Despite a lack of rain, our pantry garden had a banner September, thanks to our awesome volunteers who spent many hours watering, weeding, planting and harvesting, as well as some very nice weather. In total, we picked more than 251 pounds of vegetables in September. This includes peppers, eggplant, hot peppers, tomatoes, winter squash, herbs and watermelon.

We picked most of our winter squash Sept. 4, a total of 107 pounds, and we picked the last of the squash Sept. 24, all presently stored in the pantry, possibly for October distribution.

I learned from Hannah, from The Seed Farm, that winter squash can be stored for up to three months. The longer it is stored, the sweeter it will taste.

Last month, I shared with you we had wrapped our eggplant bed with mesh deer fence and secured it to the ground with landscape staples. I am happy to report our efforts have been successful! We were able to pick 17 beautiful eggplants for our Sept. 1 community meal.

After weeks and weeks of frustration because our eggplants were being eaten, I yelled out, “Seriously, it can’t be this easy!”

Since our success, we were able to pick several Wegmans grocery bags of eggplants for our September distribution — about 20 pounds in total.

I shared in my last article we had begun to plant our fall crops of lettuce, chard, red beets, string beans and dill. I am happy to report most are growing well, but unfortunately, one entire bed of lettuce was consumed by the groundhog still residing under our shed.

We have since planted a cover crop of oats and peas in this bed. After picking the last of our winter squash, we also removed the sunflower plants in this bed, rototilled it and planted the oats and peas cover crop.

During this process, we found a 7.5-pound watermelon that was covered by the sunflowers. We also found some mole or mice holes. During the rototilling process, these little critters went running and leaping for cover.

Hannah also brought broccolini, chard and kale plants to the garden Sept. 3. These were planted under hoops and netting in our former corn bed. In this same bed, she also planted radish and green bean seeds.

Hannah had returned to check on the garden Sept. 16. When we uncovered the new plants, several of the kale and broccolini leaves had holes. We found numerous cabbage worms on some of the plants, which we removed and then squashed with our bare fingers.

Hannah told me the worms smell like cabbage, so after squashing several and before wiping my hands in the grass, I gave them a whiff. Yep, smelled like cabbage.

Hannah told me I needed to recheck the plants in two or three days, so I did so again Sept. 21. Unfortunately, I found worms on the kale and chard. Fortunately, there were less.

This time, I wore blue nitrile gloves and placed the worms I found into a bucket. After watering and recovering the plants, I squashed the worms in the bucket, dumped them out, rinsed the bucket and discarded my gloves. It was so much better than bare fingers.

Fall is here! I hope you will join us at 3540 S. Ruch St. to harvest, water and weed 6-7 p.m. Tuesday evenings. No clearances are needed, and no experience is required.

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