HALIIMAILE - The Hali'imaile Farmers Market sprouts this weekend, the third such venture to start in a year Upcountry.
The market will make its debut from 1 to 6 p.m. Friday at Hali'imaile Town Center in a former Maui Pineapple Co. parking lot next to Hali'imaile General Store.
"There's so much food Upcountry," said Debbie May, whose Guaranteed Organic farm of Makawao will offer luffa sponges, macadamia nuts, kale and wheat grass.
Article Photos
Paia resident Will Hunt cuts coconut Wednesday at the Makawao Farmers Market. While Hunt can be rough on the coconuts, he said he is gentle on the trees that provide them, trimming and gathering without using spikes to climb the trunks. “I’m all about loving the trees,” Hunt said. On Friday afternoon, the Hali‘imaile Farmers Market will be launched at the Hali‘imaile Town Center.
The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
"Come on up and have a shot" of wheat grass juice, invited May, who helped start the Makawao Farmers Market a year ago. "The vendors play music on harps, organ and ukulele. . . . It's a social watering hole."
Also, Upcountry Farmers Market started last summer. It is open Saturday mornings at Kulamalu Town Center in Pukalani.
Fridays at Haliimaile, 20 purveyors will offer products from Makawao - including CalGirl microgreens, Coco Willy's fresh coconuts, and Indian cuisine and spice mix by Uma. Kula products will include Maui Joe Coffee, handmade Thompson Soaps, and bananas, eggplant, fennel, romaine and spinach from Coco Farms; plus Upcountry flowers and fruits by Heig.
The new market is one of several businesses reviving this village on the Haleakala slopes. Others include Haliimaile Pineapple Co., Ding Kings Fiberglass Works and CrossFit Upcountry Maui.
Kaye Whitney, who moved CrossFit into an 1,800-square-foot facility at 900 Haliimaile Road on June 1, called the site "funky, cool, quiet (and) picturesque."
"Everybody loves it. . . . I couldn't be happier, and the price is totally affordable," she said.
Hali'imaile Farmers Market is a project of the nonprofit Maui Community Garden Initiative, with Maui Land & Pineapple Co. providing the site. An opening-day prize drawing will offer a $50 handmade Christmas wreath of native greens; shoppers must sign up by 4 p.m., organizers said.
For more information, contact May at 463-1676 or Verna Podlewski at 877-3875 or via e-mail at vpodlewski@mlpmaui.com.
* Kekoa Enomoto can be reached at kekoa@mauinews.com.
