Exciting News.

I received some really exciting news in the garden today. I was out fertilizing the tomatoes and the rest of the plants, after the last week of heavy rains, when the director of the garden came by, bringing some great news. See, I had mentioned to him a couple weeks ago that being as fortunate as we are with this garden, the space, the ability to grow our own healthy and nutritious food, everything, that it really felt wrong to not be growing things for the community food bank. I had already come to the conclusion that with my own personal plot I would reap a huge amount of food and that I'd give 10% of my total harvest, but we definitely could do more! So anyway, he said that I could have an extra two or three rows to plant things. This essentially doubles the size of my growing plot and multiplies by 5 the amount of food I'll be able to bring to the food pantry! So far I've doubled the amount of potatoes I'm growing, added two more tomato plants and planted zucchini and yellow squash, all of which are good at producing lots of food. I also bought two bulk packets of green beans which tomorrow I'm going to begin succession planting to make sure there's a constant supply of green beans!

When it comes down to it, 1.4 million of my fellow New Yorkers depend on soup kitchens and food banks to meet their food needs and too often people use food banks to get rid of their canned foods that they themselves don't want. (Hint: If you don't want to eat the year old spam, why would someone else want to?) Further, those dependent on these sources to feed themselves often live in what are colloquially termed food deserts, where low-cost, nutritious food is almost impossible to find. I know whatever I'll be able to squeeze from the land won't individually solve the hunger problem that this city faces, but I'm an "either help bail the boat or get out" sorta guy and so I'm very excited for this opportunity and hope the success I've had in my own plot will carry over into this new project. I'll keep you informed.