Honolulu averages 62 dew point in Febr as the low and 68 in summer early fall as the high. Rainfall probably makes some difference. But none of HI is far from the ocean so I can’t see it being low anywhere. Elevation is a major factor. That mainly controls temperature. Then there is a big rain shadow effect on rainfall making parts of some islands pretty dry. I’ve seen places listed there that were reasonable. Much less than you listed for CT. Shoot go for it if that’s your first choice. Wives can be convinced. It just takes some time.
1 Like
The lava flow is so recent that almost nothing can be grown there. That area also has little or no water. That’s why land is so cheap.
Medford OR.
C’mon now, Bob. Check out Iowa!! Today you can fill out all your chill hours in 2 days! In Augest it’s nice and warm! You can own 5 acres of the best soil in the world for >$50K. Rated best place in the USA to raise a family, low crime, friendly people, and great chill hrs. You can buy citrus in the stores all year long and who really likes those weird fruits anyhow? And you can join Hawkeye nation and cheer for mediocre sport teams too!
6 Likes
As for me personally, if I ever wanted to get far more into the fruit growing hobby beyond the hand full of trees in our suburban yard, I’d move to the Grand Junction/Palisade region of Colorado. It runs at z7 with just about every outdoor recreation activity available (excluding the ocean of course). It’s sunny just about all the time and fairly inexpensive compared to the Denver area.
Lots of Peaches, apricots, plums, grapes, cherries, and apples are grown in this area.
6 Likes
And it is gorgeous
1 Like
How is the hunting in that area ? Federal/state land available to hunt on?
When I moved to CA in 2000, Palisade was tied with eastern Washington as my next choice for areas to look. Now it seems too cold in winter in either of those areas. But for someone younger or if you like to ski the Grand Junction area has lots going for it. I’m not willing to fight cold and snow at this point. I don’t like the soils in that area, an alkaline sticky clay/clay loam. Eastern WA is just as good or better for fruit and much more area to chose from.
Lots of elk and other game in that part of CO.
1 Like
Property taxes here run about $2000 per 100K of assessed value.
Wisconsin is obviously the best place to grow fruit…i can show you this fool who moves containers in and out of his garage as his neighbors point and shake their heads. Guy grows the best fruit…and the squirrels that eat 90% of his fruit taste fantastic grilled.
Honestly…Milwaukee, WI or anywhere close to L Michigan outside of Michigan/Illinois 
would be great. You don’t get the lake clouds this time of year and because the water is so “warm” in winter, the lows are much milder then areas just 20 miles inland…the closer to the lake the safer you would be. Trees also bloom later///so that might lead to much later ripening times in the fall…
4 Likes
Any place in the midwest, no worries about your fruit trees sliding into the Pacific or sauteing in the passing wild fires. We have lenient gun laws so you can hunt squirrel and 300lb. whitetail from your back porch(or with your car like I do). C’mon, check us out!
4 Likes
My great grandads orchard was in that area
True, though I might need a jackhammer to plant…
From what I could tell, the lava was from Mauna Loa, which last erupted in 1984. How long does it take before it could be replanted? Not the part covered directly in lava, but the near miss stuff, which looks like what a lot of this property is. I’m not too likely to want to do anything there. Of course, if I was to someday move to Hawaii, having a high elevation planting area for $4-5K wouldn’t be a horrible idea. Except when I’m covered in lava…
I’ve been reading a bit more into it and you want to be careful with the wind for volcanic gases as well as rain. You think CA air is bad, wait until it is SO2 right from a volcano…
Stranger things have happened. I do have years to try…
I remember a poster named MileHighGirl had a horrible experience in Colorado. A hard early frost in fall and I think there were some late spring frosts too. I’m not sure if it is the same area of CO though. From one of the few posts she made after coming over from Gardenweb:
You would think so, but there are plenty of times I get pulled outside. Also, there is the associated annoyances that cold weather brings. Nothing too horrible, but just yesterday, I was handling rodents at one place, shoveling snow at another one, and dealing with a vacant one running out of heating oil. Luckily I stopped by to check before the ~0F night and noticed that it had gotten to the high 40’s inside. Evidently there was a misunderstanding between my wife and the oil company as to whether is was auto-delivery (like all the other properties…). So they did a small emergency delivery and promised a full one for today. I was showing it today and noticed that the heat was a few degrees below set. After the potential tenants left, I checked and the oil was out again. So, another call to the oil company (or at least their answering service). After another call later in the afternoon, they finally called back and said that they had just made the delivery, but couldn’t tell me if the furnace re-started. At which point, I went back over to the house to re-start the furnace and make sure the place started heating up again. None of this is too bad, but I’d be happy to skip winter- or just consider the last month of fall (Nov 21- Dec 21) to be winter, as it feels like winter to me.
