The Upcountry Farmers Market opens at 7 a.m. on Saturdays at Kulamalu Town Center, just off Highway 37. By 8:30, it is crowded. The people filling those stalls are not on vacation.
This is the thing about Kula that takes time to understand: the land doesn't sit behind the social life here, it organizes it. The farm calendar is the social calendar. What's in season determines what your neighbor is pressing into your hands at the market, what's on the specials board at the bistro, and what your kids are doing after school in October. Residents who move Upcountry from the coast expecting the beach-and-restaurant rhythm of South Maui often take a season or two to recalibrate. Then they find themselves setting their alarm for 6:45 on a Saturday and wondering why they ever lived anywhere else.
Saturday Starts at the Market
The Upcountry Farmers Market runs every Saturday from 7 to 11 a.m. at the Kulamalu Town Center on Highway 37 near Pukalani. The stalls carry fresh locally grown organic produce — coconuts, macadamia nuts, tropical fruit, cut flowers — alongside honey, homemade goods, and prepared foods from rotating vendors. The variety changes week to week with what Upcountry growers are actually harvesting, which makes it a reliable read on the season even when you're not consciously tracking the season.
It is also, practically speaking, where you see your neighbors. For a community spread across winding hillside roads with no real town center, a weekly farmers market functions the way a main street might elsewhere. Arrive early if you want first pick of the produce; arrive a little later if you mostly want the conversation.
Kula Country Farms Is More Than a Farm Stand
If the market is the weekly pulse, Kula Country Farms is the slower, deeper institution. The Monden 'Ohana has been farming in Kula for four generations. Their farm stand at 6240 Kula Highway is open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and carries produce grown on their own 40-acre property in Polipoli alongside goods from neighboring growers.
"Grown here not flown here" — the sign posted in the Kula Country Store
That sign matters. It is a quiet but deliberate statement about what the farm stand is for. This is not a curated lifestyle destination stocked with imports wearing local labels. The store carries Kula strawberries, Kula onions, blueberries, and seasonal produce alongside local jams, honey, crafts, and cut flowers. On property you will find the Country Coffee Maui stand for espresso drinks and the Maile Tea Company cart for teas and light refreshments. There is a Little Free Library and a seed exchange. The third Saturday of every month brings a crafter's fair.
As Maui Magazine described it, what began as a roadside stand has become an Upcountry gathering place — "part produce market, part community classroom, wholly rooted in laulima, or many hands working together." That description holds. On a Tuesday afternoon, when the parking lot has two cars, you can still find the kind of unhurried conversation that is increasingly hard to find on an island that has grown faster than some of its communities wanted.
Right Now: Strawberry Season
Strawberry U-pick at Kula Country Farms runs from April 1 through June 7. As of May 2026, you are in the middle of the window. The pick-your-own patch is open during regular farm hours; the farm also carries strawberry lemonade, a detail that sounds minor until you have tried it in the field at 10 a.m. with the Haleakalā slope behind you.
The seasonal rhythm across the year looks like this:
| Season | What's Happening at Kula Country Farms |
|---|---|
| April–June | Strawberry U-pick, Kula onions, spring produce |
| July–September | Summer vegetables, stone fruits, crafter's fairs |
| October | Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze (all month) |
| November–March | Winter produce, holiday market, off-season farm stand |
The pumpkin patch in October draws families from across Maui for corn maze walks, food vendors, and more than two dozen varieties of pumpkins and gourds. For residents, it is the fall event. The farm does not import the season — it grows it.
When the Farm Becomes Dinner
O'o Farm takes the same agricultural ethic and turns it into a full afternoon. Located at 651 Waipoli Road on the slopes of Haleakalā, the farm offers guided farm-to-table experiences Monday through Friday. The lunch tour runs from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and costs $155 for adults, $77.50 for children ages 5 to 12, with kama'āina rates available with a valid Hawaiʻi ID.
