Regional guide
Hawaii Elevation Home Garden Guide
UH Bulletin 91 elevation-aware Hawaii guide for archival crop-adaptability signals, site constraints, and low, middle, and high elevation planning.
Climate signals
- Home Gardening in Hawaii is Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin Number 91 by W. A. Frazier, published in April, 1943.
- Treat this as an archival crop-adaptability source, not current pesticide or fertilizer guidance.
- The bulletin says Hawaii has temperature and rainfall variations between different localities and between summer and winter.
- Table 1 shows preferred months for planting vegetable crops within three arbitrary elevation ranges: low elevations at 0-1,000 feet, medium elevations at 1,000-2,000 feet, and high elevations at 2,000-3,500 feet.
- Table 1 notes that, except for highest areas where frost occurs, all vegetable crops will make an effort to grow; the important question is desirability of growth and the care required to make the plant perform satisfactorily.
Planning notes
- At medium to low elevations, the bulletin names carrots, beets, chard, mustards, eggplant, green onions, and all kinds of beans as fairly desirable year-round performers.
- At high elevations, the bulletin names cabbage, broccoli, and lettuce, in addition to carrot, beet, chard, and green onion, as good year-round crops.
- Broccoli and the cabbages are excellent garden crops at low elevations during winter, and at high elevations they thrive the year around.
- Tomatoes grown at low elevations do best during cool seasons, while okra and New Zealand spinach are named as good warm-season crops.
- The crop-classification section lists radishes, lettuce, and bush green beans as rapid-maturing crops.
- For garden siting, the bulletin emphasizes windbreak protection, well-drained soil, and keeping gardens away from appreciable shade, while noting leafy crops such as lettuce, chard, spinach, and Chinese cabbage can use partial shade.
- Use these priority catalog links as crop-level examples, not UH cultivar recommendations.
Catalog crop examples
These catalog entries match crops covered by the regional timing source; variety-specific details remain tied to each seed entry's own source.
- Provider Bush Bean Vegetable · Warm · 50 days
- Detroit Dark Red Beet Vegetable · Cool · 58 days
- Waltham 29 Broccoli Vegetable · Cool · 74 days
- Golden Acre Cabbage Vegetable · Cool · 64 days
- Danvers 126 Carrot Vegetable · Shoulder · 70 days
- Bright Lights Swiss Chard Vegetable · Shoulder · 55 days
- Black Beauty Eggplant Vegetable · Warm · 80 days
- Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce Vegetable · Cool · 45 days
- Southern Giant Curled Mustard Vegetable · Cool · 45 days
- Clemson Spineless Okra Vegetable · Warm · 56 days
- Evergreen Bunching Onion Vegetable · Shoulder · 65 days
- French Breakfast Radish Vegetable · Cool · 28 days
- Roma Tomato Vegetable · Warm · 76 days
Related regional guides
- Kauai County Vegetable Planting Period Guide UH CTAHR Kauai County table for vegetable crop-window rows, seasonal cool-crop timing, spacing fields, harvest days, and source-age caveat.