‘A‘ohe ‘ulu e loa‘a i ka pōkole o ka lou
No breadfruit can be reached when the picking stick is too short
[There is no success without preparation]

'Ulu trees are loaded with fruit in Kona this April - June.

The first Hawai’i Breadfruit Festival will be happening September 24, 2011 at Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden in South Kona, but will there be any mature breadfruit available in Kona at that time? This is the question that came up last month when Festival co-director Craig Elevitch and I met with Chantal Chung of Kids of Kona. The Kona ‘ulu trees had been loaded with fruit for the past three months, meaning that another big Kona harvest may not happen as soon as September.

Neem trees (center) growing within a Kona coffee orchard for shade, insecticidal properties, timber, and medicine.

It’s great that so many people are jumping on the homegrown food bandwagon. There is nothing more delicious and healthful than your own fresh fruit and vegetables grown with love without pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers.

But for me, homegrown also means making my own medicines from plants in my garden, from the wild and from friends’ yards. And also using locally sourced materials -- like neem -- to improve soil fertility and food production. Recently I was brought into a discussion about a number of neem trees growing on the Hamakua Coast. The property owner had wanted to tear out his 70 or so trees in favor of fruit such as lychee and longan. Although I wasn’t directly involved in convincing him of their value, I am very happy that this valuable resource is now being preserved.

Tane and Maureen Datta tend their certified organic micro-greens.

Several times a week I get asked the question: “What should I grow?”

There are so many ways to answer. Some answers are trite but true, like ”Grow what you like to eat and what you can”. Other answers include a quick list of wanted plants: basil, beans, peaches, potatoes and on and on. Some of these could be grown here in Hawai‘i, depending on your elevation, rainfall, soil, etc., and others….well, not so easily.

Usually, I answer with a set of questions, the first and most important being, “Why?” There is no wrong answer, but the more deeply and honestly this question is answered, the better the choice of crops will be. People often have several reasons for growing plants, sometimes at cross purposes to each other. For example, a person may want to buy a farm, put in a large garden to become self sufficient, improve their health and make $2000/month land or mortgage payments. The self-sufficiency and health crops may have a very different agroeconomic profile than the profit-making crops. For self-sufficiency, the crop value may be measured in meals per hour and reliability of the harvest. Crops that fit this bill include bananas, breadfruit, coconut, squash and yams. These crops provide high food value for low care or time allotment. They may sell, but not at a high dollar per hour value.

Everyone is welcome to chip in and help. Pastor Mary's daughter picks some tomatoes for an afternoon snack.

In the tiny little town of Kekaha, far on the west end of the island of Kaua‘i, a visionary preacher, church congregation and small group of dedicated gardeners have banded together to start the Kekaha Community Garden. While one intention is to create a place where locals can grow fresh, healthy, affordable food, the underlying philosophy is really to grow a stronger more connected community. The setting is quite informal (you might wonder, what could be formal in a garden -- but gardens and landscapes like homes, churches and public buildings have their own sense of place, and spoken or unspoken rules of order). In Kekaha Garden there is a sense that all are welcome. On Sunday evening when we entered the gate I was instantly greeted by a very large well-mannered dog and a few children gathering tomatoes and exploring the bounty.