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From Garden to Table<br />
Gardens can grow food for everyone<br />
<strong>Eastern</strong> <strong>Iowa</strong> <strong>Farmer</strong> photos /<br />
Brooke Taylor<br />
(Left) Bridget Miller tends to some of the lettuce in her DeWitt garden.<br />
She and her husband, Michael, like to grow vegetables used in savory<br />
dishes, including tomatoes and peppers.<br />
(Above) Rena Farrell and her grandson, John Farrell, spend some time<br />
in the rhubarb patch at the family farm in Bryant. Farrell also grows a<br />
big crop of raspberries, which she uses to make sweet treats.<br />
She has a large raspberry bush spanning<br />
one whole side of her garden and spends<br />
hours each summer picking and trimming<br />
the patch to keep it productive year after<br />
year.<br />
“I don’t even eat raspberries,” Farrell<br />
said. “It is my husband who really likes<br />
them, but he won’t eat rhubarb. I am the<br />
opposite; I like the rhubarb but not the<br />
raspberries.”<br />
Even though she does not eat them,<br />
Farrell continues to freeze the raspberries<br />
each summer and makes desserts for<br />
her husband and other family members,<br />
including her unique raspberry pizza.<br />
“Raspberry pizza is one of David’s<br />
favorites,” she said. “He always looks<br />
forward to it, especially when the raspberries<br />
are fresh, and I like the fact that he<br />
enjoys it.”<br />
Farrell is not the only gardener who<br />
likes to make sweet treats with her produce.<br />
Mary Fier of Maquoketa creates<br />
pumpkin desserts from her fall harvest.<br />
Fier and her husband, Ron, have a large<br />
pumpkin patch located between Maquoketa<br />
and Preston.<br />
Each spring they carefully plant their<br />
pumpkin crop in one of the fields on their<br />
farm. Pumpkins cannot be planted in the<br />
same space year after year, so the Fiers<br />
must continue to move their pumpkins to<br />
a different strip of land.<br />
Once the pumpkins are in the ground,<br />
careful attention is given to preventing<br />
weeds and squash bugs from taking over<br />
the crop. This requires maintenance<br />
throughout the growing season, which<br />
takes a significant amount of time if you<br />
are growing the number of pumpkins the<br />
eifarmer.com <strong>Fall</strong> <strong>2021</strong> | <strong>Eastern</strong> <strong>Iowa</strong> <strong>Farmer</strong> 103<br />
<strong>Eastern</strong><strong>Iowa</strong><strong>Farmer</strong>_<strong>Fall</strong><strong>2021</strong>.indd 103<br />
9/15/21 10:25 am
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