For the first time at the Hana taro celebration, a statewide expert on taro will show how to carve a stone poi pounder and a poi-pounding board.
The 18th annual East Maui Taro Festival will kick off Friday with taro planter Jerry Konanui of Puna, Hawaii, leading a midmorning workshop on kalai pohaku, or stone carving, and making a papa ku'i 'ai, or poi-pounding board.
"It's happening at Holani Hana," said Kamaui Aiona, executive director of Kahanu Garden, the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hana. "It's also the same place where Francis Sinenci is building a huge hale (traditional Hawaiian structure) during the week leading up to the taro fest. This group project is associated with a State Foundation on Culture and the Arts program.
"There's a lot of action," said Aiona, adding Hana-style directions to reach Holani Hana. One drives past Hasegawa General Store along the stretch between Hana town and Hamoa Beach. The site is in the middle of a pasture on the makai side of road, down a driveway fronted by tiki statues, he said.
Other highlights of the event honoring taro - whose progenitor "Haloa" is the eldest sibling of the Native Hawaiian people, according to mythology - include performances by Halau Maui Nui A Kama led by kumu hula Keli'i Tau'a, and by recording artists Pekelo, Leokane Pryor and CJ "Boom" Helekahi; plus Sunday's taro pancake breakfast.
For prospective backyard taro planters, vendors will sell huli, or taro starters.
"It's gonna be cheap," promised Aiona, whose Kahanu Garden staff will offer huli. Other huli vendors are John and Tweetie Lind of Kapahu Living Farm in Kipahulu, and Lisa Schattenburg-Raymond of Maui Nui Botanical Gardens in Kahului.
Traditionally, the best time for taro farmers to plant is by the light of the full moon. Auspiciously, the two phases of the full moon in the Hawaiian calendar - the Hoku moon and the Mahealani moon - occur April 28 and 29, respectively - three days after the East Maui Taro Festival.
The Linds and Aiona offered slightly different procedures when asked for "five simple steps to grow backyard kalo," or taro.
The Linds recommended "the old way" to plant dryland taro:
1. Start with good soil, not sand.
2. Dig a ditch or a series of holes about two feet apart.
3. Place one or two huli in each hole.
4. Add compost, mulch, leaves or "whatever you got" to the hole.
5. Optional step: Build a drip-irrigation system and add organic fertilizer, such as fish emulsion, to the water so the earthworms don't die (chemical fertilizer kills the worms). Thus, "you can feed the taro (while watching) right from the house," John Lind said.
He suggested seven taro varieties: mana lauloa, nicknamed "double mana," which makes dark, sticky, tasty poi; dark moi; light moi; ha'akea; Maui lehua, which is dark purple and produces one or two babies; Kauai lehua, which produces up to 10 babies; and piko lehua.
Lind said moi and ha'akea are good dryland varieties. Moi is "rugged" but with ha'akea, you "just gotta take care." Likewise, with lehua, "you gotta baby um," he said.
At Kahanu Garden, a co-worker taught Aiona a permaculture-based process to build a mala, or garden, that's "like a raised bed with all natural stuff that decomposes." Mala-building steps follow:
1. With a cane knife, split banana stumps in half lengthwise; remove all the leaves and set aside.
2. In the proposed planting area, cut any grass close to the ground or, if there's bare dirt, leave it alone.
3. Arrange the banana stumps, flat side down, in any desired configuration and size, with the stumps acting as a border.
4. In the center of the lined-up stumps, right on the ground's surface, pile compost, all the banana leaves, any kind of yard clippings and mulch; let them decompose for several weeks to two months.
5. With an 'o'o, or digging implement, dig holes and plant the huli. Optional: Turn the mulch and soil with a tiller.
Aiona said the decomposing material "kills the grass underneath, and the worms start moving in. They love to live in that rotting banana stump; they're doing their thing right in the bed itself. Peek underneath the mulch It should get nice and soft," he said.
This process is "really pretty simple and it seems to work for us," Aiona said of his seven-person staff that cultivates some 40 taro varieties in "dozens and dozens" of such raised beds at the 464-acre Kahanu Garden.
"It's not hard at all," he said of mala building.
The Linds' Kapahu Living Farm and Aiona's Kahanu Garden will host free open houses Sunday starting at 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., respectively, after the taro pancake breakfast. At Kahanu Garden, 126 Hana Highway, Jerry Konanui will talk about taro varieties while ethnobotanist Aiona will lead a guided tour and discuss plants, Pi'ilanihale heiau (outdoor temple) and the history of the garden.
(Konanui is featured in a film, "Malama Haloa - Protecting the Taro," that will premiere May 1 at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Filmmakers Puhipau and Joan Lander hope to screen the video on Maui soon. The film may be ordered online at www.namaka.com.)
At Kapahu Farm's open house, visitors can hike in the mountains, romp in the muddy lo'i (taro patches) and visit with the Linds.
The couple, both 62, were Hana School sweethearts, who raised their eight children in their hometown. John Lind said he's been involved for more than two decades with Kapahu Living Farm, which is affiliated with Haleakala National Park.
All this week, starting Monday, the Linds will be harvesting kalo and preparing poi. It's a special blend of the seven varieties mentioned above - a product the Linds offer only at the Hana taro celebration. Cost is about $12 for a 2-plus-pound bag, Tweetie Lind said.
Said husband John, "So far our poi is one of the best. We're not braggin'; people have been telling us that."
* Kekoa Enomoto can be reached at kekoa@mauinews.com.
