Honolulu Weekly

Alaska, well-known for giant cabbages (an amazing new world record: a 127-pound giant weighed in at the 2009 state farm fair), is cultivating purple black cabbages, six-feet tall artichokes and brilliant green parsley in its downtown flower beds. Once in a while, there’s a puka where once was a cabbage, but generally the decor stays in place until official harvest.

Chicago, considered by some the greenest U.S. city, hires a farmer and a gardening team to use unoccupied city land for growing organic veggies. To cover costs, the team first sells produce to high-end restaurants, then donates the rest to soup kitchens or sells it at farmers’ markets. When the space is reclaimed for construction, the team pulls up stakes and moves the operation to another vacant lot.

Seems as if Honolulu always has plenty of empty lots, given our culture of displacement. What if the City could provide landowners with tax credits and liability insurance so that these properties could be used for community gardens (many of which have long waiting lists) or for a Chicago-type system of produce cultivation? Many properties have been vacant for decades or longer. We could have productive gardens in place of weedy eyesores.

Locally, many of us grew up with the notion that public fruit was to be found, if one took the time to find it. A boondocks hike might yield wild avocados, strawberry guava and lilikoi. More could be done to make our public and private lands more fruitful.