by Amy Swanson
Harvest heading to the pantry
“Serendipitous”. That was what I was thinking as I walked home after working at theInterfaith Garden. With many experienced hands this morning, we were done with all the harvesting, cleaning, delivering and weeding well before 9:30am. So it gave a few of us time to shoot the breeze as we leisurely cleaned up. I was talking with two volunteers from First Parish and recounted how the little giving garden started a few years ago by 3 couples from their congregation on adjacent First Parish land acted as a gateway introduction of sorts to Carla and her garden. These 3 couples wanted to do something to help hungry neighbors and so they planted a small garden on church land with the intent of donating the produce to the Lexington Food Pantry. Neighborly chats and sharing of water by Carla to the First Parish garden eventually led to the gracious offer by Carla to use her large garden as the site to launch theInterfaith Garden. Yes, I’d call that initial private undertaking by 6 people as serendipitous when you consider where it led. And what happened to that FP garden? It is still being worked and has been incorporated into the InterfaithGarden. It is often referred to as the “small garden” in our reports.
By the way, over 60 pounds of produce were delivered this morning and include: cherry tomatoes, tomatoes, basil, yellow squash, acorn squash, cucumbers, green peppers, eggplant, butternut squash, bok choy, radish, parsley, green beans, peppers, swiss chard, zucchini, and pumpkin. Carla added some fresh eggs as well as zinnias and cosmos.
I borrowed Carla’s notebook to look back at the record of our volunteers. Would you believe that this season so far, there have been over 275 sign-ins, by almost 120 different people! That doesn’t count Carla, not everyone remembers to sign in, and I know that some days are missing. Some volunteers deserve a special shout-out for the number of times they have helped: Carla (of course), Mark S., Teresa A., Eli H., Amy S., Joyce G., Larry M., Keith W., Louise W., MaryAnn S., and Omar K.
Lantana Blossoms
Produce at the food pantry
Volunteers at the garden today came from First Parish, Hancock, and Redeemer