Generous Garden

Moses Lake teacher cultivates vacant lot for food pantry

MOSES LAKE — Don Key is always busy with something. “I’ve always got projects,” he said as he stood in the vacant lot next to his house on West Basin Street. It’s a vacant lot Key said he bought some years ago after the owner died. Key turned it into a garden, which in late summer was filled with purple tomatoes ripening to red on trellised vines, Armenian cucumbers curling low and hanging heavy, rhubarb growing leafy and tall, and melon vines wrapped around the chain link fence enclosing the garden. While he keeps some of the produce for himself, and allows neighbors who need some to pick what they like, Key said he really grows this produce for the Moses Lake Food Bank.