It has been an exciting couple of weeks for the pantry garden. We picked up beautiful plants from The Seed Farm May 21 and planted them May 28.

Our wonderful, big beds are now filled with tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, dill, cilantro, basil, sunflower and zinnia plants. We also have two beds planted with zucchini seeds.

I want to thank the generous gardener who dropped mint, horseradish and hyssop plants at Shari Noctor’s RE/MAX Unlimited office and a friend of my parents who donated six watermelon plants. These were also planted May 28.

Tom Noctor rototilled our old “U” bed into a larger, rectangular bed he will be using to plant sweet corn. If you recall from a previous article, he grew a small batch of sweet corn last year that was popular at one of our evening distributions. This year’s corn bed is at least double the size of last year’s bed.

Even with everything we have planted at the pantry garden so far, we still have two partial beds and a full bed ready to plant. In my next article, I will update you on what we decided to grow in these spaces.

As I have written previously, our rainwater storage system has been filling nicely. I cut the grass May 26, and the tank was completely full. We used about a third of it the evening of May 28 to fill local water barrels and to water plants directly, but I am sure the abundance of rain we have been experiencing has replenished all or most of what was used.

This year, we invested in a new garden hose - and what a difference! Our new hose doesn’t kink or collapse, making water transfer and watering a breeze.

At my own house, using my battery-operated rototiller with three batteries, it took me three days to dig my garden. Planting only took about four hours, which included seedlings of heirloom tomatoes, hot peppers, sweet peppers, watermelon, cantaloupe, basil and cilantro plants purchased from The Seed Farm, and sweet peppers, eggplant, cantaloupe and tomatoes my mom started from seed.

I then planted seeds for yellow and green string beans, asparagus beans, carrots, celery, cucumbers and red beets. I expect I will still add a couple of new varieties of hot peppers and any final, miscellaneous plants my family shares with me.

Have you considered volunteering at the pantry garden? We are seeking volunteers to help with our 6-7 p.m. Tuesday work nights at the garden. Next week, we will focus on staking tomatoes and caging peppers. We will also apply some of the Lomi earth (compost) around the plants, pull any stray weeds and get everything watered, if needed.

If you have a desire to help feed our food-insecure neighbors, have a love of gardening or just want to be doing something outside, this is a perfect opportunity for you. No experience is needed, and no clearances are required. We have plenty of extra gardening gloves and gardening hand tools ready for you to use.

Enter 3540 S. Ruch St., Whitehall, in your GPS and you will find us. We look forward to meeting you! Questions? Give me a call at 610-379-6823.

Summer is just around the corner. Enjoy!

Editor’s note: This column was written by Gwen Herzog, Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative pantry garden chair.