Garfield museum offers gardening workshop

Daily Herald report

Garfield Farm Museum will hold a gardening workshop from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday, April 17, at the museum, 5 miles west of Geneva, off Route 38 on Garfield Road.

The workshop, titled “Growing Vegetables: A Lost Family Art,” will be given by garden expert Vicki Nowicki and Penny Newkirk with the Country Garden Cuisine Cooking School.

Topics will include, heirloom vegetables, organic farming, how to plant and harvest at the right time and proper food storage.

There will be a $45 donation for the workshop and refreshments will be provided. Reservations are required and can be made by calling (630) 584-8485 or e-mailing info@garfieldfarm.org.

Nowicki is an award-winning vegetable gardener, author and educator with degrees in Environmental Studies, Environmental Education and Museum Studies. She and her husband, Ron, own and operate The Land Office, a landscape design and build firm.

For 30 years, Vicki has helped homeowners grow organic food in their home gardens by showing them how to restore biology to their depleted soils and by reconnecting them with the rhythms of the vegetable season.

For this dedication to purpose, she has won the National Garden Crusader Award in 2009. To further help homeowners who want to grow vegetables and help teach their children the skills needed, she has now provided www.libertygardens.com, where people can get information from her blog.

In addition, she operates a business called Let’s Grow Slow Food. She and her crew plant, weed, irrigate, maintain and harvest organic vegetable gardens for families until they have learned enough to take over the gardening themselves.

Newkirk is the founder of the Country Garden Cuisine Cooking School, just north of Garfield Farm Museum on the historic John Beatty farmstead. The cooking school is in an 1847 brick home that was moved onto the site and restored.

Newkirk has her own herb and vegetable gardens that have been featured in various Midwest publications. The homegrown produce and herbs are used at the school. Classes are offered on a variety of culinary topics.