Free gardening kits to attract butterflies, grow food available Saturday in Wichita 

With parsley being both a culinary herb and essential for pollinators, the plant is playing a featured role in free garden kits being given away to Sedgwick County residents during a drive-through community event at the local K-State Research and Extension center this Saturday.

The drive-thru Community Bloom & Grow Event is taking the place of the extension service’s annual Herb Day that happens the first Saturday of May.

Participants can pick up one of two themed garden kits — either a vegetable garden kit or a pollinator garden kit during the May 1 event happening from 3-6 p.m. at the Sedgwick County K-State Research and Extension Center, 7100 W. 21st St. N. 

The service’s master gardeners have assembled a total of 1,000 kits — 500 vegetable kits and 500 pollinator kits — that will be given away on a first-come, first-served basis with a limit of one kit per household.

Members of the Herb Society of South-Central Kansas, outfitted in black aprons, will be giving away a second kit featuring herbs, said Lisa LaRue, the society’s president. The society has assembled 500 herb kits, each having two small herb transplants grown by members, packets of either dill or fennel seeds, a sampling of the Spice Merchant’s dried Italian herb mix with suggested uses and other goodies.

With food gardening becoming a popular pandemic hobby and people paying more attention to growing pollinators, Saturday’s drive-thru event seemed ideal, according to extension officials.

“Providing food for ourselves and the natural community of bees, butterflies, and birds that surround us has really gained importance,” said horticulture agent Matthew McKernan, in a news release on the event. “That is what inspired us to create this year’s Community Bloom & Grow event. We wanted to encourage people’s interest in gardening and help them be successful while addressing these bigger issues.”

The vegetable kits will have tomato, basil and parsley plants along with cucumber, bean and lettuce seeds — enough to fit about a 4-by-8-foot raised garden bed with a few seeds left over, according to Rebecca McMahon, another horticulture agent. All except the lettuce seeds, which are more of a cool season crop, can be planted right away. The kit also includes some garden layout ideas and instructions.

The pollinator kit includes a bare-root shrub (either a buttonbush or false indigo), liatris bulbs and zinnia, coneflower and rudbeckia seeds, along with the parsley plant, McMahon said. Those plants should fit into about a 6-by-8-foot area, and three different planting plans are provided.

“These plants were chosen for the mix of benefit to pollinators and first-year potential,” McMahon said. “The shrub and perennial seeds won’t likely bloom or look too pretty the first year, but the parsley and zinnias should look good.”

The live transplants were grown by the master gardener volunteers, McMahon added.

The common plant in both kits is parsley, declared the herb of the year by the International Herb Society.

Parsley, which comes in either flat leaf or curly leaf varieties, has lots of cooking uses, but it’s also an important pollinator plant. Parsley is one of the Eastern black swallowtail butterfly larvae’s primary food sources. The caterpillars that hatch from the butterflies’ eggs laid on the plant feed on the leaves of parsley, along with other plants in the carrot family, including dill and fennel herbs, according to the news release.

Parsley “is like a beacon” to the butterflies, LaRue said. It’s not unusual for a parsley plant to be eaten down to “sticks,” by the caterpillars, she said.

If you plant parsley for culinary uses, be prepared to share by simply planting extra, she suggested.

She often plants parsley in containers with annual flowers. The curly leaf variety, with its shape and bright green color, looks especially good when used as a border plant.

Parsley, a biennial, can be a companion plant to almost any herb, vegetable or flower that has a regular watering schedule, LaRue said.

It’s a fast-growing herb, with experts suggesting you harvest stems with more than one or two leaves. Usually, flat leaf parsley is used for cooking.

While parsley can be dried, LaRue said she prefers to use parsley as a fresh ingredient or chop it up and freeze for later. She suggests adding parsley to mixed green salads, an omelet or even chicken and noodles, or layering on a sandwich. When used in cooking, generally parsley is added toward the end of cooking to retain its flavor and color.

To freeze for later use, LaRue suggested several methods. A popular one is to chop the leaves and pack into ice cube trays. Cover with water and freeze. You can consolidate all your frozen cubes of parsley in a zipped bag. The cubes can be added later to dishes such as soups.

Another way to freeze it, is to again chop the leaves and add enough olive oil “to stick together,” drop by the spoonful or more on a cookie sheet, freeze and then place each frozen mound in a bag, LaRue said Sometimes she adds chopped basil to the mounds for making pesto later.

LaRue also suggested making an herb butter with chopped parsley, which can be mounded on wax paper, put in the freezer and once frozen consolidated in a bag for later use. The parsley butter can be used to top a steak, flavor cooked vegetables or slathered on warm bread.

Community Bloom & Grow

What: Free drive-thru giveaway of 1,000 vegetable or pollinator garden kits sponsored by Sedgwick County- K-State Research and Extension and its master gardener program. One kit per household. First-come, first-come basis. The Herb Society of South-Central Kansas will also give away 500 herb kits.

When: 3-6 p.m. Saturday, May 1

Where: Sedgwick County K-State Research and Extension Center, 7100 W. 21st St. N. Enter from the 21st Street entrance and exit onto Ridge Road. When reaching the parking lot, tune to 99.9 FM for event instructions

Cost: Free

More information: facebook.com/events (search for Community Bloom & Grow Event.)