With great pride, the Urban Garden Center in Pearl City has re-started its “Extension in the Garden” series. Once a month, we will host a walking tour to showcase the most recent work of CTAHR agricultural scientists, Extension educators, Master Gardeners, and UGC volunteers. Field demonstrations and educational exhibits – on a highlighted theme – will be on display for the community’s benefit. 

Join the Oʻahu Master Gardeners at the Urban Garden Center in Pearl City and learn about low-water use gardening with succulents at its Water-Wise Gardening Workshop. The morning event will give participants a glimpse into a low-water use garden, which can lead to bigger projects that enhance home landscapes while conserving water. Participants will also create a starter dish garden of succulents to take home (6 x 4 inch). 

The Hawaiʻi State Legislature’s House Committee on Finance paid a friendly site visit to the Magoon Research and Education Station on July 14. Tessie Amore and Orville Baldos of the Dept. of Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences led the tour of the grounds and greenhouses. The group included lawmakers and staff, CTAHR Associate Dean for Research Walter Bowen, UH VP of Government Relations Kalbert Young, and various CTAHR and UH staff.

Look what you’ve done to the place! Rain or shine, our CTAHR Extension faculty, staff, and tireless volunteers have been digging, planting, pruning, raking, and overall sprucing up the Urban Garden Center in Pearl City, Oʻahu.

The next cohort for the highly successful GoFarm Hawaiʻi program will begin August 1 with its AgCurious online webinar. This virtual meeting is the first step to learn more about CTAHR’s beginning farmer training program and how to apply; attendance is a prerequisite for the next training step, AgXposure.

The next cohort for the highly successful GoFarm Hawaiʻi program will begin August 1 with its AgCurious online webinar. This virtual meeting is the first step to learn more about CTAHR’s beginning farmer training program and how to apply; attendance is a prerequisite for the next training step, AgXposure.

Know anyone who’s looking to improve their farming production and agribusiness skills? Please share the news with your networks and tell them to Register today before the class fills up.

• AgCurious Online Webinar: August 1 @ 5:30pm: The first step to learn more about the GoFarm beginning farmer training program and how to apply. 
• AgXposure: August 17 - September 14: Learn from local farms and get exposure to farm work (Wednesday evenings (online) and Saturdays).
• AgXcel: October 19 - April 29, 2023: Learn farm production and business skills from our coaching team during Wednesday evening (online) and Saturday field classes. Plant, manage, and market your own 7-week Community Supported Agriculture vegetable production at GoFarm’s site in Waialua. 

For more info, visit GoFarm Hawaiʻi or contact Laura Ediger at lediger@hawaii.edu.

Long after they’ve wilted and returned to the earth, flowers grown by Extension agents at the Urban Garden Center will live on in the memories, education, and overall development of Oʻahu youths. Originally grown to brighten the décor at the CTAHR Ohana Banquet, as well as brighten spirits at the Hawaiʻi Dept. of Health, the harvested flowers also went toward teaching students at Pearl City High School how to make arrangements using locally available flowers. PCHS teachers and students also made floral arrangements to give to school administrators during Admin Professional Week.

The recent UH drive to support the Hawaiʻi Foodbank brought in almost $70K, and CTAHR led the way in total pounds of food donated at a whopping 2,488 pounds – by far and away the most from any college or school in the UH system.

Mark your calendars for Saturday, July 9, because the Urban Garden Center is once again holding educational workshops for the public, this time on orchids and composting. Can’t wait? Guests are welcome to arrive early for a guided tour of the Honolulu Rose Society gardens beginning at 9 am, visit the Master Gardeners’ “Got a Plant Question?” booth, and check out the interesting “Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle” display.

A $1 million gift from American AgCredit and CoBank will go directly to helping GoFarm Hawaiʻi graduates grow their agricultural businesses. The highly successful CTAHR program has graduated 480 participants in less than a decade. It provides business technical assistance, educational opportunities, and resources to remove barriers to farming and agribusinesses.

