A New Leaf

Manoa Hydroponic’s Janet and Ray Kosaka turned their leisure time into a new business

 

SALAD DAYS: Ray and Janet Kosaka examine their latest harvest of Manoa Lettuce. photo: Karin Kovalsky

After Janet Kosaka and her mother retired from Varsity Flowers in 2002, Janet’s hothouse also got a rest from the flower business. The 1,000-square-foot building adjacent to her Manoa home soon became a large storage room, collecting everything from bicycles to toys. “It was a real hodgepodge — a mixture of different plants and storage [items],” she says. That is, until the Kosakas gave the space new life with hydroponic lettuce.

Now Janet and her husband, Ray, have cultivated a small business — with a big customer following — selling lettuce and other greens at Manoa Marketplace’s open-air market.

Many familiar faces stop by soon after the market opens 7 a.m., choosing from neatly bagged, pesticide-free greens, including about 10 varieties of lettuce ranging from Manoa and Romaine to rare varieties such as Loma, which has a spiky-looking fringe. Their offerings also include Japanese varieties such as mizuna (usually found only during the New Year’s holiday), as well as komatsuna. Both are good in soups. The bags range from $2 to $6, depending on the size. They sell about 100 bags each Sunday.

“We already can’t keep up with demand. But we’re just going to do what we can, and if they come late and it’s sold out, it’s sold out,” says Ray, who owned his own real estate business for 25 years until retiring about seven years ago.

That may sound harsh, but the nature of Manoa Hydroponics is gentle, and the Kosakas devote love and attention to each plant. They separate seeds one by one, transplant seedlings and diligently oversee their six-week growth cycle.

After retiring, Ray first turned his attention to breeding and distributing freshwater fish, but after several years, he put the aquarium business aside to take care of his parents, both well into their 90s. They passed away within the past two years, and he and Janet found themselves asking, “What do we do?”

“I didn’t want to just play ... and we had a friend who was into hydroponics. It was intriguing,” he says.

The research and experimentation process was long and expensive. Ray built or adapted all the hardware, building the growing tables and trays, figuring out how to waterproof them. Through that process, he “bonded” with the business. “If I didn’t have to do all that, I might not have gotten into it as much,” says Ray.

The couple credits Hilo-based University of Hawaii horticulturalist Bernard Kratky for giving them valuable advice. Next, the Kosakas entered the market-research phase, giving lettuce to their friends and neighbors to sample. That went well – too well. “They wanted it all the time,” Ray says. “And they didn’t want to wait until we had extras.” So, last fall, Manoa Hydroponics went to market.

They chose lettuce because that’s what their friend was growing and, besides, “almost everyone eats lettuce,” Janet says. Now the plants require an average of five hours a day, from the time the seed is planted to getting the heads to market.

“Hydroponics is the way of the future,” Janet says, citing stricter USDA rules governing pesticide and fertilizer use. The Kosakas’ greens are pesticide-free, though the plants rely on fertilizer to grow. The recent E. coli scare involving Mainland-grown spinach illustrates how producers can’t control runoff through their croplands. “Hydroponics is much more controlled,” she says.

The Kosakas aren’t getting rich selling lettuce. But that’s OK by them. “We’re not dependent on it, and that’s what makes it beautiful. In business, this is an area that most businesses forget: You gotta make it fun,” he says.

“People should realize profit is not always money,” he adds. “Having satisfaction, being productive, having a purpose in life and clients being loyal. That’s our profit, really.”

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