For the first time in its decades-long history, Kansas City Community Gardens will offer a series of gardening classes off-site. As part of the new Growing Together program at the Kansas City Public Library, former KCCG executive director, Ben Sharda, will teach courses at various Library branches throughout March and April.

Sharda will cover the basics that prospective gardeners need to know early in the planting season, such as selecting a fruit tree that will thrive in Kansas City, growing herbs, and planting cool-season crops like lettuce.

He’ll also cover appropriate planting timetables. “With this weather right now, people are dying to start, and I think we're still going to get some serious cold weather,” Sharda says of February’s unusually high temperatures.

He hopes that presenting the classes at the Library will help KCCG reach more Kansas Citians interested in gardening.

“Everybody's struggling with high food prices, and people say they don't feel like they can afford fruits and vegetables,” Sharda says. “Sure, you're not going to grow all your own food, but having a garden can save you a bunch of money.”

In 2023, KCCG provided low-cost resources, education, and free technical support to 3,427 home gardeners, 283 community gardens, and 246 neighborhood orchards in the nine-county metro area.

However, Sharda says that a lot of people still don’t know about their services or that they work with gardeners from all income and skill levels as well as schools, churches, food pantries, group homes, and shelters.

Amy Morris, assistant manager at the Irene H. Ruiz Branch, says courses will connect patrons to KCCG’s knowledge base and provide an additional way to remove barriers for patrons interested in gardening.

Since 2014, the Ruiz Branch’s seed library, has offered free vegetable, fruit, flower, herb, and tree seeds and an expanded collection of gardening books and cookbooks. But to get the results they desire, potential gardeners also need knowledge.

Making these KCCG courses available at several locations removes the know-how barrier.

“I want to give people in our urban areas, where our locations are, the opportunity to get to some classes,” says Morris.

Sharda says he’ll offer practical advice in the Library classes. For instance, he urges beginners to start with just three or four vegetables – and KCCG staff has identified which varieties grow best in Kansas City’s climate.

“We're not in the best lettuce-growing country here,” he says, “because it gets hot real quick in the spring, and head lettuce does not do well when it gets hot.”

But, he tells people, canasta lettuce does well. It’s also more nutritious than other head lettuces. He has similar recommendations for onions and peppers but says you almost can’t go wrong with tomatoes regardless of variety.

“There are no bad gardeners, and there are no dumb questions,” he says, but “anytime you plant a garden, you're taking a little bit of risk – your time and energy and all that stuff.”

Hopefully, these classes will mitigate that risk.

The Library’s 2024 Growing Together series also includes courses on creating mini fairy gardens, writing nature journals, making native seed bombs, and more. Watch the Library’s calendar for classes as they’re added throughout the year.