Post #1

The Naked Cow Dairy is situated on the Waianae coast on the western part of O'ahu, Hawai'i. The area receives very little rainfall, approximately 12" per calendar year.

The dairy owners currently purchase feed from the mainland United States and ship it to O'ahu. This is not a very cost effective way to maintain a dairy farm.

When I heard about the farm's situation, I decided to assist the dairy, pro-bono to prove the Jennifer's Landscape Vitamins system could grow grass and feed for the cattle without much supplemental water.

After a month of visiting the site and starting to make a thermophilic in-situ compost pile out of local waste stream materials, it was time to start a small series of test plots to prove the massive expense of irrigating the land could be relatively optional.

My premise was to simply illustrate how to grow grass and feed quickly, using on-site materials in a test and then apply the test plot on a larger scale while reproducing the same type of results.

The first part of the test:

I visited a friend and local farmer to acquire two covered test flats and some wheat grass seed.

Using materials found at the Naked Cow Dairy, (soil, wood chips and green compost) I made a 3" layer inside each of the two test flats.

I also had a baseline 5 gallon pot with a suffering basil planted in finished compost that I had created on the North Shore which I planted about 6 seeds in to gauge the test flats' growth.

This pot remained uncovered.

I added a liquefied version of Jennifer's Landscape Vitamins to each of the two test flats and the 5 gallon pot. http://www.landscapevitamins.com/

The test was started at 10 am on Tuesday, July 27, 2010.

Each covered test plot received one quart of water and about 25 seeds.

The 5 gallon pot received about 6 seeds and no water.

One third of a quart of liquefied Jennifer's Landscape Vitamins (5 tsp per qt) was added to each of the three test plots in equal measure.

On Saturday, July 31, 2010 at 9 am I checked the growth of all three test plots.

In each location the seeds from Tuesday were germinating and had grown into 2" grass.

On Tuesday, August 2, 2010 at about 10 am, (at the one week mark), these pictures were taken.

It appears that the grass left uncovered has germinated and is growing better than the seeds in the test trays with covers.