Picking Tomatoes At Ho Farms

I am enrolled in the GoFarm’s AgSchool Program as part of Cohort 4 in Leeward Community College and we started class yesterday, January 7, 2016. We had visited Ho Farms in Kahuku last month during the AgXposure phase of the program and they requested help from our class to harvest tomatoes in their Hoopili farm near Ewa Beach.
I was a bit eager and arrived much earlier than scheduled. I got a chance to admire the new rail transit overhead tracks which have been under construction for some time now. It was chilly in the morning but the skies were clear so I was able to enjoy a golden sunrise across the green field.

As soon as Shin, one of the owners of Ho Farms, got to our meeting location we scouted for a block of tomato plants with ripe fruits to pick. She handed us gloves and buckets and we started picking. Once you are deep in between the plots of thick plants, you will immediately smell the strong sweet scent if the tomatoes. I felt like I was in tomato heaven.
Picking tomatoes was not as labor intensive as I imagined, but I felt drained from being under the sun. We harvested for half of the day, and Shin’s parents provided lunch for us before we left.

Ho Farms is a 160 acre operation, and I’m somewhat overwhelmed by trying to wrap my head around a 13 feet by 50 feet of plot available for us during 4 months of AgSchool. But I am confident that GoFarm will do its best to educate us, to hopefully eliminate some of the uncertainties in agriculture, and to make us successful farmers.

The key take away for me today is observing the amount of harvest produced from the amount of labor who showed up. I am also grateful for the help and support of other farmers such as Ho Farms in our journey as beginner farmers.