Another reason you should lock your doors

It's a good idea to keep your car doors locked.

That's good advice all year around, thanks to ne'er-do-wells ranging from underage smokers looking for cigarettes and coins, to criminals looking to make off with everything from the electronics to the vehicle itself.

But it's especially good advice, for another reason, thanks to the abundance of garden produce that's sprung forth from the Southwest Nebraska earth. Leave your car unlocked, and you're likely to find everything from boxes of zucchinis to bags of tomatoes and sacks of sweet corn -- the latter recently past its prime, left there by your neighbors.

On one recent outing, we had offers enough to more than fill our own freezers and space we could borrow with the delectable soft golden grain.

Yes, some vegetables -- or are they fruits? -- like tomatoes have left some gardeners frustrated, but for the most part, it's been a banner year for growing food in our gardens.

Thanks to timely rain, relatively moderate temperatures and careful nurturing, even gardens who have no particular owners are doing well this year.

It's perhaps been one of the best years for McCook's first community garden, started three years ago by Dave Winder, funded with the help of the Community Foundation and moved this year to a Q Street location.

Various businesses and organizations accepted responsibility to specific parts of the garden, and that has paid off with an abundance of the respective vegetables.

The same goes for a newer community garden, situated on the Church of Christ lot on East H Street.

Food from both projects which isn't picked immediately goes to regular meals for hungry people in our town.

Besides giving people who need food a chance to help produce it for themselves, it encourages consumption of fresh, healthy greens and colorful vegetables instead of processed, unhealthy packaged food from the grocery store or drive-through window.

Both the community garden and the effort to feed hungry people with fresh, locally grown and lovingly tended vegetables are something of which we can all be proud.