Love the new challenge!
I have been volunteering at our local foodbank since the begining of the first lockdown. I needed to feel useful. I just kept going after lockdown as the need has actually increased.
I pack the vegetables, so I thought a few pointers from my perspective might be useful. Every foodbank works differently, so it might pay to ring your local before you decide what to grow. If you were in my area - this is what I would suggest....
Keep it simple.... we have alot of family's, so family friendly veg is good - nothing too fancy. Every week we buy in (at heavily discounted prices) large bags of carrots & spuds, onions and something green like broccoli or cauli and apples. My suggestions of things to grow to give, would be salad items like lettuce, tomatoes, silverbeet, spinach, cucumber... even bags of salad leaves.
Wash it for us... it would be really helpful to cut off any roots and maybe a bit of a wash, so we can easily pack it in with everything else.
It all helps... Even if you have just a few cucumbers or tomatoes or a bag of peas ... it will make someones day. We have a choosing table for smaller quanties of things, where people can pick up a little something extra.
The photo is my overgrown garlic patch. I have been weeding out some of the self sown seedlings to donate to a "grow your own food in pots" workshop that is running at the Marae tonight.
My tray has seedlings of: cos lettuce, silverbeet, perpetual beet, nastertium, poppy, calendula, mint, landcress, globe artichoke, kale and NZ spinach.
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