This article is based on an expert interview with Ben Barkan, conducted by wikiHow Staff Editors. Ben Barkan is a Garden and Landscape Designer and the Owner and Founder of HomeHarvest LLC, an edible landscapes and construction business based in Boston, Massachusetts. Ben has over 12 years of experience working with organic gardening and specializes in designing and building beautiful landscapes with custom construction and creative plant integration. He is a Certified Permaculture Designer, is licensed Construction Supervisor in Massachusetts, and is a Licensed Home Improvement Contractor. He holds an associates degree in Sustainable Agriculture from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
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There’s nothing more rewarding than planting, tending to, and harvesting the fresh fruits and vegetables in your garden. If you’re fortunate enough to have extra to spare, it doesn’t have to go to waste. In this video, garden and landscape designer Ben Barkan shares several different ways you can use your garden surplus to help others and make a difference.
First of all, you could preserve that. You could make fermented carrots, you could make tomato paste, you could make tomato soup and freeze it. But if you wanted to donate it, get to know people who are hungry. It's crazy that we're living in the United States, a first world country, and yet people are actually going hungry. So get to know your food banks, get to know the lower income residents of your neighborhood. It's insane that in 2021, there is food insecurity in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. And so that is something that we have control over. And I recommend donating that surplus food or bartering it with neighbors, giving it away to neighbors, or giving it away to people walking by. It's really fun to give away the abundance from your garden. It feels really good. It makes your heart feel good. And I would say that that's one of the reasons we should be growing food—to actively generate abundance, so that we can give back to the community.
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