Rappahannock Plant A Row

Child poses with her new Easter bunny at the Pantry.

It’s turning out to be a very green spring for the Food Pantry. We’re not talking about our gorgeous green fields and hills – we’re talking cash! Three events last weekend will help keep Pantry shelves stocked. Flavor magazine’s Melissa Harris and John and Beverly Sullivan threw a wonderfully successful benefit for the Food Pantry at the Sullivans’ lovely home, The Meadows, in Washington. The Pantry will also receive sales proceeds from Betsey Apple’s book signing (Far Flung and Well Fed: The Food Writing of R.W. Apple) at Ballard’s Gallery. And a nice contribution is forthcoming from admissions to the Rappahannock Association for the Arts and Community’s (RAAC) one-act plays and comedy performances. Thanks so much for supporting the Pantry – we’ll need it with the cuts in government funding.

We’re grateful to the Flint Hill Baptist Church for its $625 donation – and for its plan to make quarterly contributions to the Pantry. Flint Hill Baptist may not be among the largest Rappahannock churches – but its generosity makes it a stand-out. Read more…

Would you like to grow vegetables but don’t know how?

Farm-to-Table students will install a small (2-foot by 8-foot) demonstration garden at the Rappahannock Food Pantry on Sunday, May 2, at 3:00 pm. Put it in your calendar.

“Small” doesn’t mean small yield. A 2′ x 8′ foot garden can yield several hundred pounds of food.

You can build the demonstration garden in your own backyard. Watch the installation, ask questions, take the handouts home, and build the same garden at your place. Volunteer gardeners will help along the way.

Write it down: Sunday, May 2, 3:00 at the pantry: 603 Mount Salem Ave in “Little” Washington: 675-1177.

It all started on RappNet.

A few months ago Richard Lysaght advertised a commercial hoop house on RappNet. BIG hoop house. Almost 2100 square feet. (Think huge plastic greenhouse.)

Chris Moyles said Plant-a-Row should get it to grow vegetables for the pantry year round. So we bought it. It’s still at Richard’s place. The Montessori Farm School asked us to move it there. We said sure. We also assembled a team to plan how to use it.

Here’s where things stand:

At he end of the move (but before the reassembly). From left to right, Hal Hunter, Ron Makela, Nol Putnam, Kevin Bosch, and Chris Russell. Photo by Kevin from his timer.

- Susan Holmes, Farm School Director, took care of the permits.
- Wesley Keys, Keys Excavating, graded the Farm School site at no charge.
- Richard Antony, Long Mountain Nursery, donated landscape fabric to protect the site.
- Trista Scheuerlein, hoop house advisor and Farm2Table Director, picks up the fabric tomorrow.
- Janet Davis, 4 Season Gardeners, donated staples to hold down the landscape fabric.
- Chris Boucher, All Star Septic, will install water. No charge.
- Ron Makela, Yellow Brick Road, and Howard Coon will disassemble the hoop house this weekend.
- Greg Williams, Williams Tree Service, will deliver topsoil.
- Sylvie Rowand, Laughing Duck Gardens & Cookery, consults on hoop house use.
- Jules Coon will be the hoop house master gardener.
- Naming rights to the hoop house will be auctioned at the pantry benefit on April 24 (to help pay for hoop house materials. You should go; see http://flavormagazinevirginia.com/benefit/.)

Over the next few months we will need volunteers to:
- spread gravel for drainage
- spread topsoil
- reassemble the hoop house frame
- add the plastic cover
- build planting beds
- work with the students
- plant, weed, water, harvest, distribute, and celebrate.

If any of this is of interest, please enail me at hal@rappahannock.com

Thanks. It should be fun.

- Hal Hunter