New Rochelle Community Garden Swaps Crops, Donates Vegetables

The community garden at Lincoln Park recently held its annual Crop Swap.

grow! Lincoln Park Community garden committee members—Linda Tarrant-Reid, Camille Edwards-Thomas, Wendy Dodds, Karen Hessel, Sharon Weekes-Threash and Carmen Krause—hosted a crop swap in which community gardeners harvested their crops and swapped among themselves, exchanging vegetables for those that are not grown in their own plots.

At the same time committee members urged community members who didn't have plots in the garden to harvest from the abundance of vegetables grown this season. The vegetables were free of charge.

A week after the swap, Tarrant-Reid and Hessel and her daughter, Annie delivered 50 pounds of vegetables to HOPE Community Services kitchen at St. Gabriel's. 

Tarrant-Reid said the HOPE kitchen donation came about because grow! Lincoln Park Community Garden had so many vegetables this year.

"This is a tradition we plan on doing every planting season," Tarrant-Reid said.

One project the community garden is hoping to complete is a watering system for the garden. Anyone interested in making a donation can send a check made out to New Rochelle Parks and Recreation with "grow! Lincoln Park" in the memo line.

Mail it to New Rochelle Parks and Recreation, City Hall, 515 North Ave., New Rochelle, NY 10801.