It depends on what you plant. Initially starting with easy to plant and harvest crops which do not require labor intensive thinnng and harvest might be best. ie. tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, zucchini NOT harvest intensive beans and peas or ones requiring careful seeding ,thinning, weeding, or cleaning....ie. carrots, onions from seed Crops that can be harvested all at once and do not require frequent harvest are also good ie. onions, potatoes. Schedule a work day and snack/meal and make harvests day a fun social time for the volunteers. Black plastic (with tiny holes to allow water through if, like us, you are not running drip tape or other irrigation) and other mulches are your friends. Weeds are not. Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, zucchini planted through plastic are much easier to maintain....mostly water, fertilize, and harvest. Not near the weeding maintenance that many volunteers do not enjoy. Most pantries around me do better with donations of produce that will keep without much care or refrigeration. Again, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, zucchini, onions, maybe cukes, all work well for them. NOT lettuce. Talk with yours to see what they can get to people while it is still in good condition and plan your planting accordingly. I've done 4,000 sq ft with the crops mentioned and managed it with one other person.....We spent a few long days getting it tilled (It had been a garden previous years) and planted early in the year and after that both of us were there 2-3 long mornings a week. We got along well and got to know each other well. One of us had alot of gardening experience and the other had in depth knowledge of the organization who owned the land. We had access to a tiller and basic garden hand tools. The garden did not always look pretty but it produced alot of tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and zucchini. In fact, we had to find a second pantry because the first did not have many clients who wanted our prolific hot peppers.....we learned to work with the pantry early and plant crops they had demand for the next year. If you know you have good, reliable, season long help (and sometimes those who assure you they will be, disappear in a few weeks)consider crops that require more weeding, cleaning after harvest, and watering. Might be best to get a year in first though, to see how things go and add the higher maintenance veggies later. Enjoy the successes and don't let any failures you encounter drag you down. Lots of people will be thrilled to have fresh produce.

Aesculus x carnea var. 'Ft. McNair' Ospreynn, you are lucky watering is not a limitation! Do you have automated irrigation? Do you want the huge hippocastanum or the smaller carnea? I did 24/7 care for 3 years for a lady off Vista in Portland where the streets were lined with old red and white candled hippocastanums and it was so beautiful. Yes, a dense high dark green canopy that gave lovely shade in summer. The trunks were gnarled but interesting and attractive. Lots of bird nests. Bboy, these trees are so slow. But they can grow over the roof with time. Hard to imagine them getting that big. 2300 sq ft of one-story roof to occupy, LOL Except the Quercus virginia is supposed to claim that space. Or the Eucalyptus Scoparia, or Cedrus brevifolia, or the 3 Nyssa aquaticas, who knows. There's really a 70' carnea in Seattle? Cool! I just turned 48 so won't live long enough to see these become a problem. Acer macrophyllum is the Big Leaf Maple. Native to here, NW Oregon. They like water. They are wilting up here by August in our increasingly hot dry summers. Osprey, sounds like you'd like the trees here, also plenty of osprey here. I planted October Glories for maples because the fall color is so rich and they like water, put them in creeklets. Have a sugar maple that isn't doing so well and it's in a drier area. Of course Japanese maples do well here. A Big Leaf in New Mexico? Have you seen any thriving there?

I live in the woods, native California trees. Aesculus are prodigious reseeders where they get enough sunlight. In the shaded woodland reseeding is greatly reduced. In an irrigated garden they can grow into a quite large tree and the season of growth extended about two months. I have no way of knowing how the bee population is affected. We seem to have as many bees as ever, but you can not have too many bees. In the native plantings it takes about 10 years to grow to 10 to 15 feet. With summer water I would expect significantly faster growth. Al

GE is not a high maintenance plant, however it does have very specific requirements for planting. Once these requirements are met, it is virtually a zero maintenance plant except for watering, and always the showiest thing in the garden. My 3 mature plants range from 31 to 34 inches tall, and 3 1/2 to 5 1/2 feet across. In it's defense, the 'little' one is being severely crowded by Sagae, Frosted Jade, Blue Angel, and Sweet Susan, all of them monsters. I believe that given enough room, GE would top out around 36 inches and 6 feet or more across. First, plant GE shallow--very shallow. The temptation is to plant it deeply, as it's going to be a very large plant, but if you do, it will slowly dwindle and die over the course of a couple of years. This seems to be the most common cause for failure with this variety. Second, GE needs sun to really thrive. It will grow in shade, but very slowly, and will not reach it's full potential. At least not in my lifetime. Mine get almost full morning sun, then high dappled shade (lots and lots of light) for most of the rest of the day. I have also planted large numbers of small GEs in full sun, and they are all thriving. Third, this variety needs water, and plenty of it, to do well. When you plant, amend the soil (I skipped this step, since I was planting in really good Iowa dirt) to include lots of compost and peat, and then water deeply. By deeply, I mean until the water puddles on the surface, or at least an hour with a sprinkler. The soil amendments will allow for good drainage. My hosta beds get watered by sprinkler for between 2 and 4 hours for each area. Not this year, of course, since it's been raining every 10 minutes or so almost every day since April, but in an ordinary year I water everything deeply around the middle of May, again in late June, and once more in August. In between those times, if it's been particularly dry I might water a 4th time, especially for new plantings. I don't fertilize my hostas very often, and never with anything but organic material. Once the soil is amended, all I add is water most years. Once in a while I will top dress with either composted manure or rabbit manure, but that's it. I do leave all the leaf debris, twigs, etc from my trees on the hostas every year, so they benefit from that material as is breaks down into the soil. I also have lots of earthworms, which add nutrients to the soil. In any case, it's too late in the year to fertilize hostas this year. Any fertilizer should be used before the middle of July. After that time, it promotes new leaf growth, instead of the new root development that will give you a better hosta next year. GE is my favorite hosta, and if you follow these guidelines, yours should do well for you. Remember also, for those of you who have had trouble in the past with this variety, there were a couple of really bad tissue culture batches that were sold a number of years ago. The tc problems appear to have been resolved, and if you can find a nice, healthy looking plant to start with, GE shouldn't be any more difficult to grow than any other hosta. And if you want to see something really spectacular, look for a streaked GE--I have 2 little ones in my garden this year, from tissue culture tinies last year, and they are amazing!