food bank

Donating to Local Food Bank

~ McArtor ~ 4 Comments
The Howard County Community Garden food bank donation for July 21st

The Howard County Conservancy Community Garden donates a portion of its produce to the Howard County Food Bank every Tuesday and Thursday.  Volunteers pick the produce contributions from a plot solely dedicated to the food bank and from individuals’ gardens with portions marked for the food bank.  Often a gardener will mark their plot for the food bank when they are out of town for  an extended period of time.  The goal is to prevent waste in our gardens.

Yesterday, my son and I joined another gardener to pick the produce for donation.    It was fun and I learned how to harvest cabbage.  The cabbage head is cut from the thick stalk because a new cabbage head may grow from the old stalk.   I will look for cabbage regrowth in the food bank plot.

We collected three bags of produce including tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, Malabar spinach, zucchini, and eggplant.   It weighed in at 29 pounds at the food bank!   The fresh organic produce was greatly appreciated.

Over 36 million Americans are hungry and rely on local food pantries to help sustain their families.  For more information about how other gardeners are giving to food banks across Maryland and the United States visit Grow It Give It.

Light Through the Swiss Chard

~ McArtor ~ Leave a comment
swiss chard leaf

Gardening with kids is a joy, but often it feels like double the work.  Its more messy and exhausting.  Now that it’s summer and my son is out of school, it will be  hard to get all the work done in our garden plot.  While I focus on my gardening tasks, I need to keep an eye on my son.   He will wander off from our plot, visit our garden neighbors and chat with a busy gardener or experiment with a hose nozzle that is not ours.  He forgets that he can not hurl sticks and stones in the garden or cut the grass near the plastic deer fence.  He is just too busy to help me weed, plant, or pick.  Except for yesterday, when he watered his garden bed and created a mud pool at our plot entrance.

All the chaotic and frustrating moments gardening with my son are tolerable when I remember the many priceless life lessons he has learned while at our plot.   Yesterday, I gave a bag of our swiss chard to the community gardener collecting donations for our local food bank.  My son asked me, “What is a food bank?”  I explained.  He asked more questions until I had no more answers.  I picked a bagful of Romain lettuce, gave it to my son and told him to give it to the “food bank” woman.    He carried the bag past several plots and hundreds of distractions to the right woman and cheerfully gave her our lettuce.

What lessons have your kids learned while gardening with you?

Tomato Tales

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Traveling Tomatoes

Some of our  tomato plants are still producing small amounts of grape and cherry tomatoes.  We planted indeterminant tomato plants this year. An indeterminate tomato variety will continue to set and ripen fruit until killed off by frost.  We collected thousands of these sweeties this season.  Picking them can be tedious, but tasty.  My husband and son would pop them right into their mouths as they picked.  I tried several ways to cook and preserve these little guys.  I roasted them (at 250 degrees for 2 hours)  until they became shriveled like a sun dried tomato, then froze them in little baggies.  I sauteed them with garlic and olive oil and tossed in penne pasta.  I gave them away to friends and family.  This week, the batch in the photo traveled to the Howard County Food Bank.  A much appreciative staff carried them away to a refrigerator.  I am sure they will be enjoyed.  I hope more produce from our garden will travel to the food bank this season and  future seasons.