Mariel Williams
editor@mitchellnews.com
Mitchell Giving Gardens’ Harvest Table returns Friday with free produce for all in Spruce Pine’s Riverside Park from 5 to 7 p.m.
Wilma Laws, 79, came to the last Harvest Table event.
“I’ve been watching [the garden] grow [while] we walk around the park — this is the first time I’ve gotten anything though,” Laws said. “Looks good — all of it does.”
Laws picked up squash, green beans, fennel, blackberries, tomatoes, kale and other greens.
“I can put a lot of it in the freezer, and the tomatoes — I got some not so ripe, so they’ll ripen as they lay, that way they don’t ripen all at one time,” she said.
For those who can’t get to Riverside Park there will be another Harvest Table event at Buladean Community Center Aug. 9 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Mitchell Giving Gardens is a community garden in Riverside worked by volunteers. The garden donates food to Shepherd’s Staff, for those in need who can’t make it to the Harvest Tables. Not all the produce at the Harvest Table comes out of Mitchell Giving Gardens — some is donated by Tractor Food and Farms, which acquires produce from local farmers.
Laws isn’t a Mitchell County resident but she visits Mitchell regularly.
“I live in Yancey County,” she said. “I’m dating a man who lives here.”
Laws has grown her own vegetables in the past, but she doesn’t keep a garden anymore. She said it was nice to have access to genuinely fresh produce at the Harvest Table.
“I used to raise [vegetables] all the time — when my husband was alive we did,” she said. “I sort of got out of it when he got sick, and I haven’t done it since.”
Christine Hodel, director of Mitchell Giving Gardens, said the Harvest Table has been going on for three summer seasons. Last year the garden had four Harvest events; this year they are hosting four in Riverside Park (on the last Friday of each month) and an additional four in Buladean, on either the first or second Friday of each month.
Hodel said most of those interested in the free produce come right when the table opens up at 5 p.m.
“I do feel like it’s a necessary service,” Hodel said. “Shepherd’s Staff has run out of food a couple of times. ... The other thing we’ve found is produce is one of the harder things to get at a food pantry because it’s less shelf-stable.”
The Harvest Table is open to anyone, not just those in financial need. Information on volunteering for Mitchell Giving Gardens can be found at mitchellgivinggardens.com.
Heide Feldman said she was particularly excited about the kale and basil she picked up at the last event.
“I’m getting a little bit of everything,” she said. “I love to cook.”
Feldman said she was going to use her free produce to make vegetable pancakes.
“The squashes, the tomato, the kale and the basil will all be chopped up really, really fine, and then I put a few tablespoons of flour, a little bit of water and an egg, and then I mix it all up until it’s kind of runny like pancake mix, and then I put garlic in the pan with oil, and I fry them like pancakes,” she said. “They’re amazing. A little Korean lady taught me how to do it.”