When Lopezian Denise McIntosh heard about Grow a Row from a friend in Friday Harbor, “I got an instant picture of exactly what it was. I think it would make sense to most people.” After attending the Jan. 30 Lopez Community Land Trust Food Charrette and learning of food needs on Lopez, Denise decided to create a Grow a Row project here.

We sat down together recently and she described her plans for enlisting gardeners and distributing the fresh produce they’ll grow.

Right now my focus is home gardeners. I know a lot of gardeners and every one I’ve talked to so far has been so cooperative and enthusiastic.”

Artist and gardener Ruthie Thompson-Klein volunteered to develop a logo that people will associate with the project and a poster inviting gardeners to join. “I’ll put her posters everywhere so that people will see them and think: ‘I have extra seeds; now I know what to do with them.’”

Denise imagines people dedicating a row of their garden to this project. “I’m asking people literally to grow an extra row.” She’d also “really like to see people make a commitment to growing a row of winter produce. I’m asking people to volunteer doing things they love.”

After meeting with staff of the Lopez Family Resource Center and the Senior Center and learning more about local food needs, Denise said she realized she wanted “to emphasize growing both kid-friendly vegetables like broccoli, carrots, peas, green beans, and vegetables that would appeal to seniors.”

She plans to talk with Lopez School teachers and cafeteria staff in the L.I.F.E. School Garden program to learn more about what kids enjoy eating. One cook told her recently that: “kids are eating vegetables she didn’t think they would eat.” She’d also like “to enlist the assistance of gardener/cooks to give me recipes with low cost ingredients for the produce that they would provide, ideally something that protein could be added to.”

Turning to how she’d distribute this produce, Denise said: “it never dawned on me that we’d need several drop off spots, not just one in the village,” but as she thought about travel distances she realized she wanted to make things as easy as possible for both gardeners and recipients. “Jan at Islandale offered the use of his little video store as a drop off/pick up place for the south end. I would like to find a similar place on the north end.”

To reach recipients of her Grow a Row program, Denise plans to work with the Lopez Family Resource Center and the Lopez Senior Center as well as WIC, a federally funded health and nutrition program for women, infants, and children.  She imagines Grow A Row complementing the efforts of the Grace Church Food Bank and Lopez Fresh by providing fresh vegetables to those in need. With the savings the WIC program could realize from Grow A Row, Denise hopes they could spend more on protein.

Reflecting on her plans, Denise said: “this is sustainable because there is so little money going into it, but we’re not teaching anybody how to grow their own food, so it’s not as sustainable as I would like to make it.” She’d love to see a community garden someday, complete with fencing, a pond for irrigation, on-going soil improvement and lots of community participation. “In a perfect world, I would devote much more time to these ideas, but Grow a Row is what I can manage now. It’s a start.”

If you’re interested in growing a row, contact Denise at: deniseonlopez@gmail.com or 486-2010 and watch for the posters and for more information on Lopez Rocks. And if you’d like some vegetable gardening advice and inspiration, take a look at the gardening books on the “New Arrivals” shelf at the Lopez Library.