The Monmouth University Community Garden is pleased to announce that this year’s donated harvest results have surpassed all previous donations. The Community Garden, located at the corner of Beechwood and Brookwillow Avenues, is a membership garden where individuals and families “rent” a plot for the growing season (April – October) for $30 to grow their own vegetables and flowers. These local gardeners – and several organizations – Providing Hope and Shore House – then take responsibility to help upkeep our community plots, from which the vegetable harvests are donated to a number of community agencies. This year, harvest donations were provided to:
- Food Bank of Monmouth and Ocean Counties
- St. Vincent De Paul Food Pantry
- Long Branch Senior Center
- Good Samaritan Food Bank, Freehold
- Ronald McDonald House, Long Branch
- The Center, Asbury Park
- Soup D’Shore at St. Luke’s Methodist Church
- Lutheran Reformation Church Food Pantry
- St. Brigid’s Food Pantry
We provide you with an illustration of how the 3,576.50 lbs of donated organic produce breaks down and what its cash value represents to the community. Prices used are the average price per vegetable from local markets (total cash value of the donated harvests was $6,706.52).
- Tomatoes – 821 pounds harvested ($1,633.79)
- Lettuce: 44 pounds harvested ($87.56)
- Peppers – 783 pounds harvested ($1,558.17)
- Watermelon – 56 pounds harvested ($223.44)
- Eggplant – 725 pounds harvested ($1,422.75)
- Basil & other herbs – 44 pounds harvested ($175.12)
- Beans – 358 pounds harvested ($533.42)
- Carrots – 30 pounds harvested ($38.70)
- Cucumbers – 227 pounds harvested ($224.73)
- Peas – 17 pounds harvested ($34.00)
- Onions – 51 pounds harvested ($101.49)
- Spinach – 12.5 pounds harvested ($18.62)
- Squash – 188 pounds harvested ($280.12)
- Kale – 9 pounds harvested ($17.91)
- Swiss Chard – 75 pounds harvested ($126.75)
- Collards – 9 pounds harvested ($35.82)
- Strawberries – 7 pounds harvested represents $34.93
The Community Garden thanks all our gardeners, our volunteers, our Freshman Seminar students from the “Playing in the Dirt” class, and the sorority sisters of Zeta Tau Alpha for all their work during this very successful 2013-2014 growing season.
For more information on the Monmouth University Community Garden, or to become a member of the garden, please go to our website: www.monmouth.edu/communitygarden