Hey all!

Weezie asked me to post some information about Plant a Row for the Hungry (PAR), so that's what I'm doing. I'd love to hear about anyone elses experience with PAR too.

Most veggie gardeners produce more than they know what to do with (I've got to learn how to can, freeze and preserve.) That's when we start giving our spare produce away to friends, family, co-workers and strangers. With this excess in mind, PAR was started by the Garden Writers Association. For more information see Garden Writers Association/PAR.

The concept of PAR is to reserve a row from your veggie garden to donate to a local food pantry. I started PAR in our garden club back in 2000. We get community garden plots donated to us from the park district, and we plant over 8 plots with an assortment of fruits and veggies. I've got seedlings in my basement that are slated for our PAR efforts. Most of the produce that we grow at the community plots gets donated to our local food pantry. Last year we donated over 2000 lbs of fresh produce.

You don't have to do what we did as a group. Many donations are made be individual gardners like us . All you have to do is locate a local food pantry, soup kitchen or the like, find out when they accept donations, and drop off your extras. I'll dig up some green onions for the pantry this weekend. I'll donate extra apples from my apple tree in the fall. That's all there is to it.

Since we are working on a slightly larger scale, we have discovered that some items are received better than others. For example, swiss chard produced like gang busters in our plots, but no one knew what to do with them, so they were rarely taken. We've scaled back on the tomatoes a bit becuase everyone has spare tomatoes by July and August. Cherry tomatoes taste great, but they take too long to pick. We've kind of given up on peas because the amount of effort required for what we got just didn't make it worth it.

Crops that keep producing like broccoli are great. Eggplant is also a crop that has produced well for us, and is very popular at the pantry. As any home gardener knows, if you have a few squash or zucchini plants, you'll have plenty to give away. We always grow several plantings of beans.

Growing for your region or demographic also helps. Our pantry serves a large Hispanic population, so we grew hot peppers and tomitillos instead of the swiss chard. Another example that I can think of is collard greens in the South. Personally, I wouldn't know what to do with collard greens, but hear they are a staple in the South.

We are always experimenting with new crops to see how well they will perform in our PAR plots, and to see how well they are received at the pantry.

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Composting is more than good for your garden. It's a way of life.

That's a darn good idea!! I'm going to look into that!!

This is an awesome thought!

Dick York was such a wonderful human being, getting behind Second Harvest, even in his declining health. We all need to care about other people in such ways.



And Fernie, the more I know you, the more I adore you...



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Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony... ~Mahatma Gandhi

Rocking through the night
All is silent...Southern Cross