Hale ‘Opio goes to ‘Ele’ele for children’s garden plants

Dennis Fujimoto / The Garden Island

Maya Tayal of Hale ‘Opio and volunteer Harley Morris load vegetable seedlings, Saturday from ‘Ele‘ele Elementary School student Carmila Udarbe and her mentor Basilio Fuertes.

By Dennis Fujimoto The Garden Island | Sunday, July 11, 2021, 12:05 a.m.

‘ELE‘ELE — Maya Tayal, of Hale ‘Opio, could not believe the timing of the seedling distribution by ‘Ele‘ele Elementary School student Carmila Udarbe and her mentor Basilio “Bunga” Fuertes Saturday, fronting the Gather Federal Credit Union branch in the ‘Ele‘ele Shopping Center.

“I just saw the notice about the distribution,” Tayal said. “It goes well with the children’s gardens we’re putting in at Hale ‘Opio.”

Tayal said the gardens are possible through the generosity of several community companies like Gil Construction who provided most of the material to create the gardens by volunteer Harley Morris who works for Gil Construction.

“We have the plants,” Tayal said. “Kaua‘i Nursery and Landscaping is providing the soil and some tools for the children to work with when we get in, next week. The children will be so thrilled.”

Tayal was among the stream of customers taking advantage of the seedling distribution where the chili peppers, both the Hawaiian and Japanese varieties, were the first to go, followed closely by the Nitta variety of eggplant seedlings.

“People like the spicy stuff,” Fuertes said. “But we have a lot of other seedlings, and we threw a couple of extra for those Hale ‘Opio kids.”

Udarbe, Fuertes, and Roy Miyashiro had a variety of seedlings including Sweet Red bulb onions, the Nitta variety of Waimanalo eggplant, Heirloon cherry tomatoes, bitter melon, Japanese cucumber, Filipino long beans, and Filipino sweet green peppers.

“We had extra seed for the yellow variety bulb onion so we mixed it with the red onion,” Fuertes said. “Just no eat them with saimin. You can use the shoots of the bitter melon in saimin. It’s really good.”

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Dennis Fujimoto / The Garden Island

‘Ele‘ele School student Carmila Udarbe looks on as Basilio Fuertes explains how to plant the red bulb onion seedlings to a customer, Saturday during the seedling distribution fronting he Gather Federal Credit Union ‘Ele‘ele Shopping Center Branch.