The format is a guided walk through vegetable fields, edible flower gardens, and fruit orchards before a four-course family-style lunch prepared with ingredients harvested that morning. The menu changes weekly based on what is ready. A recent menu included sourdough focaccia with garden salad, fresh marlin over black rice, chicken with kale slaw, and chocolate truffles made from the farm's own coffee cherry husks. The coffee tour is a separate experience: a seed-to-cup journey through the coffee orchards, followed by a French press tasting and farm-to-table brunch.
This is not a restaurant. There are no walk-ins. You reserve in advance, and tours sell out. What O'o Farm offers is a version of what Kula Country Farms offers at a slower pace and a different price point: a direct encounter with what is growing on this hillside, right now, in this week. The menu is a transcript of the land's current state.
The Tables That Close the Loop
The farms and the restaurants in Kula are not separate categories. Several of the most reliable spots in the area source directly from the same growing operations that supply the farm stands and the market.
- Kula Bistro at 4566 Lower Kula Road: Italian and local flavors, known for the Kula Bistro Salad and wood-fired pizzas with locally sourced toppings.
- Restaurant Marlow at 990 Kula Hwy: a locally sourced menu that changes with the season; the cioppino and roasted root vegetable dishes reflect what Upcountry farms are producing.
- Maui Bees Farm at 150 Pulehunui Road: locally roasted coffee, honey products, and baked goods made with farm ingredients — sourdough focaccia, brown-butter chocolate chip cookies, pastries that vary with what's in the kitchen.
- Grandma's Coffee House: a Kula institution for freshly roasted coffee, the kind of place where the coffee is good enough that regulars do not feel the need to explain it to newcomers.
- Kula Lodge at 15200 Haleakala Highway: panoramic views across the central valley, with a Sunday brunch that has become a standing appointment for a certain segment of Upcountry residents.
None of these spots are trying to replicate a mainland dining experience at elevation. They are restaurants that know where they are.
The Community Calendar Peaks May 30
The agricultural year in Kula has a public ceremony: the Maui AgFest and 4-H Livestock Fair, presented by the Maui County Farm Bureau and the County of Maui Department of Agriculture. The 2026 edition is scheduled for Saturday, May 30 at the War Memorial Special Events Field, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults; under 18 is free.
Last year's event drew more than 7,500 guests. The day includes a Taste Education session with Chef Perry Bateman of Mama's Fish House, a Mahi Pono Watermelon Eating Contest on the Main Stage at 2 p.m., a Maui Legacy Farmers Pancake Breakfast, and a full keiki zone. Farmers, ranchers, producers, and distributors are all present — the network that supplies what you find at the market every Saturday, made visible for one long afternoon.
For Kula residents, AgFest is not a field trip. It is a homecoming for the community that has been feeding the island quietly all year.
Ali'i Kula Lavender belongs in any honest account of how Kula residents spend a slow afternoon. Situated at 1100 Waipoli Road at roughly 4,000 feet of elevation, the 13.5-acre garden grows approximately nine lavender varieties that bloom year-round, along with olive trees, hydrangea, Protea, and succulents. Admission is $5 per person; guided walking tours are available throughout the day. The porch overlooks the central valley of Maui. It is the kind of place you bring out-of-town guests who ask what Kula is actually like, and then find yourself staying longer than planned.
Kula does not announce itself. It doesn't need to. The people who live here have figured out a rhythm that is tied to the land in a way that is genuinely rare, and they are not in a hurry to change it. The farm calendar — strawberry season in spring, pumpkin patch in fall, the weekly market every Saturday, the monthly crafter's fair, AgFest at the end of May — is the calendar. Everything else fits around it.
If you are thinking about what life actually looks like in Kula, this is a meaningful part of the answer.
Lena Walleng Island Properties works with buyers and sellers across Upcountry Maui with the kind of local knowledge that only comes from years of living here. If you have questions about what it is like to call Kula home, reach out — the conversation is a good place to start.