Ag teachers on Maui, Molokaʻi, and Lanaʻi haven’t been able to gather, share knowledge, and renew friendships for a while now. So along with Britney James of the Maui Economic Development Board’s STEMworks Program, in partnership with Maui County Farm Bureau, we decided to host a professional development. It was great to see Ag teachers from across Maui County come together for the event. We kicked off with a tour of HokuNui Maui’s Agroforestry program. The Hewahewa family shared the history of the farm and how they decide which plants to grow in their agroforest so teachers could implement the same choices in their classes.

The Dean’s Award for Excellence in Extension distinguishes an exceptional Extension faculty member or team whose work has demonstrated outstanding performance and significant results. The application for this award is the submission of an Extension Impact Statement. This year’s winning Impact Statement can be found on the CTAHR homepage.

Volunteers are the lifeblood for Extension programs such as 4-H and Master Gardener. The recipient of this first-ever Dean’s Award for Outstanding Extension Volunteer goes to Joe Simmons, Master Gardener volunteer. For many years, the Master Gardener program in the majority of states utilized an electronic volunteer management system created and hosted by the University of California – Davis. In 2019, this system was decommissioned, and it was up to each state to come up with a replacement system.

For his dedication to supporting and enhancing invasive species management on Kauaʻi and throughout Hawaiʻi, Extension agent Roshan Manandhar is the recipient of the 2022 Hawaiʻi Invasive Species Awareness Month Kauaʻi Island MVP Award! The award recognizes an individual, organization, or agency responsible for one of the major invasive species highlights in the areas of research, prevention, control, and/or public outreach on their island.

Want to sustain our aging Ag workforce with the best and brightest of the next generation? How about try exposing young persons to the wide diversity of careers that are available? Faculty, staff, and volunteers of CTAHR’s Urban Garden Center (UGC) played host to field trips last week from Pearl City High School and Waipahu High School, partnering with the Hawaiʻi Agricultural Foundation (HAF) to promote awareness of agriculture at the high school level. With a grant to cover transportation, UGC and HAF worked together to bring more than 30 PCHS students to the CTAHR facility February 11 for a multisensory event.

Students had an opportunity to: 1) learn about the benefits of flowers, 2) smell the roses, 3) express themselves creatively with plants, 4) harvest, process and taste mamaki tea, 5) use their hands to propagate plants, 6) taste local and unique fruits grown at UGC, 7) convert home waste into a useable fertilizer for plants, 8) take home local roses and their personalized bouquets, and 9) taste how sour lemon can be made into a local treat by using gummies and lemon peel. 

Please join the Master Gardeners, Volunteers, and Urban Garden Center (UGC) as we bid a fond aloha to Master Gardener / Urban Horticulture Extension Agent, Kalani Matsumura. Kalani served as a Junior Extension Agent with Oʻahu County, Cooperative Extension, for the past five years. During his tenure, he led the Oʻahu County, Master Gardener Program, to be a successful Cooperative Extension program at CTAHR.

Hawaiʻi 4-H Military Partnership is excited to announce its “4-H Wounded Warrior Camp: Adventure in Paradise” will once again be offered this summer. The week of fun in the sun, recreation and respite is specifically tailored for the dependent keiki of wounded, injured, ill or fallen soldiers. At YMCA Camp Erdman on the North Shore of Oahu. The adventure will include high ropes courses, mindfulness activities, swimming, yoga, hiking, Hawaiiana-based environmental activities, crafts, and recreational camp games.

For this past Thanksgiving, student interns Leah Ramos and Kalani Akau and their advisor, Sothy Eng, took the initiative to collect fruits from families' backyards and put them together in baskets, which they donated to Mental Health Kōkua, a local organization that serves adults striving for mental wellness. The Urban Garden Center’s Fruit Hui immediately came on board, generously donating its entire harvest of lemon, tangerine, orange, papaya, mango, and starfruit, estimated to be more than 100 pounds of fresh, nutritious, delicious items – and all hand-picked by UGC volunteers Linda, Susie, Glenn, Jessie, Karen, Kim, and others.

