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!!

Waikiki School Garden Party- January 18th, 2010

Our next big work day in the garden will be Monday, Jan. 18th, 2010
From 8:30-1:00pm
FREE lunch and nutritional information provided for families by Kaiser Permanente

Tasks will include preparing the AINA IS gardens, nurturing our fruit tree orchards, grading for our new nursery/shade house to be built and general weeding.

Please RSVP to Dolly (dolly_bahn@notes.k12.hi.us or call 971-6900)
no later than Jan. 13th.

Students' heirloom tomatoes are growing fast

Our fourth graders are busy keeping up with the fast growing tomato plants. The cherokee purples are fist-sized and growing and some of the black cherry plants have up to 24 fruit!

Waikiki School starts organic food farm

Waikiki School has started an organic food farm. Why? To inspire and educate our children about careers in agriculture, growing and eating fresh foods, and bringing a sense of pride to our school environment. The farm will work towards sustainability through marketing of fresh produce, collection of seeds and water-saving techniques. Projects proposed for the garden include 'eat what you grow' gardens, for example, a classroom can adopt a 'salsa garden' by growing the necessary ingredients to make salsa (cilantro, onions, tomatoes, peppers). The fourth grade classes are currently growing heirloom tomatoes using organic methods.

Timeline of Food Farm:
July 2009: mulch/manure method to grow living, healthy soil (5th and 6th grade students, community members)

August-October 2009: continue watering 3x per week, vemicast tea application (4-6 grade students)

October 2009: garden designed and first Kalo and tomatoes were planted (4th grade students, community members)
November 2009: 48 tomato plants; 8 heirloom varieties. legumes planted