Prolific Palatine gardener shares abundance

At 4,500-square-feet, Tom Anderson's Palatine garden is larger than most people's homes.

And with 40 tomato plants and 25 fruit trees among his vast collection, the eventual yield is much greater than his family can eat.

"Most of it we give away," he says.

Luckily, Anderson knows just what to do with the rest of the food: donate it to food pantries participating in Plant a Row for the Hungry.

In the years before the program existed, he'd call food pantries to see if they'd take the fresh dona-tions. But they weren't used to dealing with fruits and vegetables at that time, and his offer was refused.

Anderson started toting produce to work to give to friends. "There were times I couldn't bring in another 50 pounds of tomatoes to work. It went to the com-post pile," he said. "I felt guilty about it then."

Plant a Row for the Hungry encourages gardeners to plant a little extra and take any surplus to food pantries that have agreed to hand it out to clients.

To call Anderson one of the most prolific contributors is an understatement. He takes hundreds of pounds of produce to Knupper's Nursery each year, a program drop-off site where workers then deliver the fruit and vegetables to Palatine Township.

Several years ago, when HGTV sponsored a Harvest Party locally, Anderson won a high-end gas grill for being the donor with the largest one-day contribution. He drove up with 161 pounds of vegetables.

And that's not unusual. Actually, once he started participating in Plant a Row, his vast garden grew even larger.

"I increase everything I'm plant-ing because of Plant a Row," An-derson said.

That's saying a lot.

He grows blueberries, raspberries, corn, potatoes, onions, carrots, pumpkins, beans, cucumbers and cantaloupe. He also owns a range of fruit trees that produce apples, peaches, pears, plums, apricots, nectarines and cherries.

When he bought his Palatine house two decades ago, he started with an 8-square-foot garden. Little by little, the garden grew and the lawn shrank.

"It used to take me a lot longer to mow the grass," he jokes. "By the time I reach retirement I'll have no grass."

That's probably a good thing for all those food pantry clients who savor his productivity all summer long.