For her 4-H garden project this summer, 10-year-old Lynne is growing turnips and carrots for the hungry in her community. She is joining other participants in the Plant a Row for the Hungry program, or PAR, coordinated by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension in Hancock County. Similar programs, all part of a nationwide public service campaign of the Garden Writers Association, are conducted by cooperative extension offices throughout Maine.

Lynne started her project on Sunday afternoon, choosing a small bed with a long history in Marjorie’s garden. Originally very sandy, the soil has been amended with compost every spring for several years and now has that crumbly chocolate-cake texture gardeners recognize as perfect for growing long, straight carrots and other root crops.

After five minutes of grumbling and swatting at the season’s first black flies, Lynne donned her head-to-waist bug shirt while I finished turning a generous amount of composted cow manure into the soil. She raked the soil smooth, then divided the bed into a carrot half and a turnip half.

Instead of planting the seeds in rows, she broadcast a mix of fine vermiculite and seeds over each half bed, pressing the seeds gently into the soil with a board and then covering them with a quarter-inch layer of soil. After mulching with a thin layer of straw, giving the entire bed a gentle rain from the hose, and ceremoniously placing a label in the center of each half bed, Lynne declared the planting done and moved on to cartwheels and gymnastics at the back of the yard.

Lynne will tend her garden, keeping a diary of all effort and expenses, and the best carrot and turnip will end up on display at the Blue Hill Fair. The rest of her harvest will be delivered to one of the 10 food pantries in Hancock County that work to meet the food and nutritional needs of more than 800 families in the area. Many of the food pantry clients are senior citizens on fixed incomes; all are community members who would not have access to fresh vegetables without this program.

PAR began in 1995 when Jeff Lowenfels, former GWA president, asked gardeners to plant a row of vegetables for Bean’s Cafe, an Anchorage, Alaska, soup kitchen. Over the next 10 years, PAR grew exponentially through continued media support, individual and company sponsorship, and volunteerism. Cooperative Extension programs throughout New England and other regions have taken a leadership role in the coordination of the program.

It took the first five years to reach a nationwide total of 1 million pounds of donated produce. In the next two years, 1 million pounds was donated each year. In 2003, more than 1.3 million pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables were donated for more than 5.3 million needy recipients. No government subsidy or bureaucratic red tape – just people helping people.

You can get involved with PAR and help a local food pantry provide fresh vegetables to those in need of help. In addition to turnips and carrots, food pantries welcome donations of other produce that is easy to prepare, keeps well, and has high nutritional value. Examples include cabbage, green beans, beets, broccoli, winter squash, and cucumbers.

There is no better way to help our children develop a sense of place and citizenship, of caring for those in need, than to involve them in Plant a Row for the Hungry. Contact your local cooperative extension office for more information, including the locations of food pantries in your area.

Send queries to Gardening Questions, P.O. Box 418, Ellsworth 04605, or to reesermanley

@shead.org. Include name, address and telephone number.