Sustainable Foods, Farm & Gardens   

Herbs are a traditional source of nutrition and healing. Participants in this class will explore the impact of ancestral plants, sources of materia medica, ethical and sustainable foraging techniques, as well as recipes for building a home apothecary. Participants will engage in on-campus plant walks to discuss bioregional, cultivated, and seasonal plants. Includes hands-on workshops.

Do you want to lower your carbon footprint and make your own organic fertilizer in one simple process? Learn to compost! Composting is the process for recycling wastes like kitchen scraps and grass clippings into an organic soil amendment that will help your garden retain moisture and support beneficial microorganisms. Vermiculture composting uses worms to recycle food scraps and other organic material. These two methods are a great alternative to putting food and yard wastes in landfills, where they generate methane. Join us in this 2-hour class to learn the basics of vermicomposting at home. We will provide each student with a pound of worms to get started in your own vermicomposting adventures. 

Note: If you have an old plastic bin (at least 10 gallons) that you would like to use for worm composting, please bring it.  

Required prerequisite: Eco-Friendly Home Landscape Design 1.0

This three-day course is the second in a two-part series and will give you additional hands-on experience designing your eco-friendly home landscape. Students will

1. Revisit the design principles

2. Review the right plant, right place concepts

3. Enhance their drawing and design skills,

4. Visit local residential spaces with a professional designer.

These experiences will enable students to feel confident structuring a design plan works for their space and local ecosystem. One class session will be off-site so students can gain hands-on experience measuring and evaluating outdoor spaces

This course is for the homeowner or interested beginning designer to learn how to develop and design a home landscape that enhances local ecosystem services. Learn the basics of “right plant, right place”, and how to use plants and hardscapes to amplify aesthetics and ecosystem function.  
You will also learn how to use iTree® software to properly place trees in your landscape; this will enable you to reduce heating and cooling costs, maximize the benefits of shade, and reduce air and water pollution.
We will provide you with a landscape design toolkit, and you will have the chance to design your own site, and get peer and expert feedback on your ideas and final design. 

NOTE: No class will be held on October 4
Class dates are: September 13,20,27, October 11 and 18

Join local herbalist Brenna Pixley in this interactive plant walk, focusing on identifying tasty and useful plants. Become more aware of seasonal and traditional parts of our diets and practices, and discuss native and invasive species and sustainable and ethical wild crafting techniques. 

Location: Kleinstuck Preserve 2100 Stearns Ave, Kalamazoo MI

Come join us in learning about growing your own gourmet mushrooms from locally available materials! We will grow oysters, shiitake, winecaps, and more. Students will learn how to procure substrates and create good environments for mushroom growth. We will also discuss how to use coffee grounds and other composted material as substrates for mushroom growth.  Some mushroom identification is practiced during this course as well. Come ready to learn about the savory mysteries of fungal farming. Students take home different inoculated mushroom media at the end of each session.

The Dapper Hammer will teach community members to create a wood planter box. This class will be a two part series that will cover introduction to basic power tools including; miter saw, drill, power sander, and basic joinery. There will be additional instruction on finishing methods. This class focuses on how to build a simple planter box you can take home with you, while learning how to properly use and understand power tools. 

Location: The Dapper Hammer 1415 Fulford St. Kalamazoo MI 49001

This two-day course will give you hands-on experience on pruning fruit trees, shrubs, and other plants. The first session will be in the classroom; we will discuss fruit plant physiology and morphology and you will learn how and when to prune for maximum yield. The second session will be at the Western Michigan University's Gibbs House food forest where you will gain hands-on experience with a variety of pruning tools and techniques.

Note on locations:
Thursday, September 8 | 6 – 8 p.m.  – Lecture component at Food Innovation Center (224 E Crosstown Parkway, Kalamazoo)
Thursday, September 15 | 6 – 8 p.m. – Hands-on component at WMU’s Gibb’s House Food Forest (4503 Parkview Ave, Kalamazoo)
Rain date: September 19 (In the event that it rains on September 15, the hands-on component will take place the following Monday, September 19 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Grow your seed-saving skills through this class at the Food Innovation Center seed garden, where you’ll learn hands-on techniques for saving seeds from wet-seeded crops such as tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and melons. We’ll cover how to select for seeds that are especially well-adapted to your growing conditions, isolation strategies and hand-pollination techniques for cross-pollinating plants, and cleaning and storing wet-fruited seeds for maximum viability and vigor.

In this class at the Food Innovation Center seed garden, we’ll explore seed crops like beans and grains that can be grown in our region as protein-rich staple foods. You will build your knowledge and skill in growing, harvesting, cleaning, and storing seeds from a variety of dry beans and grains such as rice, amaranth, millet, corn, and sorghum. We’ll demonstrate tools and techniques for threshing and winnowing, selecting seeds for next year’s seed crop, and ideas for incorporating these nourishing foods into your daily diet.

If you are interested in beekeeping, but not sure what it takes to be a successful beekeeper, this class is for you. Join instructor Charlotte Hubbard in this VIRTUAL 3-hour session where you will learn about the financial, time, physical and emotional commitment required for beekeeping. You will also learn about the essential equipment needed, where to locate hives, the various options for obtaining bees and a timeline for making it happen. 

Information to connect to virtural class will be sent via email the week this class meets. 

Join us in revealing many of the ways to make more food with less from home! In an era of climate change and energy decline, we will benefit from being more involved in producing our own food to ensure access to the most nutritious and life supporting meals. The secret is that it can be fun and easier than you think to care for your family, friends and city’s ecology. Come join us in learning to make simple gardens (indoor and outdoor), planting perennial food crops, foraging wild edibles, preservation and fermentation of crops, raising urban livestock, cheese making, composting and mushroom cultivation. A class for all ages and all scales of land access.

Please Note: This class consist of 4 different sessions.

Session 1: Saturday, 8/6/2022, 10 am - 12 pm

Session 2: Wednesday, 8/17/22, 6 - 8 pm

Session 3: Tuesday, September 9/6/22, 6 - 8 pm

Session 4: Thursday, 9/29/22 6 - 8 pm

This last section of the three-part series in beekeeping will look at the life of a honeybee colony as it continues to ready for winter. Overwintering practices, preparation and options will be discussed, along with fall and winter duties of the beekeeper. We will continue our examination of bee biology, and discuss other products of the hive.

Trees and humans have a long and interesting history together. In addition to the joy that trees bring us, they also give us food, building materials, and the Oxygen we breathe. There’s also a lot of things that trees do behind the scenes; they filter pollutants, store Carbon, reduce storm water runoff, and save us millions of dollars annually in heating and cooling costs.  While this is not a tree identification course, you will learn how to select the right tree for your location so that it will enhance the beauty and health of your landscape – and – save you money! The course is divided into three sections 1) Trees in the Landscape: A Lecture, 2) an introduction to MyTree ® landscaping software, and 3) a walk around the Food Innovation Center Campus, to look at trees and discuss their function and placement.

Note: If you have one, please bring a laptop.