Welcome to One Island
One Island’s flagship center is located in South Kona, in the village of Honaunau. This quiet rural neighborhood is lush with tropical fruits, colorful flowers, luminous green plants, and big monkey pod trees. And we are graced with seasonal butterflies, native owls and hawks. It really is a tropical delight. We overlook the Pacific and the historic Kealakekua Bay; just down the road is great snorkeling and the Pu’uhonua o Honaunau national historic monument also called the Place of Refuge. It is the most beautiful temple restoration and grounds in Hawaii with impressive stone work, coconut palms and carved temple posts.
Our education center is an open air agricultural building where we store and prepare food for farmers markets and the food bank, hold meetings, and host summer camps and special events. It is a 2500 square foot gravel floor structure with lots of light, refreshing breezes, and periodic visits by the butterflies.
The farm has been using organic practices since October of 2004 and was cleared of gnarly christmas berry in 2006. At that point it was black barren rock punctuated by stately mangoes and kukui groves. Soon the plant matter came back and successive croppings have built up some soil and even a lawn area with a firepit and stage for events. Plants are tenacious here, every pocket of soil gives them chance to thrive.
Our guest learners visit for a few hours to a few months and everyone enjoys the open air living. There are solar hot water showers, a composting toilet, tent areas, a common cooking area, solar electricity and internet access, and a media center for movie nights and presentations. We use local, recycled, or renewable materials wherever possible and of course compost and recycle diligently.
Water is a combination of county from a local well and catchment from the rain is caught in a 32,000 gallon tank. We also catch rainwater for our food gardens right off our center in rain barrels, and grow food in raised beds, containers, up trellises, and as landscaping all around the center. We’ve experimented with small scale aquaponics, bio char and natural farming and are now creating a new Community Garden with the help of our local and visiting volunteers.
We welcome volunteers for visits by special advance arrangements – from individuals to traveling school groups.
Fruits that grow in the specific micro-climate include:
Bananas, Mangoes, Pineapple, Papaya, Coconut, Cacao, Oranges, Limes, Grapefruit, Rambutan, Lychee, Sapotes, Breadfruit, Surinam Cherries, Mangosteen, Noni, Starfruit, tree Tomatoes, Lilliokoi, and that is just part of the list.
Our garden and farm features include:
Native Plants
Canoe Plants
Ancient Grains
Superfoods
Zero Mile
Greenhouse
Container
Raised bed
Medicinal
Reclaimed green building materials
Edible Landscapes
Pollinator Meadow
Spice Island
Medicine Wheel
Fruit Orchards
Kukui Grove
Wildlife habitats include mango trees for roosting hawks and owls, butterfly attractors, seeds for song birds, pheasants and turkeys.
To join us for a tour, volunteer day, workshop, guest steward stay or special event, email hawaii@oneisland.org
Mahalo!