Frozen fields and 5 p.m. sunsets during Wisconsin winters don't stop St. Joe's Food Program from providing pantry clients with fresh fruits and vegetables. Mixed in among the potatoes, onions and oranges that the pantry purchases are bunches of the green, leafy lettuce it grows. On site. Year round.

St. Joe's uses eight hydroponic machines inside its Menasha pantry with each machine producing 20 pounds of lettuce in about 21 days, says Executive Director Monica Clare. It's efficient to grow and more nutritious than lettuce that's been repeatedly washed and shipped long distances, she said.

And St. Joe's isn't the only Wisconsin food pantry cultivating its own fresh produce.

Lettuce grown in the Oshkosh Area Community Pantry's hydroponic machine goes quickly, says Executive Director Tom Fojtik. Within hours of being harvested, all 20 pounds of lettuce is provided to clients.

Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin has helped pantries like OACP acquire hydroponic growing machines. It's one of the ways the nonprofit has helped bolster the amount of fresh produce available at food pantries in its network.

It's not easy to maintain a steady flow of fresh produce in Wisconsin. The short growing season. The unpredictable nature of procuring it. The short shelf life. Those difficulties, however, are outweighed by demand for fresh fruits and vegetables at Wisconsin food pantries.

The push to provide fresh produce

Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin distributes more fresh produce to local food pantries than any other category of food, says President and CEO Patti Habeck.

Providing fresh produce at food pantries isn't just about nutrition. Demand for fresh produce is "extremely high," according to a Feeding Wisconsin food pantry research summary released in March.

Grapes, peppers and other fruits and vegetables may not rush to mind when thinking about food pantries. To be fair, food drives typically request nonperishable items like jars of peanut butter, boxes of pasta and cans of tuna.

Though the general public may not see it, providing fresh produce is a large part of what many pantries do. St. Joe's started nearly 40 years ago almost exclusively providing fresh produce to families in need, says Clare.

"We’ve always had fresh produce here as a focus," said Clare. "In the past 12 years we’ve really zeroed in on nutrition."

Today people who qualify for St. Joe's program receive eggs, meat, dairy and a rotation of nonperishable items along with produce. Bags filled with bright red apples and carts loaded with plump watermelons are part of the scene at St. Joe's during these early autumn days.

Straight from gardens and farm fields

From spring through fall, volunteers tend gardens scattered throughout the Fox Cities dedicated to delivering all their fruits and vegetables to St. Joe's.

Backyard gardeners also drop off extras or produce they grew specifically for St. Joe's as part of its "Grow A Row For St. Joe" campaign. Some gardeners literally set aside one row, says Clare, but mostly the rhyming in the program's name serves as a reminder that St. Joe's accepts produce donations.

"We want to get the healthiest food possible to people coming to our pantry," said Clare. "Grow A Row has generated a great deal of awareness and gotten a lot of people to bring in their fresh produce. It saves us a lot of money during the summer."

Increasingly, Feeding America buys crops from local farms and co-ops like Seasonal Harvest, based in De Pere.

When Seasonal Harvest first started working with Feeding America, it got called once or twice a year, says co-owner Sheri Howard. Last year's orders, however, totaled $11,000, and they're on pace to do about the same this year.

One advantage of working directly with farmers like those in the Seasonal Harvest co-op is the ability to get produce with maximum shelf life. While Seasonal Harvest negotiates prices with Feeding America, often at a discounted rate, says Howard, the co-op provides the same quality product to the food bank as it does to all its customers.

For both Feeding America and St. Joe's, working with gardeners and farmers throughout the seasons increases the variety of produce available at pantries, from asparagus in spring to beans in summer to cauliflower in fall.

But as Wisconsin's growing season comes to a close, food pantries need to rely more heavily on other means to provide produce.

Purchasing power and unexpected bounties

When OACP received a call offering a semi-truck load of bananas, it took the perishable fruit. Then it scrambled to get as many bananas as possible to people in need. The food pantry serves 1,300 households each month, but there was no way OACP clients alone could consume the load of bananas before they spoiled.

"Thankfully they were green," said Fojtik.

OAPC called nearby food pantries and the Oshkosh school district to share the unexpected bounty. There was a similar scramble with an unanticipated large donation of oranges.

St. Joe's, which serves about 650 families each week, similarly shared a bit of good fortune with nearby food pantries when it received a skid of fresh pineapples.

Both pantries have extensive cooler space to handle sizable windfalls of fresh fruits and vegetables but also budget money to buy produce.

Regardless of the season, Oshkosh Area Community Pantry always buys potatoes and onions, says Fojtik, because it always needs them.

The pantry works with Feeding America through its direct connect program, allowing OACP to go to nearby Walmarts and Target to collect whatever they have available. Right now that’s a lot of bags of colorful peppers.

Festival Foods gives OACP a monthly credit to buy whatever it needs, says Fojtik, which can include produce.

There's also The Emergency Food Assistance Program. Much of what's available through the program is the result of the government purchasing food from American growers during the ongoing trade wars.

"Right now we have more grapes, plums and pears than you can shake a stick at," said Fojtik.

People served by OACP can take as many grapes as they want.

Because it's difficult to predict the quantity and freshness of the produce it receives, 20% to 60% of OACP's produce ends up going to compost, Fojtik said. How much goes bad instead of out the door largely depends on when they get the produce in its life cycle.

Produce donations are helpful, but there is a benefit to cash donations either directly to pantries or as part of programs like the USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin's Stock the Shelves initiative to provide 1 million meals to Wisconsin residents. Having cash to purchase foods allows pantries to provide the right amount of produce at quantities that will be used before spoiling.

More: Fork Farms is changing the face of farming -- and helping schools, pantries

Contact Daniel at 920-996-7214 or dphiggin@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @HigginsEats and LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/higginseats/.