Local Master Gardeners seeking plant donations for area food pantries

Staff
Posted 4/2/20

LA SALLE COUNTY - “Give a family a vegetable, you feed them for a day. Teach a family to garden, you feed them for life.”

This proverbial wisdom, adapted from the popular “Give a man a fish…” saying, is the driving goal behind the Healthy Gardening project chaired by University of Illinois Extension Master Gardener Barb Dahlbach of Marshall County. The project, which is in its ninth year, was conceived by Dahlbach. “If you cannot afford to put food on your table, you certainly cannot afford to buy plants to start a garden,” she said.

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Local Master Gardeners seeking plant donations for area food pantries

Posted

LA SALLE COUNTY - “Give a family a vegetable, you feed them for a day. Teach a family to garden, you feed them for life.” 

This proverbial wisdom, adapted from the popular “Give a man a fish…” saying, is the driving goal behind the Healthy Gardening project chaired by University of Illinois Extension Master Gardener Barb Dahlbach of Marshall County. The project, which is in its ninth year, was conceived by Dahlbach. “If you cannot afford to put food on your table, you certainly cannot afford to buy plants to start a garden,” she said.

The underlying goal of this project is to empower families to provide themselves with low-cost, healthful, fresh food through establishment of a home garden. In order to accomplish this, Dahlbach and other Marshall-Putnam Master Gardener volunteers, provide local families utilizing the food pantries with initial supplies and skills to start a home garden, including plants, containers, and soil, as well as seeds.

For the last several years, they have given away annually over 1,000 plants and thousands of seeds to food pantry clients in Marshall and Putnam counties.

Due to the current COVID-19 global pandemic and guidelines for social distancing this year, the Master Gardeners are unable to use a common space in which to grow plants for this project. Consequently, there will be few to no plants for the food pantries. Gardeners who start their own plants from seed are being asked by the Marshall-Putnam Master Gardeners to help fulfill the mission of the Healthy Gardening project.

Plants are scheduled to be given away to food pantries beginning second week of May. Any gardeners who have room are asked to please consider planting a flat for the food pantries. They are especially interested in receiving peppers, tomatoes, cabbage and broccoli, but will be happy to accept any garden vegetables or herbs. This is a year that plants will be on demand as the economy will be putting more burden on the food pantries.

Anyone interested in donating plants, please contact U of I Extension Program Coordinator Meg Overocker at meo@illinois.edu with the subject line “Plant Donations” or leave a message with your contact information at the U of I Extension office at (815) 224-0889.