A garden-centered hands-on program for families to learn about food, seasons, life cycles, cooking and nutrition.

Dirt to Dinner encourages participants to explore full food systems (“seed-to-table”) through both individual and group learning such as compost chemistry and physics, bee gardening, nature journaling, botany trails, cooking service projects, entomology research, food preservation or projects of the participant’s own design.

Each Saturday session includes preparing healthy meals in the kitchen as well as learning in the garden environment.

Schedule:

Saturday, September 12th, Program Begins!
Week of Sept. 14th Open Garden time begins, Garden Journals, Mapping, Sketching from Nature
Week of Sept. 21st Open Garden Composting Projects

Saturday, September 26th, Food Preservation and Protection
Week of Sept. 28th Preservation Projects: Drying, Pickling, Storing
Week of Oct. 5th “Fruit” Projects: Watermelon Math, Tomato Seed Explorations

Saturday, October 10th,  Pollination
Week of 12th Citizen Science “Great Sunflower Project”, Bees
Week of Oct. 19th Garden Entomology Projects

Saturday, October 24th, Pollinator Gardens: Growing for Hummingbirds, Butterflies and Bees
Week of Oct. 26th Flowers Projects
Week of  Nov. 2nd Flowers Projects

Saturday, November 7th, Fall Food Crops
Week of  Nov. 9th Leaves Projects
Week of Nov.  16th Leaves Projects

Saturday, November 21st, Harvest Projects
Week of Nov. 23rd Thanksgiving Break – No Open Garden
Week of Nov. 30th  Luffas and Gourds, Part I

Saturday, December 5th, Plant Adaptations and Strategies for Surviving the Winter
Week of December 7th, Luffas and Gourds, Part II
Week of December 14th, Survival Strategies Projects

Saturday, December 19th, Gifts from the Garden
Week of Dec. 21st through Jan 8th – Holiday Break

Saturday, January 9th,  Putting Down Roots
Week of Jan 11th Roots Projects
Week of Jan 18th Roots Projects

Saturday, January 23rd, Program Conculsion: Locavore Living, Continuing the Lessons of the Garden