Grow And Share

While finalizing details for our upcoming fundraiser/music festival, we were invited to visit one of the farms serving as a "farm education station" during the event: Vollmer Farm in Bunn NC.  Vollmer is coming to the festival to educate attendees on several local crops and on milk production.

Now, we have been to the farm many times.  We’ve picked strawberries with the kids and with the grandkids too.  We had seen Vollmer’s signs mentioning their hayride.  We didn’t give too much thought to it, though, because we could see the whole farm — we thought — and figured that the hayride was just a turn around the area we could see.

We were soooo wrong!

Melissa met us at the farm’s market.  She drove us beyond where we thought the farm ended, and into their “Back Forty”.  There were buildings all over and more fields!

Melissa showed us the wagons used for hayrides, the big corn maze, concession stands, greenhouses, kids' pumpkin field, and more!  This “hidden” area included the biggest trampoline I’ve seen — an in-the-ground, pumpkin-colored marvel!  I’ll bet a dozen adults could jump on it at the same time, as it had to have been at least 50 feet long and is likely much longer!  There was even a 40ft underground slide, which they are soon expanding to 100ft.

Amazing, truly amazing, that we had lived so close to such a treasure — and had kids at home we wanted to do things with — and hadn’t found out about their farm fun until now! Needless to say, when Vollmer Farm opens up the Back Forty in September, we will be taking the children, and may even stay for one of the Saturday afternoon bonfires Melissa mentioned!

Just announced by Whole Foods:

"This Thursday, August 27^th, Whole Foods Market in Raleigh, NC will be collecting surplus produce from area gardeners to donate to Grow and Share (www.growandshare.org). This is a great opportunity to donate those prolific veggies and fruits you’ve run out of recipes for! The donation basket will be located in our produce department."

This year, we gave away close to 2,000 garden plants and had many pledge-signed gardeners growing food to share. They were spread across Franklin, Wake, Vance, and Durham counties... possibly a few from Nash and Johnson Counties too.

Next year, our reach will grow! We are planning two giveaways of close to 10,000 garden plants. The giveaways will be in April, allowing folks to pick them up in time to plant their Spring/Summer gardens.

So far, we have one spot for a giveaway in Franklin County near Zebulon and Bunn NC. We're looking for the right spot in Raleigh where we can hold the second giveaway. Once we have both dates and locations set, they will be announced on our site: http://www.growandshare.org .

Whether you are already a gardener or just think you might try it, we hope you'll keep the giveaways in mind. It is a way to get your garden growing without major investment, making it easier for more people to try.

The "catch" is that to get the free plants, you sign a pledge to share your harvest. You can share with family, friends, neighbors, strangers, or food banks; that is your choice. We do provide some distribution sites to help if you don't know where to give your harvest away.

The economy is picking up, which is great. There are still families struggling to put enough food on the table. Help us reach many communities, make lots of fresh garden food available, and spread it around. With your help, we can chase hunger away, and bring positive change to the streets of NC and eventually communities throughout the United States of America.

Here is another of Frank's sky photos.

Photos from the garden food giveaway

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were able to gather a lot of produce this week for the Saturday food giveaway. We even had enough food to give some to the Louisburg soup kitchen. Even though it is late in the growing season (August) the gardens are still kicking out peas, beans, tomatoes, and peppers like crazy.

Thanks to Serve.Gov, Bill G. found us and came out Thursday and helped us pick throughout the morning at three big gardens. Nadia also came and helped Frank and I pick.

We were sorry to see at one of the donated gardens where we pick that the cucumbers had overripened and been lost. Still, we had a full car full of food — and more gardeners dropped off boxes of more: cantaloupes, cucumbers, zucchinis, and more!

During the giveaway, many families and providers stopped by and picked up several bags each of produce. We were able to give away hundreds of tomatoes (everyone around here seems to still be getting tons of tomatoes).