The long summer is behind us, but for many growers in Western North Carolina, the spring-summer growing season is only half the story. Commercial growers, donation gardens and garden-based education programs are all finding ways to keep local foods and food security growing in WNC, year-round.
Securing the harvest
WNC is populated by many gardens that grow for donation. Garden networks such as Bountiful Cities and Gardens That Give help to connect community gardens with food pantries or neighbours experiencing food insecurity. But what happens when the growing season ends?
“Generally at this latitude, we do not have sufficient hours of sunlight between Dec. 10 and Jan. 10 to [grow] anything,” says Buzz Durham, garden manager at the Grace Covenant Community Garden.
But that doesn’t keep local community gardens from erecting simple structures to extend their growing seasons.