Garden tours around here used to mean flower gardens, but food gardens have joined the tour options this year in Lawrence and Kansas City. (I say “this year” because I’m not aware of previous such tours, but I’m not ruling out the possibility, and I don’t have time to research it right now.) Put these events on your calendar!
If you’re excited about local food but still aren’t sure how those goods in the farmers market or CSA bag came to be, these tours are sure to open your eyes!
Lawrence Food Gardens
The Lawrence Food Garden Tour (pdf) is an apparently free, self-guided tour of 12 gardens, including a nice mix of small-scale home gardens, ambitious home gardens and community gardens. The locations are weighted toward central and east Lawrence (the Barker neighborhood must be an especially fertile spot for growing-or for support), which is kind of remarkable considering that full sun exposure is at a premium in these older neighborhoods. The PDF above lists details and contact information.
The Lawrence Food Garden Tour is 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturday, May 30, with a rain date listed as June 6. The Lawrence Sustainability Network appears to be the coordinating organization.
KC Urban Farms & Gardens Tour
Wow, does this tour look exciting! In addition to the farms and gardens on the tour, scheduled 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Sunday, June 28, across the Kansas City area, many affiliated activities are scheduled. Find the full events schedule at the KC Urban Farms & Gardens Tour site.
The events, which span about a week before to a day after the tour, include talks, presentations, classes, workshops and children’s activities on a wide range of local food topics: urban homesteading, how to eat local in the region, keeping livestock in the city, how to start a community garden and much more.
It’s an impressive list of activities to accompany the tour, which, according to the tickets site, has about 30 gardens throughout the metro area. Tickets are $5 for individuals, $12 for families of three or more plus a service charge and are available at Brown Paper Tickets.
At this writing, the KC site does not include a map, a list of the tour locations or details on whether tickets are available anywhere besides on line. We’ll hope and trust they’ll update their information in the near future. The tour is sponsored by the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture.
On the calendar
In the days ahead, I’ll see if I can find time to round up more information. If the meantime, though, I wanted to get the word out so you can plan to go. I think these tours are an exciting advance. Now in addition to spring flower gardens and fall after-the-harvest (or mostly after the harvest) farm tours, we get a chance to see food growing when the plants are actively producing food-or well into the process.
Sylvie, Rappahannock Cook & Kitchen Gardener // May 26, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Thanks for sharing those terrific tour ideas. I am looking at trying to implement something similar in my area - and it’s great to see what others are doing.
Janet Majure // May 27, 2009 at 1:10 pm
You’re welcome, Sylvie. Good luck with your planning! I think these two tours show how simple or complex you can make them.