A new free farmstand in downtown Houlton gives gardeners a way to share their excess produce with those who might not have access to fresh foods.
When Houlton Master Gardener Nancy Putnam read about a cluster of similar “give and take” stations operating in Waldo County, she thought it would be a wonderful addition to Aroostook County.
“I read about those who grow more than they can eat, sharing their excess,” she said. “We are becoming part of a substantial movement in Maine.”
The Houlton Give and Take farmstand, located under a large tree on the Main Street side of the Cary Library in downtown, opened on Friday morning. Soon after, several growers with home or community gardens were already dropping off early harvest crops, including lettuce and radishes.
The arrangement is meant to be a win-win. Most home gardeners have too much of something: one year it might be tomatoes, cucumbers or even lettuce, another it might be bushels of peppers or squash. And many wonder what they will do with all that excess. At the same time, there are many people in The County who do not always know where their next meal will come from, given the region has some of the highest food insecurity numbers in the state.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 17 percent of adults and 24.3 percent of Aroostook County’s children are food insecure, meaning that they did not always have enough money or resources to get enough food.
There are at least 16 give and take stations in Waldo County and according to Putnam, they have been very successful with no vandalism.
For the Houlton stand, gardeners log how much they dropped off in a small yellow notebook — for example a pound of lettuce and three bunches of radishes — to assist the state cooperative extension’s food insecurity tracking, Putnam said.
Local contractor Mac Moody built the sturdy wooden farm stand for the Give and Take station, and Orla Schwenk, Putnam’s 11-year-old artist granddaughter, painted images of fresh eggplant, carrots and lettuce onto the wooden sign next to the stand.
Schwenk said her grandmother gave her some guidelines of what needed to be on the sign and then she created it.
On Friday morning, Lisa Duff and Kathryn Berry, members of the Houlton Community Garden, placed some of the first produce on the stand, including their first cucumber of the season and some early lettuce. The women are both physical therapists at Houlton Regional Therapy Center and their department has taken over several garden plots at the Community Garden located on the hospital grounds.
Together, they weed, harvest, wash and deliver. They expect that by August they will have plenty of excess produce to bring to the farmstand.
This year they are growing a long list of items, including cucumbers, squash, beans, pumpkin, peas, zucchini, beets, lettuce, herbs and carrots.
“We will have so much by August,” they both agreed, laughing.
Also on Friday, home gardener Jim Ward had an old potato basket from Bass Farm filled with produce for the stand.
Putnam approached the town and the Greater Houlton Chamber of Commerce about the stand, and they were happy to have it in the downtown area, she said.
It’s best to give fresh clean vegetables in a bag or package so it is easy for people to take, she said.
“We put it in a place that is walkable, driveable and right off the sidewalk where a lot of people can see it,” she said. “The stand belongs to the community … It’s basically, I grow too much and you don’t have enough.”
There are no income guidelines or questions for people taking the excess food. The only restrictions are, the produce left at the stand must be freshly picked from the plant. According to Putnam, because of food safety issues, it cannot be picked up off the ground or people cannot clean out their refrigerators and leave those items at the stand.
For more information on the Give and Take farmstand, contact Jane Torres, executive director of the Greater Houlton Chamber of Commerce, at 207-694-3414.
