Bring your produce to our party

We've known since Day One of the Daily Herald's Plant a Row for the Hungry campaign that our readers and area gardeners are top-notch.

In four years, you've dropped off more than 100,000 pounds of fresh produce to food pantries and soup kitchens in your neighborhoods.

Well, now, it's time for some thanks. In a very big way.

On Sept. 14, we invite you to join us for Harvest in the Park, a day filled with activities and workshops, prizes and produce, food and music. You'll also find booths of cool and un-usual garden art, tools and planting containers along with interactive dis-plays about gardening issues - like how to identify those mysterious and pesky bugs.

Home & Garden Television and the Daily Herald planned the event just for you - vegetable gardeners. Special guest Susie Coelho, host of HGTV's popular show, "Surprise Gardener," will answer questions and speak at the event at Friendship Park Conservatory on Algonquin Road in Des Plaines.

In addition to thanking area gardeners for their hard work and generosity, HGTV hopes to spread the word about how successful local campaigns can be when the community gets involved.

"The exceptional program there is a showcase of what can be accomplished," said Cindy McConkey, vice president of corporate communications for Scripps Networks, which owns HGTV.

Plant a Row for the Hungry is a national public service campaign of the Garden Writers Association of America. The Daily Herald sponsors the campaign locally, sending food donations to more than 40 food pantries in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties.

Small spaces? No sweat

As the star attraction at Harvest in the Park, Coelho will talk at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. about ways to add flair to gardens, gardening in small spaces and in containers, particularly those that include vegetables.

If people think they're shut out participating in Plant a Row for the Hungry because they live in a townhouse, apartment or condo they're wrong, Coelho said.

"Tomatoes are so easy to grow," she said. "People don't even need a garden. They can grow tomatoes on their balconies or patios."

And those gardens don't have to be dull and boring. She'll suggest ways to be productive - and aesthetically pleasing - at the same time.

Additionally, she'll offer specific style instructions - as time permits - to residents who bring her photographs of their yards and gar-dens. On her show, Coelho takes her "Green Team" of landscapers and designers into a chosen yard, and trans-forms it from "blah" to outstanding in a mere 24 hours.

Sprucing up the mundane is her specialty, a fact she outlines in her new book "Everyday Styling: Easy Tips for Home, Garden and Entertaining." She'll be signing copies of her book during the festival.

More expert advice

For those who need basic help - like how to improve soil condition - or prevent pesky bugs from destroying those three precious plum tomato plants, Master Gardeners from the University of Illinois Extension Service will stand at the ready.

Educators will talk about soil preparation, pest and disease management, best vegetables for this region and ways to get kids involved in gardening.

We'll have presentations, or mini workshops, as well as information booths where gardeners can get hands-on instruction.

Food, fun and prizes

In addition to gardening in-formation, visitors will be treated to an "open-air" style market with artisans and shops displaying hand-crafted gardening-related items, along with tools and artwork.

Panera Bread will offer harvest-oriented beverages and snacks and a band will entertain with soothing sounds for the soul.

And if you bring your children along, they're welcome to stop by the Daily Herald booth where we'll have a face painter.

The whole point of the Plant a Row campaign - helping our neighbors in need - will not be lost in the hoopla.

Bring fresh produce donations to the event and we'll record and weigh them and help North-ern Illinois Food Bank load them into its 18-wheel mobile market to distribute to 293 agencies in 12 counties.

That weight from your harvest is important: the person who brings in the largest donation, measured in pounds, will receive a Char-broil gas grill, courtesy of HGTV.

Anyone who brings a donation of fresh fruits and vegetables can enter a drawing for a variety of garden-related items donated by companies that support Plant a Row.

Each donation will help this year's campaign reach the goal of 45,000 pounds by Sept. 29.

The first year, in 1999, we set a goal of raising 10,000 pounds, and area gardeners donated 17,309 pounds. In 2000, we upped the ante to 25,000 pounds and the season-end tally went to 33,385 pounds. Last year, gardeners ratcheted that up yet another level to 41,286 pounds.

The wide ranging support and cooperation between the community, gardeners, media, experts and garden companies is what led the Garden Writers Association of America to give the Daily Herald its first national Public Service Award in 2001.

This year's harvest party is a step HGTV is taking to bring the program to the next level locally and nationally.

Network executives believe they can help take the national program even beyond the overwhelming success it's had since its inception in 1995. In 2001 alone, gardeners accounted for more than a mil-lion pounds of fresh produce delivered to social service agencies.

"For us, it's a way to raise the bar," said HGTV's McConkey. "If you take a program where people are already invested, add exposure, enthusiasm and broaden the effort, you can do some amazing things," she said.

And Plant a Row for the Hungry is no stranger to such results.

"It has raised the awareness of folks in the communities we serve about the importance of sharing food with their hungry neighbors," Northern Illinois Food Bank Executive Director H. Dennis Smith said.

"It has caused many, many people to come to the food bank to help over the past four years."

What: Harvest in the Park, sponsored by HGTV and the Daily Herald.

Why: You provide the produce; we'll provide the food, fun, prizes, music, HGTV personality Susie Coelho and other gardening experts.

Where: Friendship Park Conservatory, 395 Algonquin Road, Des Plaines

When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 14

Cost: Free

Call: (847) 298-3500.