Chesapeake Bay Field Office

About 30 million Americans, including seniors and children go to bed hungry every night, or do not know when that will be their next meal. Plant a Row for the Hungry is a national, people-with-people campaign by the Garden Writers Association of America in 1995 launched.

The idea is simple: Most gardeners harvest more than they consume. By planting a row for the hungry, gardeners produce or help to plant an extra row. The product is then donated to local organizations to distribute the food.

In 1998, Fred Pinkney, a biologist at the environment of pollutants (and the whole good guy) heard about this program. He suggested replacing some turf field use of the Chesapeake Bay Field Office with a vegetable garden. volunteers to plant the field office staff and maintain the garden during their lunch break and after work.

In the last 10 years our garden has 3,000 pounds of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squash and melons produced. This product is made for our local food bank and homeless.

Here's what the newspaper had to say about our efforts:

Volunteers lend a green thumb to honor the occasion

By Magan Crane, Staff Writer

Very carefully, got Fred Pinkney plant leaves, revealing only what he wanted, a large, light green cucumber. He took his trophy and threw it in a basket for a possible use in a salad. But this is not a vegetable dish to Mr. Pinkney 's.

Mr. Pinkney and his colleagues at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office in Annapolis planted this garden of love. "We had great success with it," he said. "And there were a lot of fun, progress and results, see title." And many of the results they have seen. On this day in this season, the group has donated almost 200 pounds for the local food banks, shelters and food, and the continued generosity.

Mr. Pinkney had "Wanted" eyeing a patch of grass near his offices on Admiral Cochrane Drive, when he fell on the factory line for a national program of hunger. The program encourages gardeners an extra row of vegetables and fruit plants and give the rest to charity.

"Had, I had about 10 people who are interested in a cooperative relationship," he said. "And those of us most of what he wanted. People brought in additional machinery and equipment, and we had a soil scientist who works here, we discovered that the soil needs." Before work and lunch, a number of fish and wildlife have been used in planting weeding and harvesting tomatoes now. Peppers, cucumbers and pumpkins "secret" that have flourished on the small plot.
They gathered small contributions to the $ 150 needed for the compost, fertilizer and fencing against rabbits will fight.

"Fred was really excited at first, thinking that we are the largest of all the vegetables, designer Laurie Hewitt laughed." We had the greatest difficulty in convincing people want small cucumbers and not those big massive things. "

Mr. Pinkney said the exercise was a new and creative ways to build a sense of community at work. "Everyone always talks about team spirit," he said. "It was really a good experience. I've talked to people in the office, I have never spoken."

Ms Hewitt agreed, says he has established a genuine link with the wider community.
"It is gratifying to contribute to the community," she said. "It is a real concrete action to do something. We are not only send money somewhere, we are really picking up 38 pounds of food and they deliver."