Extra Row Tow

If you’d like to plant a extra row and share your produce but you're not sure how to get it to those in need, The Central Pennsylvania Food Bank and Channels Food Rescue can help.

Jorja Barton, Central Pennsylvania Food Bank's Director of Agency Relations, said gardeners can search out food pantries, soup kitchens and missions local to them to donate homegrown produce. The Food Bank will be listing information about their “Gardeners Giving Back” on their website shortly. She said Channels Food Rescue also has a “Plant-A-Row” program that provides set pick up points for vegetables so they can be distributed.

Barton said the Food Bank has seen a 33% increase in demand over last year. Certain agencies have experienced as much as a 110% increase, due to job loss, over last year. At the same time, many of the Food Bank’s suppliers are now selling their foods in secondary markets to stores like Big Lot’s rather than donating.

The need for the produce from the extra row is real. I’m going to reach out to Bridges, a New Cumberland food pantry, and see if I can help organize a West Shore effort to both get fresh produce from our gardens out to those in need. And I’m going to be lobbying folks in my community to plant an extra row.

For more on Channels:
http://budurl.com/mjeb

For more on the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank:
http://budurl.com/p8qs

Harlan-isms at Pasa

For this, you need video. The entertainment value of Harlan Holmes' dramatic gestures combined with a fresh sense of humor can't be well-understood separately. But here's a peek.

Harlan is a veteran, self-described, " backyard gardener." I would add guru. His ease with conducting the course probably comes from a background of teaching. He was supposedly teaching an intro to vegetable gardening. But I learned wheelbarrows full of info and I've gardened for 10 years or more. Here's just a couple quotes. If you like them, let me know and I will post a few more.

When speaking of why you need brown with your green for composting, and cannot just pile up grass or other green, moist plant material, Harlan says: " A pile of grass clippings becomes (he's getting really animated here) a loathesome mass of putrification!"

Explaining why corn seeds sometimes need to be treated to avoid a disease called smut, Harlan says, " With treated seeds you get no smut. And I like no smut!"

Finally, a truism that, while not necessarily humorous, I will remember. And probably steal. When describing his preference for rock phosphate over bone meal, he said bone meal works faster but the idea of bones possibly having some problem, made him steer away. " I don't need fast. I'm on Nature's time." Love it.