For years, any time we passed by the Waimea Homestead Farmers Market site it was usually during a week day and the market was closed. A couple of months ago when we were on our way to the Kohala area on a Saturday, we decided to make a stop and check out the market. Two weeks later, a friend invited us to meet her at the market for breakfast. There is a breakfast tent she recommended and that is where we had a long breakfast while being introduced to some of her friends. The breakfast tent feels like the social hub of the market. Here you will find a bit of everything that is made fresh, including a delicious plate of Eggs Benedict. We have been back three times in the past two months!

I must say I was more than a little skeptical. I had seen the flyer for the Self-Reliant Home Garden Techniques (June 16-17, 2010, Holualoa, North Kona) workshop with the photograph of the presenter, Tim Lloyd, standing on top of his “garden bench” (isn’t a garden bench something you sit on to enjoy the view and smell the flowers?) made out of a couple of pallets. I thought he might just be talented at balancing himself. And a pallet has lots of gaps between the slats—how would the soil stay in? And if it was lined with, say, plastic, how would it drain? Not to mention that the sides were only 3” high—what can you grow in 3” of soil, other than starts?

Whole fresh pumpkin and squash fruits are the primary product of commerce. Cooked squash may be canned or dried for storage. Seed can also be consumed. Flowers and tender vine tips of all edible types are sold and consumed as vegetables. Male flowers and vine tips provide a source of income for growers prior to fruits reaching marketable stage, although care should be taken to leave some male flowers as a pollen source for female flowers. Selective, judicial harvesting of young shoots should preserve and promote canopy development and is not expected to significantly reduce yields.

Pa’auilo Elementary & Intermediate School is located on the Hamakua Coast, between Honoka’a and Laupahoehoe. Its student population is around 275 and is the last K-9^th grade school in the state. The school has had a long history of promoting agriculture and I started the garden here as a volunteer ten years ago. I’ve been leading the school’s agriculture program since then. Besides staffing the parent center, my purpose is to teach students how to produce healthy food and care for small-scale livestock.