Tropical Edibles Nursery
Tropical Edibles Nursery opened on March 21, 2012 as a nursery, selling edible plants. Many community members enjoyed local food and beverages throughout the day along with classes, demonstrations of our agricultural processing equipment, and book signings by local authors. We continue to offer many edible plants in our nursery including fruit and nut trees, herbs and vegetables, and culturally useful plans. Through we maintain a limited stock on site, we have access to a wide network of suppliers and are wiling to search and find any plant that you want. Our herb garden is chock full of plants for your sensory pleasure.
We offer descriptive tours of the garden, which include enjoying the aromas, tastes and attractiveness of numerous edible plants. Our meditation garden also offers the opportunity to experience many native and medicinal plants as well as edibles. Both gardens offer a relaxing experience as you take in the expansive view of the South Kona coast.
Our founding mission is to offer education and resources for community members to expand their knowledge and ability to grow and process their own food while adding to their farm income. We are approaching our mission in several ways.
First, we offer edible plans for sale, many of which we grow organically in nutritionally enhanced soil. We are well equipped to offer this service to those who want to learn about growing edibles. In addition to a hoop house for plant propagation and a nursery area for plant sales, we offer a demonstration herb and a medicinal/meditation garden for visitors to tour.
The large building on the property houses a fully equipped classroom for presentations, a drying deck for agricultural products, a kitchen with equipment for processing many different products, and space for presenting and selling value-added products. Our processing equipment is available at low rental rates for growers to use on site.
Our staff is knowledgeable and they can offer advice including plant selection, growing information, as well as post-harvest ideas to those who visit the nursery.
In addition, we have conducted classes designed to educate the community on why and how to grow and use edible plants. We have used our classroom space to teach classes in pruning, composting, ethnobotany, growing edible palms and flowers, as wells as ways to create soothing and healing body products with edible plants. We have also offered a class on cooking with lavender and plan to use our kitchen to teach a variety of ways to use plants and add value to crops.
We plan to expand our networking in the community by offering events of interest and benefit to the general public as well as local growers. The primary goal is to increase the quantity and quality of locally grown food while increasing interest in growing, buying and consuming it. We are also interested in becoming an ag tourist destination, offering information about agriculture and our unique crops to visitors to our area. In the near future, we plan to open a certified kitchen for rent to entrepreneurs wishing to produce value-added food products.