WAIMEA — If shoppers are lucky and get to Waimea Town Market at Parker School early enough on Saturdays, Nicole Tergeoglou will still have some of her organic non-GMO papayas left for sale. Grown in an orchard in Laupahoehoe mauka, these papayas are the best of the best.
On her farm, sheep frolic along a fence line next to a grassy slope threading through lychee and avocado trees to what looks to be more than an acre of papaya trees in various stages of development.
Papayas, it turns out, have not just one but three sexes: male, female and hermaphrodite. The elongated, pear-shaped papayas sold at the market are hermaphrodites, with a flower shape much like the mature fruit they become. The male and female trees’ fruit are rounded.
Continuing further down slope are a variety of citrus trees and a large banana grove that Tergeoglou planted five years ago. Just makai of the bananas is a buffer of ironwood trees that protect the crops from any potential spray, although there aren’t any other farms nearby.
Educated as an anthropologist, Tergeoglou has always had a love for the land and growing things.
“I was in graduate school in Colorado and working on a farm in the morning for four hours. Then, I would work on writing my dissertation in the afternoon,” she said.
Tergeoglou’s study looked at the relationship between diet and diabetes.
“We actually did a study at the University of Colorado Medical Center with juvenile diabetics,” she said. “It gave me a look at the scientific research end of things.”
In 1980, after completing her degree, Tergeoglou and her husband, David, decided to travel. Their first stop on the way to Japan was Hawaii, landing in Kahauloa, Maui ,where they worked on a farm.
After a few months they continued on to Tokyo, where Tergeoglou taught English and worked in a shop making tofu.
“It was hard living in Tokyo. We had been living on Maui working on a farm and then we were in a city,” she remembered.
Although the couple had planned to travel on, taking a train across Russia, the impending birth of their first child brought them back to Hawaii, first to Maui and then to Kohala for eight years. In 1991 they were able to buy three acres of decommissioned cane land and moved there in 1992.
After a series of jobs ranging from University of Hawaii instructor to beekeeper, Tergeoglou began managing neighbors David and Katie Henry’s fruit orchard.
The years from 2008 to the present were spent continuing to build their home, raising three children and managing the neighboring fruit orchard that she began leasing three years ago. When Tergeoglou took over the orchard, the Henrys had already gotten organic certification.
“Katie was very involved in setting up organic certification in California, so they are very supportive of organic agriculture,” she said
Certification is renewed on an annual basis by the International Certification Service.
“There’s a lot of paperwork you fill out and then they do a very thorough inspection. It’s expensive but the state reimburses you 75 percent of the cost, which is kind of nice,” Tergeoglou said.
There’s also a non-GMO guarantee that comes with her fruit.
“I test my seeds every time I do a new planting to insure there hasn’t been any contamination,” Tergeoglou said.
She provides papaya for the students at Laupahoehoe Community Public Charter School, and for those who can’t make it to Waimea, her papaya can be found at the Papaaloa Country Store and Cafe in Laupahoehoe.
Tergeoglou is one of the many hardworking growers whose stewardship of the land supplies the island with the healthy flavorful food residents have grown to expect.