Family Farmacy: Softness is a Super Power

Join us for a morning of fiber arts inspired by the plants, animals, and agricultural traditions that connect us to land. Together we’ll explore the relationships between gardens, farms, and textiles while experimenting with wet felting techniques and need-felting with wool, papermaking with flax, and even making our own wet-felted soaps.

Ever think about how the clothes you wear come from farms and gardens? Together, we’ll learn how wool comes from sheep who graze on grasses and meadows, how linen comes from the flax plant, and even how plants like teasel have been historically used in the textile industry.

Join us to indulge in the softness of some our favorite plant and animal farm friends, and we’ll explore how softness is a super power!

Growing family wellness through plants and play.

Food is medicine—and the garden is our classroom! Through hands-on exploration across the Greenhouse & Education Center’s learning garden, greenhouse, and teaching kitchen, Family Farmacy invites families to learn together about how plants support healthy bodies, curious minds, and open hearts. Each week, families will engage in joyful, drop-in workshops where they can grow, make, and taste their way through seasonal lessons in gardening, herbalism, cooking, and plant-based arts. From crafting home remedies and harvesting herbs, to cooking garden-fresh meals and making nature-inspired art, children and caregivers alike will discover how to care for themselves, each other, and the earth.

Note: We very generously interpret family here at the greenhouse. We know that welcoming everyone of all ages makes us storng and vibrant. Elders, children, youth, young adults–everyone is welcome and appreciated. We know that caregivers come in many forms–chosen family, birth family, those who need the love of family are all welcome.

Workshops are rain or shine.

Accessibility: Our kitchen/classroom space is wheelchair accessible. With prior planning, we can add a few small mats onto the pebbled ground of greenhouse to make a small wheel-chair accessible path. Our learning garden has grass paths, and the entrance is through a gate with a small, raised entrance. Our tables can be lowered/raised, and we have several backless benches or stools. Our kitchen is in regular use, and while we try to cook without peanuts, much of our cookware is shared and we cannot guarantee a nut-free environment. We have a first aid kit, and the closest AED is in another building several yards away. Drinking water is made available in refillable pitchers.

When inside the greenhouse and kitchen we will open our double-doors and windows to vent the space and encourage masking and social distancing when in more closed-in spaces.

Our closest bathrooms are a building away, about a one-minute walk. A gender neutral bathroom is also available, and this is accessible by key which you can request from staff. We are not a scent-free zone, and because herbalism classes take place here, cannot guarantee that the site will be clear of any essential oil smells. If you have needs not addressed here, please reach out to Mallory Craig at mcraig@thehort.org.