Early in January, we had some warm days that allowed me to make my way down to the pantry garden to check on a few things.

Due to a vacation I took for much of the month of November, I did not take the opportunity to timely disconnect the rain gutters from our water tanks. As a result, due to some very cold weather we had, the water tanks had partially frozen.

Originally, I was able to get one of the tanks open and drained but not the second one because the valve was frozen. The warm days worked in my favor to drain the second tank. The valve had thawed and opened right up!

Truth be told, when I opened the first tank, I didn’t move myself far enough off to the side and got my one pant leg and shoe hit by the expelling water. Evidently, I learned nothing because when I opened the second tank’s valve, I once again soaked my pant leg and shoe.

I wasn’t happy about soaking myself, but I was thrilled both tanks were now drained for the winter. Given the amount of snow we had for the remainder of January, it may be a long time before I am able to visit the garden again.

On a personal note, during those warmer days, I was able to dig out the carrots and red beets that were still growing in my home garden. Around the time I got outside to start digging, it started to rain, so I was wet again.

I was surprised at exactly how many carrots were growing in my garden. I had reseeded carrots and red beets numerous times during the growing season, yet very little had germinated. The carrots were located at a few places in my garden and had been surrounded by tomatoes and peppers.

After removing the other plants at the end of their growing season, the carrots could really spread out. The variety I planted was supposed to be shorter in size, but in some cases, I had to dig down more than 8 inches to fully extract them from the ground.

After all were dug out and their tops removed, I set about to scrub them clean. I turned back on the outside water spigot and used the garden hose, a brush and a bus pan to complete the process. My yield ended up being 23 pounds of carrots and almost 2 pounds of red beets.

That weekend, my mom confiscated the red beets and pickled them. The next week, I peeled the carrots, and my aunt sliced them. I then blanched the carrots, and my aunt bagged them. We froze 12 quart-sized bags of fabulous carrots, and all was right with the world.

For our January distributions, Second Harvest provided us with a great variety of fresh produce to offer to our pantry guests. This included white potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, spaghetti squash, cabbage, mixed greens, apples and pears.

Thank you to our dedicated pantry volunteers who took time to down pack carrots, pears and sweet potatoes. Some of the sweet potatoes were so large that one potato met the poundage we were trying to achieve!

Thank you to everyone who has continued to donate paper grocery bags with handles and reusable shopping totes. We have seen a huge increase in the number of guests bringing in their reusable shopping totes, but we use the donated bags for those who do not.

Remember, food and bag donations may be dropped 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays at the RE/MAX Unlimited office at 1080 Schadt Ave., Whitehall. If you prefer your donation to be picked up or if you prefer to drop your donation directly to the pantry, give me a call at 610-379-6823.

Also, if you are curious about what the pantry looks like, how it operates or if you are interested in volunteering, give me a call, and I can arrange a visit for you.

Stay warm, and have a happy Valentine’s Day!

Editor’s note: This column was written by Gwen Herzog, pantry garden chair.