For the eighth year, volunteers were planting a garden near Simcoe, located southeast of Minot in McHenry County, for The Lord’s Cupboard food pantry and The Welcome Table soup kitchen in Minot.

This year about 15 missileers with the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base joined the effort last Wednesday, May 27.

Among them were Devin Klein and Ethan Piergalski, who indicated they have some experience with home gardening. But his mini-garden is nothing like the large operation for the food pantry, Klein said.

“We’re kind of learning as we’re going,” he said.

JILL SCHRAMM/MDN Devin Klein, left, and Ethan Piergalski with the missile wing at Minot Air Force Base work with onion plants in joining volunteers in planting a garden for The Lord’s Cupboard and The Welcome Table near Simcoe on Wednesday, May 27.

Piergalski said Wednesdays are days set aside for the missileers to volunteer or engage in other activities together. He said he didn’t know much about the gardening activity when he signed up, but he and others who agreed to help had no regrets.

“We love it. I wish we had kind of found out about this place sooner,” he said.

Aris Johnson, coordinator for the base volunteers, said she was familiar with The Lord’s Cupboard through volunteering a few times. She reached out to the pantry to see where help was needed this year and was invited to bring a crew to help with the garden. For Johnson, that sounded perfect.

“We have a big group so we might as well come out and get our hands dirty a little bit. We just really wanted to focus on giving back to the community this year, and so this is a perfect way to get started on that,” Johnson said.

The morning’s warm, sunny temperatures and ideal working conditions also made it a great day to be outside, she said.

JILL SCHRAMM/MDN Rows of raised garden beds are beginning to fill as volunteers with The Lord’s Cupboard and The Welcome Table work to plant a crop near Simcoe on Wednesday, May 27, to serve the food pantry and soup kitchen.

Volunteers, including many who are regulars each year, were planting and watering peppers, cabbage, tomatoes, onions, beans, and carrots, broccoli and cauliflower, either from seeds or transplants, in raised beds. There’s also squash and perennial rhubarb on the property.

New this year is celery.

“That’ll be the surprise challenge this year,” said project coordinator Mark Schumaker.

The irrigation system is set up to be remotely activated. Tuesdays and Thursdays are days for volunteers to come and pull weeds and make any needed adjustments to the water system. Once harvest starts, picking occurs the day before the pantry is open to ensure produce is as fresh as possible, Schumaker said.

The rhubarb is ready to harvest, and Schumaker estimated in a couple of weeks, radishes will be next. Most of the harvest happens later in the summer.

Last year, the garden produced more than 14,000 pounds, which has been typical for about the past three years, Schumaker said.

“I think last year, when we cleaned out the gardens, we had 3,000 pounds of tomatoes, and that’s after picking for the month prior anything that was ripe,” he said.

Gerald Roise, a volunteer with the Lord’s Cupboard for a number of years, recalled the garden gained its start after he was contacted by Duane Brekke with an offer to utilize his rural property near Simcoe for a garden for the food pantry if volunteers could be found. Roise said he made the commitment without first enlisting the volunteers. About the time he began questioning his decision, the Nash Finch grocery warehouse in Minot that had supplied the pantry with its extra produce closed. Suddenly, the idea of a garden turned out to be fortuitous.

The garden project also has benefited from the generosity of local nurseries, which donate transplants every year.