Last April Off-Grid Jungle Garden Update: Food-Forest Wonders - GaiaYoga Gardens, Lower Puna, Far East Big Island, Hawai'i - Friday, April 28, 2023

Warm greetings fellow plant-and-garden lovers! 😁🙏💚✨🤙

I've mentioned many times in my posts that I live in a 16-acre, off-grid, clothing-optional, food-forest intentional community, deep in the jungles of Lower Puna, on the far East side of the Big Island, Hawai'i. I've also mentioned how challenging it is to decide what to include in these updates when most of the property has all sorts of edible and medicinal plants growing everywhere.

Today I decided to just walk around the property and photograph what caught my eye. I captured a wide range of images, of many kinds of plants - edibles, medicinals, and even some ornamentals (those classifications often overlap, and are definitely not mutually exclusive).

Any photos I include in these updates are only a small fraction of what is here. I do my best to do justice to the beauty and diversity, but honestly there is just so much! Even now, as I was uploading these images, I thought of other things I could have photographed! Oh well, those will be for future updates!

Come for a walk with me and I'll show you some of the wonders hiding in every nook and cranny of this verdant food forest! Some green friends I planted, others were here long before me. I've been here almost five years, so I've planted a lot, and I still am all the time! Shall we begin?

Please forgive the blurriness of these first two images. I think the lens on my phone's camera was a bit smudged, and I was naked, so I had nothing with which to clean it. Once I got to the other side of the property I found a piece of cloth to wipe the lens, which seem to have helped a good deal.

This is one the many jackfruit - Artocarpus heterophyllus trees that we have planted all over the property. Jackfruit are very well adapted here, and seed themselves prolifically, so seedlings come up all over the place! The fruit of this tree is the original source of the flavor in Juicy Fruit Gum. Their fruit can be huge, and often grow right out of the trunk!

Our many Rollinia - Annona mucosa trees are coming back into season again, with lots of fruit popping up all over. These guys are still green, but when they are ripe they turn yellow, and the soft spikes turn brown. Their taste is divine! This is another tree that is very well adapted here, and seeds itself freely.

Our many Lychee - Litchi chinensis trees are also beginning to produce abundant, delicious fruit. This one is growing right outside Tutu's, the main community building at GaiaYoga.

Also just outside Tutu's is this wonderful tree. It has many vernacular names in many languages. Here they call it popcorn berry, but its more commonly used English names are Jamaica cherry or strawberry tree, as the flowers quite resemble those of strawberry plants. Its botanical name is Muntingia calabura, and there are hundreds of studies on its various medicinal properties. It's challenging to propagate here, but I've done it successfully three times so far. I love this tree! The fruit are super yummy, with quite a unique flavor.

How could I pass up taking a photo of this beauty? This is a large vine of purple lilikoi/passionfruit - Passiflora edulis growing right outside the Landing, another community building where I spend a fair amount of time. The fruit of this particular clone have the perfect balance of sweet and tart. Truly glorious!

I don't know the variety of this tomato, but I shared a photo of its large, very juicy fruit in my last update, which had a few people drooling. As I mentioned then, it was a gift from a woman to whom I give sessions. It's one of the few large-fruited varieties of tomatoes that does well out here. Because of that, I took four cuttings of it today, and potted them up, so hopefully we'll have more of them soon!

Here are the four cuttings of our amazing tomato plant, after I watered them and found a place for them in my nursery.

i also thoroughly weeded this section here, and then covered it with mixed-wood mulch, in preparation to plant several of my many amazing Coleus varieties that I have in my nursery. I didn't get to planting them today, but all good, it will be for another update!

The flower spike of this dwarf banana variety nearly whacks you in the head as you go down the trail next to it!

The flowers of this red spiral ginger - Costus comosus are quite lovely, and the plants are very vigorous and pretty much take care of themselves. They grow all over the place!

This is a flower of another lilikoi/passionfruit, the Jamaican lilikoi/passionfruit - Passiflora laurifolia, which is a very vigorous vine that seeds itself quite prolifically! It's fruit are soft, fuzzy, and oblong, and turn yellow when ripe. They're quite yummy too! Forgive my dirty hand. I was working in the garden just before this!

Even many of our so-called weeds are beautiful, like this lovely white shrimp plant - Justicia betonica, that's growing along the second driveway, on the side of the property where I live.

Up on the lava at the Flow House (where I live), my variegated Cuban oregano - Coleus amboinicus 'Variegatus' is growing very well indeed! They're actually outgrowing the normal green form so far!

Another happy variegated Cuban oregano, beginning to spread across the lava and cinder.

This patch of Callisia repens is doing very well, and is beginning to spread out nicely! The Kalanchoe fedtschankoi next to it is putting out new growth too, just much more modestly.

The Aloe vera, Kalanchoe pinnata, and Callisia navicularis are all doing well, with the later two having grown quite a bit since the last update on them.

A closer view of the Callisia navicularis. It's looking much better now, and is beginning to spread quite a bit too!

The Kalanchoe pinnata have grown so much larger since the last update! They love it up here in the lava and cinder! This plant is apparently medicinal, though I don't have experience with it that way yet. Soon!

This young Cuban cilantro/culantro - Eryngium foetidum self seeded here, right next to a small patch of Callisia repens, and it already has a flower spike! I'd say it likes it here! I'd be happy to have it spread itself around the sides of the path here!

I just saw the gorgeous flowers of my blue turmeric - Curcuma aeruginosa as I was making my superfood fire coffee this morning. Like most turmeric, they lose their leaves in fall, remain leafless all winter, and then in spring they send up their sublime flower spikes before the new leaves appear. They are growing in a patch of betel vine -
Piper betle, with it's heart-shaped leaves which taste like peperoni.

A closer view of one of the flower spikes. Aren't they amazing?!?

This is a plant that those from the South-Eastern US will recognize, Spanish moss - Tillandsia usneoides. I don't have much of it yet, but it seems to like it out here! Another dirty hand!

Another super easy, beautiful, and medicinal plant that I plant everywhere, Chinese rain bells - Strobilanthes Hamiltoniana! This plant is seriously amazing!

One of the larger Brazilian cherry - Eugenia brasilensis trees is beginning to produce fruit again! They are so delcious!

A close-up of Brazilian cherries in my dirty garden hands. They taste very much like cherries, but they're jucier!

We even have a rose on the property, that's been here longer than I have, scrambling up in a neem tree. Its flowers get used in all sorts of things!

These are two Hibiscus varieties growing next to each other, near the Landing. I keep taking photos of their flowers, as they're so stunning, especially in sunlight!

There are hidden treasures that can be found everywhere on this property! This is a beautiful variety of Caladium bicolor, growing next to the Landing. There's a nice patch of wandering jew - Tradescantia zebrina growing next to it that I planted years ago.

And that my dear plant-and-garden-loving friends brings me to the end of my last Off-Grid Jungle Garden Update for April! I hope y'all enjoyed the walk-around! I have lots more to share in future updates! Until next time! Happy growing! 😁 🙏 💚 ✨ 🤙

All photos were taken with my Motorola G Power Android Phone.

Thank you all so much who have helped me get to where I am today, and allowing me to share more of the beauty and magic from my life and my world with you, and for your continuous appreciation and support! I am truly deeply grateful! 😁🙏💚✨🤙

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