If you’ve ever wanted to learn about gardening from a Master Gardener and cooking with your own home-grown flowers and vegetables from a former chef instructor at Kendall college, here’s a great opportunity for you. You’ll also have a choice to visit demonstration gardens with Master Gardeners on hand to answer questions, make a herb arrangement in a basket or learn from an experienced floral designer.
The Naperville Garden Club is a member of the Garden Clubs of Illinois (GCI) and we invite you to join us at the summer meeting of GCI on Mon., July 20, at McHenry County College in Crystal Lake. This year’s theme is “From Garden to Table.” Registration begins at 9AM. From 9:45 to 10:45AM, you may attend one of four sessions.
Two sessions are free of charge—using flowers and veggies in your food and the tour of Master Gardener’s demonstration garden. The other two have an additional $20 fee—make-it, take-it herb and lavender basket or a garden flower arrangement. After the meeting and luncheon, Rich Tobiasz will present “Growing Your Own Great Tasting and Nutritious Food.” The $35 fee includes the lunch and program. Find the registration form at www.gardenclubsofillinois.org. Registration is due July 8.
I’m looking forward to this program as Rich will show us how our gardens, no matter how large or small, can provide food for our tables. He lives on a small, sustainable organic farm with an orchard in Spring Grove. Rich wrote the organic chapter for the current Illinois Master Gardener Manual and is currently developing two new courses for McHenry County College’s Urban Agriculture Certificate.
It’s fun to meet gardening experts. Hope to see you there!
One more thing: The Naperville Garden Club recently presented seven 2015-2016 Scholarships. The recipients are listed here with the colleges they will attend and their course of study.
Jonathan Buettner, Illinois State University, Horticulture and Landscape Management; Nicholas Bushelle, University of Illinois, Natural Resources and Environmental Science; Rebecca Flesh, Northland College, Natural Resources; Madeline Gould, Sterling College, Sustainable Agriculture and Agroanthropology; Shelley Sianta, University of California- Santa Cruz, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Geoffrey Siuciak, Illinois State University, Environmental Health; Tiara Songerath, Marie Mackenzie Memorial Scholarship and Mary Quilty Memorial Scholarship, North Central College, Biology.
