Fall Enrichment Classes at the Food Innovation Center

All classes will be held at the Food Innovation Center, unless otherwise noted. For more information contact Hristina Petrovska, hpetrovska@kvcc.edu. To register for a class, go to kvcc.edu/community.

Beekeeping: Late Season Health and Nutrition Tuesdays, August 10 - August 24 | 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Instructors: Charlotte Hubbard and Sara Tanis
$60

August is arguably the most important month for ensuring your bees are in the best condition to survive winter. Hands-on in the apiary as weather allows, we’ll cover hive evaluation, key health considerations, feeding, and getting them ready for what lies ahead.

Seed Stewardship: Hand-Pollination and Wet Seed Processing
August 14, 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Instructor: Amy Newday and John Edgerton
$30
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.

Urban Homesteading
Wednesdays, August 25 - September 29 | 6 - 8 p.m.
Instructors: Lee Arbogast, Brenna Pixley, Sara Tanis and Mariel Borgman
$120
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, husbanding urban livestock, cheese making, composting and mushroom cultivation. This is a class for all ages and all scales of land access.

Home Landscape Design
Thursdays, August 26 – September 30 | 6 - 9 p.m.
Instructor: Rob Welch
$30
This course will teach homeowners or interested beginning designers to develop and design a basic landscape. The design process will be demonstrated and each student will design a plan for their site. The process from family inventory to plant selection will be covered. Each student will present their project and develop ideas from others as the class progresses.

Plant Identification Walk
Saturday, August 28 | 10 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Instructor: Brenna Pixley
Location: Kleinstuck Preserve
$20
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.

Tour of the Food Innovation Center
Saturday, September 4 | 11 a.m. - 12 p.m.
FREE

ValleyHUB is a farm, food hub, and education center based at the Food Innovation Center at Kalamazoo Valley Community College. The Urban Farm at ValleyHUB showcases a range of sustainable agricultural practices. The five-acre site includes an indoor grow room, a heated greenhouse, outdoor raised beds, and two passive solar hoop houses. The Food Hub is a licensed food processing facility equipped to produce fresh-cut fruits and vegetables at a range of production scales. Join us on this free tour to explore the beautiful site and learn about our programs and practices.

Beekeeping: Preparing for Overwintering
Tuesdays, September 7 - September 21 | 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Instructors: Charlotte Hubbard and Sara Tanis
$60
Feed? Wrap? Insulate? Treat? A combination of field work (weather allowing) and classroom instruction will review key steps for overwintering an apiary in Michigan.

Winter Growing at Home
Saturday, September 11 | 10 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Instructor: Ben Brown
$20
Fall crops and harvested plants can be a source for continued growth through the winter months. Students will learn how to extend the life-span of annual crops by propagating them and continuing to grow them inside your home all winter long.

Garden Guardians: How Insects Keep Pests Out of the Garden
Saturday, September 18 | 10 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Instructor: Sara Tanis
$10
Join us for a fun and informative class that focuses on how beneficial insects in the yard and garden help protect your plants from damaging pests. We will take an up close and personal look at lacewings, lady beetles, 'true bugs,' mantids and others. These insects serve as predators of aphids, thrips, and caterpillars, just to name a few. The course will be a combination of hands-on and classroom learning and at the end of the day, you will take home a packet of seeds for plants that will help you attract predators to your garden. Attracting guardians to your garden could be part of your Integrated Pest Management program – and its fun to see them in their ecological habitats.

Build a Native Bee Hotel
Saturday, September 25 | 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Instructors: Mariel Borgman and Veronica Bolhuis
$30
Tunnel nesting bees are important pollinators for fruits and vegetables. Unlike honey bees, tunnel nesting bees do not live in colonies or move in swarms, so they are also often called solitary bees. Participants in this class will learn how to build and manage a bee hotel to support their local tunnel nesting bees. Each participant will be able to take home a bee hotel at the end of the class.

Seed Stewardship: Harvesting, Cleaning, and Storing Staple Crops for Food and Seed
October 2, 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Instructor: Amy Newday and John Edgerton
$30
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, barley, rye, and wheat. 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.

At Home Herbalism
Thursdays, October 7 - November 11 | 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Instructor: Brenna Pixley
$150
Herbs are a traditional source of nutrition and healing. Students 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. We will engage in on-campus plant walks to discuss bioregional, cultivated and seasonal plants. Hands-on workshops include creating salves, broth mixes, infused oil, spiced cider, elderberry syrup and more. Students will take home items created in class.

Bats and Their Importance in the Ecosystem
Saturday, October 9 | 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Instructors: Veronica Bolhuis and Mariel Borgman
$30
Mushroom Cultivation
Wednesdays, October 6 - October 27 | 6 - 8 p.m.
Instructor: Lee Arbogast
$100
Learn 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. Mushroom identification is practiced during this course as well. Students take home different inoculated mushroom media at the end of each session.

Vermiculture Composting
Saturday, October 23 | 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Instructor: Brenna Pixley
$20
Do you want to lower your carbon footprint and make your own organic fertilizer in one simple process? Vermiculture composting uses worms to recycle food scraps and other organic material into a rich soil amendment that will help your garden retain moisture and support beneficial microorganisms. Participants in this class will learn the basics of vermicomposting at home. Each student will receive a bag of worms to get started in vermicomposting.

So You Wanna Be a Beekeeper?
Tuesday, November 9 | 6 - 9 p.m.
Instructor: Charlotte Hubbard and Sara Tanis
$30
If you are interested in beekeeping, but not sure what it takes to be a successful beekeeper, this class is for you. Participants 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.