Changes sprung out from the gardens at PCC

These pictures show the changes in the garden at the Samoa and Aotearoa village

There’s a lot of physical changes taking place at PCC while we’re closed and some of the most noticeable changes are the gardens that have sprung up throughout the Center. Although many Polynesian islands have the same food crops, our PCC villages will have specific crops that will be dominant in each area as their focus crop(s) for visual differentiation. As an example, Samoa’s focus crop will be bananas and Aotearoa’s will be the kumara or sweet potato.

To accomplish this, the old Islands Office was finally demolished and the Samoan village has already started planting many varieties of bananas and other crops there to sustain their cooking demonstrations and will also add a new experience that allows guests to wander through a typical family farm or plantation. The old poi ball area in Aotearoa has now been converted to a large kumara patch that will demonstrate how kumara was stored anciently. They will also demonstrate how kumara is prepared in the hangi (underground oven) and even how it can taste like candy when dried.

Not only are these new experiences going to benefit our guests, they are already enriching our employees who are learning gardening skills and the fulfillment that comes when working directly with the land.