October was another amazing month at Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative Food Pantry garden.

On the Oct. 8 work night, we picked 46 pounds of produce, which included tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, string beans, broccolini, radishes, kale and chard. We were very proud to make all these vegetables available to our pantry guests at our first distribution. In addition, Second Harvest Food Bank provided us with carrots, potatoes, lettuce and pears to distribute to pantry guests.

On the Oct. 15 work night, we emptied our pantry garden plants of peppers, eggplant, string beans and ripe tomatoes in anticipation of the upcoming frost. We also picked red beets, radishes, chard, kale, lettuce and dill from the garden — a total of 145 pounds. We gave these out at a distribution in addition to carrots, onions and peaches received from Second Harvest.

Despite our best efforts, we were unable to give away all our garden bounty, so the remainder was shared with another food pantry through Plant-A-Row. We are so fortunate in the Lehigh Valley to have a great network of pantries that share excess produce with each other in a united effort to ensure food-insufficient households have access to fresh fruits and vegetables.

On the Oct. 22 work night, we made a valiant effort to cut down and remove our dead eggplant, pepper and tomato plants and their associated cages, stakes and mesh fences. It was quite a challenge as the plants had grown into the mesh, the tomato ties were dried and difficult to remove, and many of the pepper cages were stuck in the dry, parched earth. We will remove these after the next rain.

We also watered the broccolini, chard, kale, radishes, parsley, spinach and dill that comprise our fall garden. Despite the limited amount of rain in October, we had enough in the storage tank to water our fall crops with just a small amount remaining.

Hannah, from The Seed Farm, dropped off six bales of straw Oct. 21 for us to mulch the beds after they were emptied. Because we did not finish cleaning out the beds before darkness fell, a couple of us returned Oct. 23 to finish removing the plants. We put down five bales of the straw on the empty beds.

We stored the final bale in our shed in the wheelbarrow. We will use this to mulch the fall beds after these crops have frozen out.

In case you were wondering, the oats and peas we planted in two of our previously emptied beds are growing very well. This bed cover seems to be untouched by critters so far.

Last month, I shared with you that we had picked 120 pounds of butternut squash and had them stored in the pantry. Because we had so many other seasonal vegetables to give out at the October distributions, we chose to hold these in the pantry until November distributions.

Although we still have our fall crops growing at the garden, we have harvested 841 pounds of vegetables and herbs to date. In 2023, we ended the year with 811 pounds, so this has been a nice increase.

Year to date, we have had 252 pounds of vegetables and herbs donated to distribute to pantry guests and for our free community meals. WCHI also donated 1,089 pounds of fresh produce and herbs to other pantries via the Plant-A-Row network. This includes items grown at our pantry garden, donated to WCHI by our community and excess produce received from Second Harvest.

Enjoy your fall garden, and have a great November!

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