Area gardeners give food banks their fill

You did it again. All you backyard vegetable gardeners out there defied one of the wackiest growing seasons in memory by growing and donating 43,682 pounds of extra produce to our local food banks. That’s 174,728 servings of fresh, high quality, nutritious and expensive vegetables. And that’s only the stuff we have solid numbers for.

The Plant A Row for the Hungry program, The Inland Empire Gardeners and the Garden Writers Association thank each and every one of you for your efforts to help out families who need a little quality food to keep going until our economy begins growing again.

It wasn’t easy. You planted early to take advantage of the early spring and then replanted when it turned cold in June. You nursed your plants into the blazing heat of mid-July and then covered them to ward off the cold excuse for Indian summer. I heard a lot of gardeners asking if it was worth it at all this year to grow a garden.

Your perseverance made a big difference though. Just ask Marlene Alford, Executive Director of the Women’s and Children’s Restaurant at St. Paul’s Methodist Church.

Alford and her band of volunteers took your donations and added them to other foods, creating made-from-scratch gourmet dinners that fed upwards of 100 women and children every Tuesday and Thursday evening. For their Friday take-out meal, they fed 250.

“The ladies love it because that’s what they can’t afford to buy. It’s in keeping with our belief in nutritional meals. The fresher the better whether it’s to serve or take home,” said Alford. “It helps over the weekend when there are no school lunches and other agencies are closed.”

Across the emergency food network, the need for donations is still great and will continue to be so until employment picks up. According to Second Harvest Food Bank’s recent survey of clients, there was a drop in the number of people employed all year last year.

“Some people worked only part of the year and others never did find work. Families want fresh produce but they can’t afford it,” said Ann M. Price, Director of Development and Communications for Second Harvest Food Bank of the Inland Northwest. 16,000 people a month are relying on the food banks in Spokane County and almost half of these are children.

The names on the donation slips that made it back to me showed that your efforts were accomplished by ordinary individuals named Tim, Mike and Carol, and a whole lot of people simply named “anonymous.”

Folks banded together to grow food. The seventh and eight grade students at Northwood Middle School grew an amazing 2,582 pounds of produce at their Loon Lake, Wash., garden. Each spring the seventh-grade students and their teacher Guy Pruitt plant a huge garden at the donated site. Volunteer students and adults tend the garden over the summer and in the fall, the now-eighth-graders go back and harvest the results.

Over at the headquarters of the Avista Corporation, the Green Thumbs rallied their co-workers to coax 2,113 pounds of veggies out of the 25 raised beds in their community garden. They worked directly with Second Harvest to purposely grow vegetables that were needed the most.

Up in the north end of Spokane County, the gardeners of Colbert Presbyterian Church pooled their talents to grow a 3,000 square foot garden that produced 1,100 pounds of produce. The rewards turned out to be as much a community building activity as it was a food growing effort.

“This was our second growing season so we are still getting to know the site,” said Janis Goss, who together with her husband Randy chair the Garden of Hope. “Some of us know a lot about gardening. Others are just starting to learn.”

Goss said they are ready to go next year. “We are going to start a gardening club to support the effort,” she added.

Sound like something you’d like to try next year? It’s not difficult and now is the perfect time to start planning a garden.

Plan to grow more of each vegetable you plant. Add another pot of tomatoes to the patio garden. Band together with your neighbors, co-workers or church friends and start a garden. If you are a gardener, teach a neighbor or friend how to grow one. It doesn’t have to be huge, a few square feet of good dirt with access to water and lots of sunlight will do just fine.

If you have questions on how to start or do form a group please let me know at 924-4572 or e-mail me at srmunts@mindspring.com. I want to celebrate your success in this space next year.

Happy holidays, gardeners, and thank you.