The Story of A Seed

Starting the day off right with a proper blessing ceremony

Such a beautiful blessing

Sprinkling sea water onto the land to bless every corner

Kumuau and Volunteers take part in blessing the future site of the Native Garden

Pouring the seawater onto the soil as the final step of the blessing ceremony

Netra and students preparing the beds to be installed outside of the Special Ed Classroom. The beds will be planted with a variety of sensual plants that focus on color, textures, smells, touch and taste.

Hokuau and Kalani (Hawaiian Studies Teacher) work on building the rock terraces with Rick Otterson and Kevin

Nio Kindla and Kathy Becklin installing the new beds

Netra and kids clearing the weeds before installing the box beds

Teachers and students sifted load after load of dirt...which came over the the newly built raised-box-beds and were amended layer by layer with comfrey leaf, compost, mycorrizal, humus, and Fox Farm Ocean Forest Mix.

These girls were amazing! Talk about team effort!

Marketing Director for Gatoraide/Entrepreneur/Humanitarian Kate Denton and Pro-Kite-boarder/model/actress Gretta Krusi came out on their last day on Maui to give back...now that is VOluntourism at it's finest :)

Rae Chandler- The Executive Director of CWD came out and worked her butt off ALL DAY LONG...Waylon

Matt Lane looking at the progress

I can't remember her name right now- but she works for WHole Foods Market...and was such an amazing addition to the workday- building new beds, building a compost bin, and sifting wheelbarrow-loads of soil.

The CWD Crew showed up at the end to help us to finish off strong! Such an amazing team we have!

Cole and Waylon getting the boulders to budge

Julia our Compost specialist joined us for the day from the Ritz Carlton Kapalua

Cole and Will

The last one's standing

The First Watering of the Garden done by none other than Will (son of the water dept's Conservation Specialist Cole Santos)

The Vision: The vision for Lahainalunas Garden begins at the top at the AG-Dept building...surrounded by nursery plants and the new Greenhouse...stairways bring you down into Native Gardens that can be used for curriculum development, seed stock, and for making leis, baskets, and medicinals. All of the slopes are planted with low-maintenance natives such as pili grass, a'ali'i, ma'o, and ilima. We left a section of space open on the first terrace where trucks can dump loads of manure, compost, and mulch...and it is accessible to the rest of the garden. The second terrace is for a variety of fruit trees that will show a Hawaiian Agroforestry guild. Citrus, Ulu (Breadfruit), figs, Mountain Apple, Avocado, Starfruit, and Mango will be interplanted with nitrogen fixers (like pidgeon pea and cow-pea), dynamic accumulators (such as comfrey), and climbers such as sweet potato, nasturtiums, lilikoi and beneficial flowers. We are restoring the old Aquaponics house to feed into 2 separate Loi's (Taro Patches)...and ideally we will build a Hale between the two patches where classes can be held. The bottom fields will be cover-cropped this year, and next year we will begin planting crops of sweet corn, onions, watermelons, and more. The hope is that this garden will not only serve to help sustain the schools food, but will also serve as an outdoor classroom, a seed-bank, and will be able to provide Highschool students with jobs working on the farm.

The beginnings...after removing all of the invasive trees and weeds....here is our canvas

Keith (the Ag-Dept Teachers) son looking at the new blank canvas

Tui from the Water dept figuring out the water situation with Keith and his son

Uncovering the old Aquaponics house

The work begins...Matt Lane got the Hawaiian Dredging company to lend us a day of work bulldozing and creating terraces

First view of the newly cleared land...looking up towards the Ag Building and Principals house

Our first workday...laying weedmat over the hillsides, establishing pathways and stairways and planting the first natives

After the first workday

Our second workday we had nearly 100 students show up to lend a hand spreading mulch, planting natives and fruit trees. It was an amazingly productive day.

What a beautiful sight...the kids working with the land again...planting Native Hawaiian plants along the hillsides

Making some special Fairy-magic tea...a mixture of worm castings, compost, seaweed, mychorrizal, humus, and LOVE.

Cole from the water dept working on the irrigation while students and volunteers from Lahaina ACE plant more natives

We had an amazing group of girls who worked so hard today!

This site gave me chills- I could see 100 years ago- what this land looked like having the children and elders working together to malama the aina. This is the way it should always be.

Highschool students driving tractors, planting trees, spreading mulch! Amazing!

Mother and Daughter both alumni of Lahainaluna planted an Ulu tree for their late grandfather

Ian from the Breadfruit Institute lent us a hand planting fruit trees- and keeping us all smiling!

Tui from the Water Dept teaching students about how to lay irrigation. This project would not be possible without the Water dept who has been incredibly generous both in working with the designer (me) to create the most water-efficient/conservative gardens, but they have also supplied nearly all of the Native plants, and irrigation for this project. Mahalo nui loa to the Water Dept!

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Stacy and Soane putting in the weedmat...(yes, I know it isn't exactly permaculture or sustainable...but sometimes I have to compromise to make the Ag-Dept teachers happy- He says he will remove it once the natives are established.