Bountiful harvest

The Veradale United Church of Christ didn’t start with any loaves or fishes, just a narrow strip of ground behind the parking lot.

But with that tiny chunk of earth the church has managed to donate 1,529 pounds of produce to the Valley Food Bank this year, a number that will go up as the last of the vegetables finish producing.

The garden, which is four times larger than last year’s, actually produced much more than what was donated. “Sometimes things got ripe and couldn’t wait,” said the Rev. Linda Crowe. Volunteers harvested every Tuesday and brought things to the food bank for distribution on Wednesday. Things that couldn’t wait to be picked were given to parishioners.

Crowe has saved a few of the potatoes that have “character,” coming out of the ground with odd bulges that make them look like turtles or Mickey Mouse. The volunteers grew everything from cucumbers to green beans to carrots. The garden was started by church volunteers, but as word got out about the large garden planted exclusively for the Valley Food Bank, the church got dozens of visitors over the summer. Some just came to look around, others came to weed and kept coming back. Along the way two other Valley churches have expressed interest in starting gardens for the food bank next year. “This is one of the biggest blessings of the garden, is the community,” Crowe said.

So many people came by that next year a gazebo will be added as an Eagle Scout project.

“A lot of people came by the garden to visit,” said church member and garden volunteer Glen Scott.

Other gardeners also have marveled at how the church’s garden thrived in a year when squirrely spring weather put a damper on many crops.

“Some of us are convinced it was that song we sang, ‘Inch by inch, row by row,’ ” Crowe said.

All the produce was greatly appreciated, said Spokane Valley Partners CEO Ken Briggs. While many people might bring in a few bags of produce once or twice, the church was the largest single donor of fresh produce this summer.

“Right now we have an abundance of produce,” he said. “All these things make an incredible difference.”

People who visit the food bank are always very glad to see fresh food.

“We get very good feedback,” he said. “Fresh is just always best, but it can be expensive.”

Already church volunteers are looking at what worked well this year and what changes to make for next year. Some of the problem plants were the cherry tomatoes. The plants were planted close together, making harvest difficult, and the sprinklers made many of the small orbs split open.

“We’ve talked about next year having sprinklers for some things and drip irrigation for others,” Scott said.

Other problems can probably be traced to the weather.

“The zucchini didn’t do as well as we expected,” he said. “We had a lot of green beans, a lot of potatoes.”

And next year the blueberry and raspberry bushes should start producing.

“A lot of the stuff that was planted this year was planted with next year in mind,” Crowe said.