Harvesting cassava

Thanks to Mr. Aisea, a native of Tonga and a wonderful community partner, 4th graders harvested 50 lbs of cassava (often known as tapioca). Cassava is a staple food for much of the world but is relatively unknown in Hawaii. The plant grows easily in poor soil and has been growing on our campus for more than a year. The students are expanding the cassava growing area by covering the weedy grass with mulch in preparation for new plantings.

Favorite student recipes:

cassava chips (slice cassava very thing and deep fry in canola oil, add pepper flakes, spiced paprika or popcorn spices for flavoring)
cassava fries (baked with oil and salt or fried)
mashed cassava (boil cassava until very soft and mash like potatoes, add salt to taste)

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!!