Learn All About Them Saturday, Feb. 19
by Linda Wiggen Kraft
On Saturday Feb. 19th two inspiring and intensely educational opportunities to learn how to grow edibles at home or in a community garden will offered. Two day-long workshops offer national speakers, authors and in-depth classes about growing, harvesting and eating food from the backyard or just around the corner.
Gardeners are rediscovering the joy, power and importance of getting back to their roots by planting more and more food in their gardens. The joy of growing and tasting ripe tomatoes, sweet spinach or thousands of other home grown tasty treats is immense and unforgettable. The power of planting a seed, watching it grow, nurturing it, harvesting it, eating it and letting it become part of your body connects gardeners to the force of all nature and life. The importance of knowing how to grow healthy pure food, how to grow locally, how to grow sustainably and organically, how to prepare and store the harvest, how to share the bounty and how to build community are skills urgently needed for the health of people and the planet.
For home gardeners the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Horticulture Co-op of Metro St. Louis are offering an exciting all day intensive workshop titled The St. Louis Garden Blitz – The Edible Revolution. It features some of the best teachers and gardeners from throughout the country and our own region. Keynote speaker Jennifer Bartley shares tips from her book The Kitchen Gardener’s Handbook on how to grow food beautifully. Sixteen different classes are offered during four classroom periods. Subjects include: The Basics of Organics, Successful Seed Starting, Edible Herbs, Chickens in the Backyard, Small Fruits, Native Edibles, Missouri’s Wild Mushroom, Preserving the Harvest, Chef in the Garden, Buzz on Bees, Using Repurposed Materials in the Edible Garden and more. Cost for the workshop and boxed lunch (if registered by Feb 10th) is $80 for garden members and $96 for non-members. Register at: www.mobot.org/classes. For more info call 314 577-9506.
Gateway Greening Community Garden Summit
For those who are community gardeners, or interested in becoming one, Gateway Greening is offering an all day Community Garden Summit. This workshop is a way for St. Louis area community gardeners to network and help build regional food security. Keynote speaker Bobbie Wilson of American Community Gardening Association and other experts will lead sessions on Veggies 101, Farm-to-School, Growing More Food, Marketing the Garden, Community Gardens and Health, Intensive Gardening, Small Grant Research and Writing and other topics.
The workshop will be held at Christ Church Cathedral. The cost is free, but registration is required.
Register at www.gatewaygreening.org.
For more info call 314 588-9600.
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