Vegetable garden tour will raise funds for the hungry

To paraphrase Shakespeare, here’s flowers and vegetables for you.

By Patricia Duff • August 4, 2009 7:12 pm
South Whidbey Children’s Center summer program students are given some gardening tips by Good Cheer Food Bank’s garden director Cary Peterson.
South Whidbey Children’s Center summer program students are given some gardening tips by Good Cheer Food Bank’s garden director Cary Peterson.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, here’s flowers and vegetables for you.

“Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram and the marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun,” wrote the Bard in “The Winter’s Tale.”

But even the beautifully described flower-strewn hillsides of Shakespeare’s Bohemia have nothing on the vegetable and flower gardens of Whidbey Island.

Garden gazers and vegetable lovers can join the self-guided tour of 10 South Whidbey vegetable gardens from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 8. The tour will be followed by a picnic and auction at 5 p.m. at Swanson’s Tree Farm, with entertainment by the Rural Characters and Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The gardens on the tour include Greenbank Farms CSA, plus the well-tended patches at Hedgebrook garden, the Raven & The Spade, the Lewis & Beckmans, the Frauses, the Flanagans, the Good Cheer Food Bank, the Freemans and the Fishers.

Swanson’s Tree Farm on Glendale Heights Road in Clinton is the perfect spot where evening guests can enjoy a bountiful barbeque dinner, live auction and dance.

Guests can tour the new garden, greenhouse and extraordinary root cellar, and sip wine, talk gardening, compare notes and bid on garden-inspired treasures in an auction led by Jim Freeman.

Guests can also dance the night away to the music, but organizers suggest wearing country shoes and bringing along a wrap for the outdoor weather.

The dinner will include crudités and dips from the Useless Bay Coffee Co., on-site spit-roasted and pulled pork from the Barbeque Joint, roasted veggies for the vegetarians and sides of Honna’s sassy slaw, Ruby’s bodacious beans, Essential Bakery buns and Charlene Cohen’s raspberry rhubarb crisp or Shirley Reed’s chocolate bars. Wine and beer will also be available.

Silent and live auction items include a wood-and-fiberglass boat hand-built by the Wood Construction Center at Seattle Central Community College, original artwork by Earl Lasher and Patti Gulledge White, botanical paintings by Tuan Nguyen, Anne Belov’s vegetable lithographs, garden books, a two-wheeled wheelbarrow from Ace Hardware, a Northwest garden trug by Tom Fisher, sculpture by Georgia Gerber, a fanciful scarecrow and other items.

A limited number of lunches prepared by Pickles, the Star Store, Chef’s Pantry, Screaming Banshee Bread and W.I.N. volunteers will be available for $5 at the garden tour sites.

Tickets for just the tour are $15 for adults; children 18 and younger are free. Tickets for the tour and evening event are $75 each,

$125 for two or $100 for patrons.

Tickets and tour maps are available at Cultus Bay Nursery, Bayview Farm & Garden, Moonraker Books, 1504 Coffee Bar, Rob Schouten Gallery in Greenbank, or click here.

All proceeds benefit Whidbey Island Nourishes, a volunteer organization dedicated to feeding the hungry on South Whidbey, focusing on youths.

For more information, call 360-730-2749.