The Henniker Lions Club loaded its final harvest from its community garden along Old Concord Road on Tuesday, capping another season of producing vegetables for food pantries in Henniker and Hopkinton.
“This has been a really successful year,” said Jerry Eisen, who organizes the project each year with his wife, Kathryn. “We did not use any pesticides whatsoever, no artificial fertilizers. It’s basically organic.”
Eisen said the garden, which is also supported by volunteers from Hopkinton, generates “a couple thousand pounds” of food each year. Tomatoes, eggplant, squash, onions and potatoes made up most of the haul this year. Cucumbers didn’t grow so well this season, Eisen said, but the garden planted lima beans for the first time.
The garden is managed by volunteers from both towns with work days twice a week, about one hour each. Eisen said they average about eight to nine workers, with as many as 15 or 16 coming out to help on especially busy days.
The season begins in the spring and runs through summer and fall until the frost arrives. The Lions Club will begin its eighth season when the garden reopens in April.
The garden, about the size of a basketball court, sits on land owned by the Army Corps of Engineers with a clear view of Pat’s Peak to the south.
Eisen said he hopes to expand the garden in the next couple of years. He’d like to double the size to include individual plots for families that don’t have space for their own garden at home. Eisen envisions this future expansion to have about 12 to 16 individual plots.