Share your bounty with others

For Charlotte Wilkerson, Jake Krauss, Grant Franstead and Kay Chew, vegetable gardening isn’t just something to do in retirement at the Riverview Retirement Community. It’s a passion that gives these intrepid seniors exercise and camaraderie as they tend 19 large beds at the garden they share with the Avista Community Garden Green Thumbs on Upriver Drive.

The gardeners share their produce with anyone at Riverview who wants it.

“It helps to feed the people (at Riverview) who are hungry for fresh produce,” says Chew. She added that some of the people have difficulty getting out to the store to buy it.

“A lot of our people don’t have a lot of money, and they appreciate having it,” added Wilkerson.

And that is the spirit of the Plant a Row for the Hungry project.

Yet the Riverview gardeners take it one step further: When they have more produce than their community can use, they add their extra to the Avista Green Thumbs’ weekly delivery to the Women’s and Children’s Free Restaurant at St. Paul’s Methodist Church.

Marlene Alford and her crew at the restaurant turn the fresh produce into tasty, made-from-scratch free dinners for low income women and children two nights a week, and a Friday take-out meal.

For the past six years, the Plant a Row project has encouraged home gardeners to donate their extra garden produce to local food banks for distribution to those in need in the greater Spokane-area. Last year alone gardeners donated almost 90,000 pounds of produce. That’s 360,000 servings of fresh produce that still had most of its nutritional value.

This year, Spokane’s efforts have been joined by gardeners in Bonner County in Idaho. Plant a Row volunteers and the Bonner County Master Gardeners are working with gardeners to get produce to the food banks in West Bonner County, Sandpoint and Clark Fork.

It’s very easy to join the effort.

First locate your closest food bank. You can access a list of food banks at the Second Harvest Web site www.2-harvest.org/2-harvest under the “Get Help” tab at the top of the page. A list can also be requested by calling (509) 998-9769 and leaving your address.

Check when the food bank you want to donate to is accepting donations. Many operate only one day a week and can take things only at that time. Try to deliver the produce early enough to be available when they open their doors to clients. Vegetables should be cleaned and ready to go in bags for distribution.

There are no minimum amounts. Any vegetable or fruit is welcomed, but sturdy vegetables and fruits that are commonly available in grocery store are the most popular. Herbs and fragile greens should be brought in fresh from the garden the day of distribution or donated straight to agencies that cook meals. Ask for a Plant a Row for the Hungry receipt.

Plant a Row is a project of the Inland Empire Gardeners and the national Garden Writers Association.