Local Growth

If you’ve planted a tomato plant in your backyard, you’re already an urban gardener and ready for the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture’s week of classes and events aimed at raw-food basics, increasing awareness of city gardens and turning your front lawn into a vegetable patch. The “Food From the City, for the City” events include today’s 2 p.m. class for teens on butter (no, not the edible kind you spread on nine-grain bread but the sexy emollient that moisturizes the body) at the Kansas City Public Library’s Southeast Branch (6242 Swope Parkway, 816-701-3494). Tonight’s special kickoff party for the Kansas City Urban Farms and Gardens Tour takes place on the rooftop terrace at the Central Branch (14 West 10th Street), starting with a 6 p.m. reception featuring local and organic treats and Missouri wines. From 6:30 to 8 p.m., a panel of experts will offer what organizers say will be “a practical vision of a Kansas City that produces much of its own food from gardens and farms in and around the city” and will also take questions from the audience. The terrace seats 150, so make a reservation by calling 816-701-3407.

Thu., June 18, 6 p.m., 2009