Work Day October 23 and potluck

Our next work day is October 23 from 4-6pm.

We will be preparing the garden beds for planting and pulling weeds!

On the News!!

Check out our Waikiki students working hard in the food farm...this video clip was on KITV news

great job waikiki school farmers!!

work day success!

thank you to volunteers; Kiyomi (and husband), John, Bastian, Collin, Shari, Kimball and Sky! It was a cool afternoon of hard work in the garden.

Our next scheduled Work Day is Oct. 23, 3-6pm with potluck dinner to follow.

Plant nursery!

The nursery is coming along.... slowly. We had a good turnout on Saturday with Sky, Jens, Rudy, John and Kimball working on the first section of the roof. Thanks to Lydia, Mike, Megan and others for helping in the garden beds too. It's hard work in the hot sun, the kids were troopers, finding time to relax in the new shade!

We are going to need more help to get this finished. The goal is to have a shady place to propagate plants, teach garden lessons, wash produce and keep tools close to the food farm.

Next work day is Sept. 18th, 4-6pm.

Mahalo for your support!

Plant nursery work day this Saturday

We will be blocking the plant nursery and adding plywood to a portion of the roof. Please bring tools (power tools, hammers) and ladders if you have them. Also, if you plan to stay past noon bring snacks or lunch.

Work Day:
Saturday, Sept 4th
10am-1pm


Why are we building the nursery? It's an outdoor classroom. Once a solid roof is in place on the side shading on, we will be able to hold garden lessons in the nursery and out of the hot sun. We'll have family garden classes too so stay tuned!

June 19th, 2010 Kanu Live Aloha Day

What a successful day Live Aloha Day 2010!!
Thank you to our amazing community support for the Waikiki School gardens. Our volunteers dug our new aquaponics pond, pulled weeds in the food farm, and built a new water drip system for the fruit trees. It was perfect weather for working. Thanks to our Kokua Hawaii Foundation friends, Kelly and Natalie, there was a farmers market of produce available for our volunteers to take home. We enjoyed a variety of heirloom tomatoes from the Food Farm during our potluck lunch.

Check out our beautiful garden art by 2nd and 3rd graders.

Our next work day is an 'AINA In Schools event, August 7th, 2010, 2-4pm. Please join us!

Mahalo to all who made this day a success!!

Waikiki School Garden Update

We now have 3200 square feet of edible garden space on our campus. This 'Food Farm' includes 65 fruit trees, the 'AINA garden beds, the rainbow garden, an enchanted grove and an outdoor classroom plant nursery.  All of this happened through generous support from our Waikiki students and families, community members, and Kokua Hawaii Foundation.  We were also recently awarded a grant from Lowe's for $3300 to build a plant nursery.  This 'outdoor classroom' will enable students to propagate plants, wash produce and simply have a shady place to talk about growing food.  Other exciting news includes the construction of an aquaponics system in the kindergarten playground, and expansion of our composting to include lunch waste. Stay-tuned for these new updates.

To keep our program going we need volunteers for a variety of on-going tasks:
• Assisting with garden lessons at all grade levels
• Preparing and maintaining ‘AINA garden beds
• Mulching and composting
• Preparing new gardens
• Watering and building water systems
• Construction jobs such as building a tool shed for the plant nursery

There are lots of ways you can volunteer your time from weekly to quarterly events. 
• Weekly and Monthly garden lessons on weekdays (all grades)
• After school Garden club
• Monthly garden parties on Saturdays (bring the whole family)
• Quarterly 'AINA garden parties
• Painting, construction, plumbing
• Grant writing and curriculum development

"Love your Mother Earth" Garden Party

All Waikiki families are welcome to
Join us for an 'AINA In Schools Garden Party

SATURDAY, May 8, 2010
9am- 11am

Please bring your family to work alongside the 'AINA In Schools Garden Educators, to help put our raised garden beds to sleep.
Do you have a wheelbarrow, shovel, pick, bucket, rake, or weeding tools to share?

'AINA IS will provide water to refill your water bottle, and healthy snacks, contributions also welcome!

The shade house is going up

Through a generous grant from Lowe's we are building a nursery or shade house to support our Waikiki School Food Farm. The nursery will be used for the propagation of plants, seed starting and as an outdoor classroom. The shade will be a welcome addition to our farm as a place to meet away from the hot sun. The nursery will also serve as a tool storage area as well as a site to accommodate hand-washing and produce-washing sinks. The latter are necessary to meet the requirements for Food Safety Certification- more on this to follow.

Thank you to our teacher and community volunteers who have dedicated their Saturday mornings to painting and building. Our next community work day will be announced soon.

Fourth Graders rank heirloom tomatoes

The test results are in for the eight varieties of heirloom tomatoes grown at Waikiki School. All of the fourth grade students had the opportunity to rank each of the varieties based on marketability, appearance, and taste. The students used descriptive words to define the taste of the fruits and gave each variety a score. Here's what they found:

Perfect 10 for appearance:
Half moon china
Japanese black

Perfect 10 for taste:
Cherokee purple
Black cherry
Snow white
Japanese black


It was clearly a tough choice to pick an overall winner. However, once yield was included into the equation, four heirlooms stood out:

Cherokee purple
Half moon china
Japanese black
Black cherry

Check out these varieties and more from Tomato Bob.

Thank you Kaiser Families

Our Spring Garden Party/Work Day was a great success due to the enormous support provided by the friends and families of Kaiser Permanente Hawaii. Kaiser Hawaii was celebrating their 50th Anniversary and we were lucky to have them working hard beautifying our school and preparing our gardens for planting.

Heirloom tomatoes at Town Restaurant

Waikiki School heirloom tomatoes are being served at Town Restaurant on Waialae in Kaimuki. Thank you Town for supporting our school, students and our food farm projects.

Kaiser Doctors to work at Waikiki Garden Party

January 18th: 200 Kaiser Doctors and their families will be working alongside Waikiki School families! We are looking forward to this new, wonderful partnership and join in celebrating 50 years of Kaiser Permanente's presence in Hawaii!!