Preston — Patrick Kelley seemed to be floating on air as he scooped up large potted tomato plants Wednesday at the Bonnie Plants greenhouses, hauling them off in a flat-bed truck to be distributed to charitable organizations around the region.

"It's like Christmas in the middle of the summer," said Kelley, co-founder of the Eastern Connecticut Community Gardens Association, formed to improve local nutrition and combat food insecurity.

Kelley and his associates have been making up to two trips a day to the Preston farm over the past two weeks to tap into the thousands of season-ending herbs, vegetable plants and fruit trees and bushes that Bonnie Plants gives away to garden associations and state correctional facilities. The plants otherwise would be thrown away.

Bonnie Plants, owned by the 37,000-member nonprofit Alabama Farmers Cooperative, has quietly been giving away items to local organizations for the past six years. By early July, operations at the 20 onsite greenhouses slow to a crawl because very few plants are sold in stores after mid-July, station manager Randy Trussell said.

"It helps the community," Trussell said. "That's why I do it."

"There's no way in the world I could plant what he donates," said Bill Lincoln, who owns a horse farm in Uncasville and brought his truck to haul plants from the farm.

Donations from Bonnie Plants, a wholesaler that employs up to 70 people at the height of the planting season, go to senior centers, food pantries, community gardens, day care facilities and even Meals on Wheels programs around the region. Among other beneficiaries are Thames Valley Council for Community Action, Pawcatuck Neighborhood Center, Westerly Area Rest Meals, Riverfront Children's Center and Mystic Area Shelter & Hospitality.

"It couldn't happen without Randy," Lincoln said.

The local Bonnie Plants operation, which Trussell estimates to be a $7 million business from February through July, will sell about 415,000 trays this year, mostly to big-box stores such as Walmart, Home Depot and Lowes. One of 64 Bonnie Plants growing facilities nationwide, it serves Connecticut, Rhode Island and parts of New York and Massachusetts.

Trussell has to estimate every year how many vegetable plants and herbs to grow among the 360 varieties the farm stocks, and there are inevitably leftovers toward the end of the planting season — this year, an estimated 20,000 plants. Inviting the community gardens association in to take whatever its people can carry saves on the labor of disposing of the plants while providing a boon to those who cannot afford to buy fresh produce.

At the Montville Senior Center, residents can rent a 10-foot-by-10-foot bed for $10, which is far less than the value of plants that can be harvested there, said Ellen Hillman, a former town councilor who also is a community gardens association leader. One quarter of the produce that comes out of the beds must be donated to the local food pantry, while the rest can be taken home.

"It's about feeding your neighbor," Hillman said.

Susan Corrice, finance and operations director for the Groton-based Children's Riverfront Center, said the Bonnie Plants donations have helped the nonprofit expand its garden offerings, allowing children to grow fresh fruits and vegetables that they can share at home — a foreign experience to some of them.

"We've eliminated that disconnect with the natural process and gardening," Corrice said.

But while Bonnie Plants donations have allowed struggling families to enjoy more fresh produce, Kelley said one frustration remains. That's the inability to enlist enough help to glean all the plants that the farm is willing to donate.

"We need bigger trucks," Kelley said. "We want to work smarter, not harder."

"I don't think they have enough gardens to put all the plants," Trussell joked.

While many of the plants will wind up on the patios and decks of families in need, much of the produce is canned for later consumption. Kelley estimated about 60 to 70 percent of the plants make it into the ground after being transported from the site.

As his two-week window for taking the plants winds down, Kelley maintained his enthusiasm for the project and what it means for people in eastern Connecticut.

"This is D-Day," he said. "Next is the Dumpster."

l.howard@theday.com

Twitter: @KingstonLeeHow

 www.GetGrowingCt.org

 Patrick Kelley: (860) 941-7891