You may be eating less salad these days. Everyone’s making fewer trips to the supermarket, and lettuce and other tender greens are easily perishable. But growing your own lettuce is a great solution—now and going forward. Lettuce is fast growing and ideal for backyard gardens.

Fighting plant pests is just one of the many ways Nick Yamauchi, Dylan Cunningham, Matt Miyahira, Andrea Kawabata, Elizabeth Whitney, Yoshiaki Higashide, Justin Yeh, and other CTAHR faculty and staff on Hawai‘i Island are working diligently to keep grant-funded projects moving forward, while maintaining social distancing and other precautions.

On Thursday August 29, volunteers at the Urban Garden Center shared aloha and mahalo with Ray Uchida, who is retiring from his longstanding post as O‘ahu County administrator. The occasion was marked with hula, stories, and the planting of a tree in his honor. Steve Nagano, an Extension agent for O‘ahu County, helped Ray to plant the crepe myrtle that will bear his name and commemorate his many years of service to the college, community, and ‘āina.

Welcome to Hallie Cristobal, who has joined the UH Cooperative Extension team in Kaua‘i County as a junior Extension agent in the department of Family and Consumer Science. Hallie grew up on the west side of Kaua‘i in Waimea. She has a BS in Health Promotion from Weber State University in Utah and is currently working online to get a Masters of Education from Capella University.

Welcome to Rosemary Gutierrez-Coarite (TPSS), who began her new career as the Maui County Edible Crops agent on Friday, February 15! Rosemary is right at home in the college, having previously worked as a junior researcher with Mark Wright (PEPS), primarily on integrated pest management of the macadamia felted coccid.