“These fruit baskets not only provide nutritional food for our community members, but also help toward promoting sustainable food systems as abundant foods are being sourced and shared with those who are struggling with food access,” says Sothy of the Human Development and Family Studies program in the Dept. of Family and Consumer Sciences. “This food distribution is one of the elements within the food systems that connects between the home/community food systems with our community members who are suffering from social injustice of healthy food access."

Extension’s Kalani Matsumura adds, “The UGC volunteers normally donate these fruits to the Hawaiʻi Food Bank, as well as the CTAHR student food pantry, but today they are happy to support HDFS students’ Thanksgiving project to put together nice baskets for the needy. Thank you for the great work you're doing for families in Hawaiʻi!

Mental Health Kōkua serves adult individuals with disabilities and chronic illnesses often causing the individual to feel alone and separated from reality, explains Les Gusman, County Director-Oahu.

“This random act of kindness that you are providing gives them hope,” he says. “We appreciate Brooke Fisher, an HDFS alumni and MHK former intern, who is now doing her Master's in Social Work at Columbia University, for her continuous effort connecting CTAHRʻs Home Garden Network program to our organization.”

Serving 359,159 meals to the homeless in a single year requires a literal ton(s) of ingredients. To supplement the meals with fresh, locally grown produce, the Institute for Human Services maintains a rooftop garden on top of its Dillingham Blvd. location, carefully tended to by GoFarm Hawaiʻi graduate Lubei Cavin. At her invite, eight agents from O’ahu County Extension had an opportunity to return to IHS’s rooftop garden to see how all the magic happens. Aquaponically grown lettuce, basil, kalo, and sweet potatoes were just some of the many commodities growing.

Lubei led an aquaculture production “class” for her visitors, and shared her focus on the humanity side of agriculture and how the garden provides food to keep people fed and nourished. Extension also had an opportunity to see how the veggies are processed in the kitchen, then packed and served to IHS guests across Oʻahu.

“The field trip was eye opening,” says Jari Sugano. “It reminded us how important it is to put food into the hands of those who need it the most.”

Following the visit, Extension and volunteers made a special effort to help IHS supplement its holiday spread. They harvested and donated mandarins and citrus from Extension agent Jensen Uyeda field trial at the Poamoho Research Station.

“As this holiday season approaches, please be mindful of those in need and support organizations like IHS who strive to end homelessness in Hawaiʻi,” says Jari. “In 2020, IHS housed 2,619 clients and sheltered 2,145 people – besides serving all those meals. So please consider making donations of food, clothing, home goods, toiletries, monetary gifts, gift cards, etc.”

View a video of Extension’s visit.

Extension’s Amjad Ahmad basked in the virtual limelight as the featured speaker in “Locally Grown,” a video series by the American Association of Retired Persons, Hawaiʻi chapter, and Windward Community College. Each week during the cooking webinar series, which ran for six weeks, Amjad gave a presentation and answered questions about growing conditions, the best time to harvest, the best season and environment to grow the crops during, and other related questions. The virtual events also covered cooking demonstrations of locally grown crop (sweet potato, breadfruit, papaya, taro, lemongrass, and kabocha pumpkin) lead by a chef from Windward’s culinary program.

In all, the webinars engaged 1,329 people over the six-week period.

“Amjad did a great job representing CTAHR at the request of AARP!” says Jari Sugano. “His talks helped to heighten awareness of locally grown foods that are easy to grow – and nutritious.”

GoFarm Hawaiʻi, the award-winning new farmer training program, will bring its magic back to the Garden Isle next month. Potential cohort applicants are invited to join the GoFarm staff at its training site in Lihue to check out current student farm plots, talk to the coach and marketing specialist, and learn more about upcoming program applications and timelines. Interested participants can register here for the November 6 GoFarm Field Day @ 2pm.

• Register here for the January 13, 2022, AgCurious webinar @ 6pm. This virtual meeting is the mandatory first step to participate in GoFarm’s 2022 beginning farmer training program (Feb-Sept, 2022).
• Detailed dates and information are available at GoFarm Kauaʻi.

“We are excited to announce outreach and recruitment for our next GoFarm Hawaii training program cohort on Kauaʻi,” says Janel Yamamoto. “Please share the following dates with your networks as we look for our next group of aspiring farmers!”