While I’m out planting trees, behind the scenes Hilary is diligently helping us keep the farm well organized and maintained. Hilary’s been living in the tiny house on our farm for over three years now. I can’t tell you how lucky we are to have Hilary with us. I don’t think we could’ve come this far so quickly without her help. Aside from all the hard work she does here, Hilary works for a Hawaii based company called Terraformation with a mission to reforest 3 billion acres of land. What a goal!
Today Hilary helped us plant a Tahitian variety of breadfruit called Pua’a that I got from Anthony. It’s a seedless type with white yellow flesh. This tree will start producing fruit in about 5 years and a big well fertilized tree can produce more than 400 pounds of food every year. We have one Maafala breadfruit tree and Hilary enjoys breadfruit and also kalo and bananas as her primary staple. No rice or wheat! Which is unfathomable for me. But Julia and I love eating breadfruit fries, chips, mashed breadfruit, and ripe breadfruit pancakes. I gotta say that ever since moving the Big Island I’m eating more and more locally grown starches because it’s more accessible and easy to grow.
Breadfruit season in Hawaii is starting! So I challenge you, especially my Oahu friends to try to have breadfruit with your meal at least once a week. Learn to love it, harvest it at different stages, cook with it. You’ll realize how versatile and delicious it is.
Originally posted on 2021-07-17, part of the daily planting journal behind Ha’a Chocolate’s food forest on Hawai’i Island.