and pitfalls, for resource availability. The website has a blog also I click through it and read some of the announcements and posts had some interesting stuff but mostly related to Hawaii so was nit as interested in all the content I reviewed but very informative posts definitely. The internship link was cool I like it but could not take it from Maui so was cool to read what you do and what's expected and looks like a good internship.

Thanks for reading my post Jon M Ellison

Gardening (Salad) Update

Hello Bloggers,

I have another garden update today. The early girl hybrids are about done fruiting with a pretty good harvest from start to finish I got about 12 tomatoes per plant and had 3 plants total.

The plants are being eaten by whiteflies and have taken ACTION! I am using some Hawaiian Chile peppers and water to spray the underside of the leaves and it seems to be working so far but they are getting pretty bad. The plant that seems to be fueling them is my purple sweet potato plant (Uala). Hopefully it will work, and will post update later on. The Okra is getting bigger and strawberries are running all over.

The Cilantro is growing well, but the Coriander is growing but does not seem to be getting bigger as quick as the other plants. I have also noticed there are aphids and the ants seem to be milking them because they protect them when I try to spray them. I wish the ants would eat them but no such luck. The big boy hybrids are doing well, but have been a little wilted on their tops and eaten on the bottom branches. I recently got my gourd seed to germinate and is doing great. The lettuce is finally taking off fancy green romaine is getting bushy and the fancy red leaf is also doing well, but the potted plants are still small and the plants recently put into the ground are still recovering from root shock and have had little growth since transplant. Watermelon vine is running like crazy and have a few blooms. I got advice from local farmer to cover the melons in panty hose to keep them from being stung by a wasp we have here.

The pepper plants that are still a mistery to what variety they are are starting to bloom on 3 of the 4 plants and have whitefly problem but pepper solution is working wel for these little guys.

The garden overall is doing well and I have only had problems with carrots sprouting due to old seeds resulting in only three carrots and whiteflies. Thanks for eading my update and go garden

Aloha Jon M Ellison