A number of years ago, I planted my first vegetable garden on the Vineyard. One of the first things I put in the ground was kale. As the other vegetables barely limped along, the kale plants produced heartily and provided us with many family meals, giving me hope that maybe one day I might find success as a vegetable gardener after all.

The first time I visited New England, my family came to see cousins who had moved to Montpelier, Vt. It was early October, and on one of the first days of our trip we headed to the farmers’ market in the middle of town.

Each farm stand held wooden crates overflowing with the most amazing variety of apples I had ever seen, in many shades of red, brown, yellow and orange, and in all shapes and sizes. These were not the Red Delicious, Yellow Delicious and Granny Smiths I was used to eating at home — there were Beacons, Idareds, Jonagolds, Gravensteins and more.

Last September I stood in the kitchen at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School with 14 other volunteers and 1,600 pounds of fresh roma tomatoes, picked that morning at Morning Glory Farm. The farm owners realized they were not going to be able to harvest this bounty themselves before the ripe and tender fruit was past its prime, and had opened their fields to the Island Grown Gleaning volunteers to pick all they could.