The Grand Junction area has much more steady temperatures in winter/spring than the Denver area where milehigh was. The danger of spring frost is much less in GJ. The favorable areas are pretty small though so you can’t just buy anywhere near there. Winters are probably much better than CT but still a lot of 20-50F weather. Chances of you moving there are just above lottery winning level but others reading might be interested.
The difference between Denver and GJ is the latter is west of some very high mountains and 250 miles west of Denver. The cold air masses that come down like the current one are shallow. Think cold air settles. That heavy cold air usually can’t push west over the Rockies. It just slides downhill to the south and east. Usually the cold air gets to Alpine at 4500ft but sometimes it stops just east and north of here. We are just east of the first ranges of mountains. Sometimes it comes and goes rapidly. We have gone from 75F+ to 20F twice in the last week. All those fluctuating temperatures aren’t good for fruit trees. The steady 30s and 40s around GJ are much better in winter for trees.
2 Likes
I would love to have land in Hawaii and grow jackfruit, among other things. I’ve been looking at Hawaii land and prices since I first visited in 1983. The basic rule I learned is this, if you can afford the land, there’s something wrong with it. My vague memory is that any lava flow within the last 150 years is unplanatable. There are sections of the Big Island on the Kona coast where they have used massive earth moving equipment to move aside and/or pulverize lava flows to put in hotels and condos, but I don’t have that kind of money, and Hawaii has very restrictive zoning anyway that prevents you from doing any major work on your land unless you do have lots of money.
Your right about that- GJ is actually 2-3 degrees colder than here during the 2 coldest months. If I’m going to leave my babies (trees), it needs to be a significant improvement. But I do agree that smoothing out the sharp spikes is pretty good. It highlights how important local knowledge is when buying a place.
When you are using heavy equiptment to remove old lava it should spur the question “should I really be building an expensive hotel here?”
I’ve seen some Youtube videos which describe very lax enforcement of zoning and some of the issues it causes. Of course, it could be both- tough rules and lax enforcement.
It certainly should raise the question as to whether expensive hotels should be built in those areas but if the question was raised it was answered with money. They have lax enforcement of some types of rules in some areas for some types of people. They have strict enforcement of rules in other situations. And that’s part of the problem with living in Hawaii - government officials are often inconsistent, incompetent, biased and/or corrupt. Hawaii makes California look like a well run state.
1 Like
Chikn, on a serious note, do you have any idea how feasible would it be to buy 5 acres of prime farmland in Iowa without being surrounded by conventional farmland and all the issues like chemical drift that go along with that? My sister-in-law and her husband and family live in Iowa, and my family just visited them over Thanksgiving. While we were there we visited the Brenton Arboretum (which especially interested me because they have a collection of thornless osage orange cultivars, and I have a very small (~1/4 acre) plantation of seedling osage oranges growing already and am interested in possibly planting more osage oranges), and the arboretum manager mentioned the issues they’ve had with chemical damage to trees growing on the sides of the property (none of it immediately lethal, as best I can remember from what I heard.)
1 Like
I don’t know about Iowa but in most places with large stretches of good farmland, it’s very difficult to find small parcels that are not surrounded by 100s or even 1000s of acres of farmland soaked in glyphosate or other toxic chemicals. Even when the drift is not bad enough to injure plants, it can be bad enough to impact your health. There is a lot of good farmland in western Missouri south of KC, and it’'s often cheaper than Iowa farmland, but it’s hard to find parcels that are not surrounded by poisoned soil, water or air. The other problem with Iowa are the pig farms… Take a look at Iowa in this national map of factory farms-
https://www.factoryfarmmap.org/
2 Likes
The Palisades area is a superior area for peaches and wine grapes, probably apples too. Lots of commercial peaches and grapes are grown in this small town. Some folks consider these to be the best peaches grown anywhere.
Find a county near the dark black line…just DON’T go into Illinois…stay away! 
1 Like