Kaiao Garden is a community food-sovereignty effort that began in 2006. We are located in downtown Hilo behind the Boys and Girls Club. The vision of this 1½ acre garden is a gathering place, a kauhale. The garden supports efforts to feed people, teach kids and adults how to plant and harvest food, practice healthy eating, cook creatively outdoors, heal body and mind, create nature-inspired art work, build structures for meetings and workshops, and educate all who share the following Hawaiian values:

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.

The primary food products from Colocasia taro throughout much of the Pacific islands for both subsistence and commercial purposes include: corm, leaves, and petiole, which can be prepared in a number of ways. The corm is boiled in water, baked, fried, or steamed in underground earth ovens (known in various languages as imu, umu, um, and lovo). The leaves and petioles are often boiled and served as a kind of spinach.

The Holualoa Village Association presented its 2nd annual Summer Farmfest & 'Ukulele Jam on June 19th, 2010. The celebration featured over two dozen local food purveyors who offered samples and sales of Hawai’i Island local food bounty along with local music in the historic upcountry village.