Surveying her backyard in MoScow, idaho, aMy grey feelS
a ruSh of SatiSfaction. raSpberrieS and StrawberrieS are
ready for picking, pole beanS and pluMp toMatoeS ripen
on trelliSeS, and there’S row after row of carrotS,
SQuaSh, Spinach, puMpkinS and More. her plantingS yield
More than 1,000 poundS of freSh produce annually—
not bad for SoMeone who waS all thuMbS, none of
theM green, when She Started gardening a few yearS
ago. “i grew up playing in the alleyS of chicago and
pretty Much have alwayS lived in citieS,” She SayS. “until
i Moved to idaho, i’d never grown anything in My life.”
These days Amy, a 41-year-old
freelance graphic designer, is reaping
record crops for Backyard Harvest,
the innovative program she founded in
2006 to feed the hungry. Every May to
October, Amy and other hardworking
volunteers plant, pick and deliver
some 20,000 pounds of fruits and veg-
74 family circle july.09
etables to food banks in Moscow and
nearby Lewiston, as well as in Washington State. The project has been so
successful that two branches recently
sprouted in California. “We’ve found a
way to help others—and it’s right outside our doors,” she says. “With all our
baskets and bushels of homegrown
produce we’re contributing to the
health and well-being of thousands of
people by tapping into a spirit of self-reliance and living off the land. And
we’re creating a more tightly knit
community in the bargain.”
As Amy likes to tell it, Backyard
Harvest started serendipitously. She
and her husband, Mark, moved to
Moscow from Cincinnati in 1998
when he was offered a position to
teach archaeology at the University
of Idaho. After sons Tom and Sam
were born, the family bought a 1948
clapboard house on three-quarters of
an acre with views of the fertile, rolling hills known as the Palouse. “
During our first spring there in 2005, I decided that having a garden would be
fun for all of us,” Amy recalls. “But I
was a total novice, so I let the boys
plant the whole packet of seeds, and
we ended up with 200 heads of lettuce. We had friends, but we didn’t
have that many friends.”
She contacted the Moscow Food
Bank and asked if they’d accept fresh
produce. “They said yes, and it turned
out people really wanted it, because
