BATON ROUGE, La. – The LSU AgCenter Botanic Gardens at Burden is holding a series of vegetable workshops on a variety of gardening topics beginning in February.

The workshops will provide information to help parents and teachers establish and maintain a vegetable garden.

“Gardens at school or home provide environments for effective learning,” said LSU AgCenter gardening specialist Kiki Fontenot. “The workshops will provide gardening basics that parents or teachers can use to plant seeds of knowledge in children.”

“The workshops will include hands-on activities, and everyone attending will be getting their hands dirty while learning basic principles of gardening that can be applied in the home or school garden,” said Kyle Huffstickler, director of education at the Botanic Gardens.

The workshop dates and topics include:

– Feb. 21 – How to construct raised vegetable garden beds.

– April 11 – Starting and growing your own vegetable transplants.

– June 13 – What is a weed, what is a plant?

– Aug. 8 – Insect identification.

– Oct. 10 – Is it ready to harvest/eat?

– Nov. 14 – Preparing your fresh vegetables.

All workshops will be held at LSU AgCenter Botanic Gardens at Burden, located at 4560 Essen Lane in Baton Rouge, from 6 p.m. until 7 p.m. There is no charge for admission, but registration is required by contacting Huffstickler at 225-763-3990.