Middle Income Poverty

  My family dedicates two thirds of a large vegetable garden to our home and one third for the  Freeport Food Pantry.  Despite low family income, we share garden spaces, time, and physical energy. Seeds are purchased on sale, and/or Friends donate leftover seeds, coupons to purchase seeds and deliver extra plants (that six pack of peppers is always one or two too many).  The garden provides plants every year as well. We can count on many tomato seedlings, parsley, Russian kale, and an abundance of sunflowers. Parsley and kale usually come up in the same place, but the tomato and sunflowers are all over the garden. If the seedlings are gently lifted in the cup of your hand, they can be resituated.  We try to use only organic seeds and the gardens are nourished with local ingredients, including our yard leaves, grass clippings and semiannual layers of Casco Bay seaweed hauled from up the street.  All year round we toss kitchen vegetable scraps over the garden. Somehow this magical mix pr