Giving Gardens

Busile's pea shoots and corn!

If you’ve ever grown a summer garden, you know that sometimes you can end up with more than you need! How much yellow squash or zucchini can one family eat? In the tradition of sharing a bumper crop with your neighbors, we have partnered up with the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle again this year to be a collection spot for the Plant A Row for the Hungry (PAR) program. This national program works to connect urban gardeners with those who are hungry in their communities. PAR has partners all across our area who have planted extra in their gardens to ensure a bumper crop, but someone with just a few extra tomatoes could just as easily become a part of this great program. Just bring your home grown extras in on Thursday or Friday and leave it in the designated bin in the Produce Department (near the front doors). Whether you bring vegetables, fruit, herbs, or flowers, take pride in the fact that you are personally working to reduce hunger in our area.
 
In case you haven’t noticed our Community Garden in the back of our parking lot, you need to check it out! Busile’s corn is tall, our sunflowers bright, and the whole garden is a frequent stopping point for enchanting (and pollinating) butterflies and dragonflies, too. Our swiss chard is growing vibrantly, despite the heat, and our tomato plants are bursting with big green tomatoes that are soaking up this hot July sun. We currently have 4 families involved in our garden and their plots are looking great.  What could make this garden even more beautiful? How about the fact that everything we grow is a contribution to the PAR program? Everything that we grow (and our member families are encouraged to share their harvest) in our Community Garden is sent along with the other donations to the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle to help nourish someone who needs it.  We have also partnered with Cary’s Pocket Community Garden and Penny Road Elementary PTA Community Garden to support their gardening efforts, and also to serve as a Plant A Row drop off for their extra produce.