Parker Learning Gardens Non-Profit

Parker Learning Gardens Non-Profit Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Parker Learning Gardens Non-Profit, Nonprofit Organization, 31239 Lanes Turn Road, Eugene, OR.

We offer educational classes, field trips & tours for youth, families & organizations on gardening, biodiversity & permaculture at our 33 acre farm to benefit our community’s well-being, nutrition, food security, & environmental stewardship.

Reserve your spot for summer fun on the farm today! 🌞🌿 When the days are long & bright, we like to cool down by drinkin...
05/30/2026

Reserve your spot for summer fun on the farm today! 🌞🌿
When the days are long & bright, we like to cool down by drinking sun tea, playing in water, relaxing in the shade, & enjoying popsicles or smoothies.

☀️ Summer brings a special mix of harvest, animal love, berry snacks, fun games, and summery crafts like sun prints!

We offer something for everyone...
🫐 Summer Seasonal Classes ($231-318) —Classes are grouped by age (0-17) & scheduled one day per week for 2 hours June 8th-August 22nd.
🐐 Summer Camp for ages 5-14 — Earth & Animals: July 6-10, Natural Scientists: July 13-17, Creative Roots: July 20-24
🥒 Monthly workshops for all ages every 2nd Sat. ($0-15) — June: Gourd Crafting, July: Bamboo Fire Curing, August: Pickles & Jam

In classes, we support youth at every age range...
🛠 Teens building, leading, and working with real tools
🌻 Kids growing food, exploring, and creating
🧺 Littles connecting with the land alongside caregivers

💛 Need financial support? We’ve got you. Our Seeds of Success Scholarship Program offers:
✔ 25–50% off classes & camps
✔ Limited full scholarships (when funding allows)
✔ Rolling applications — apply anytime
✔ Simple process + real people to help

👉 Apply for scholarships: parkerlearninggardens.org/scholarships
👉 Register for classes:
parkerlearninggardens.org/classes
👉 Sign up for summer camp:
parkerlearninggardens.org/summercamp
👉 Reserve your workshop spot: parkerlearninggardens.org/workshops

⏳ We recommend applying quickly — scholarships and spots will fill soon!

☀️ WE’RE HIRING SUMMER CAMP STAFF! 🌿🐐🎨Want a summer job that feels meaningful? Join us for 3 weeks of fun, farm animals,...
05/28/2026

☀️ WE’RE HIRING SUMMER CAMP STAFF! 🌿🐐🎨

Want a summer job that feels meaningful? Join us for 3 weeks of fun, farm animals, creativity, nature adventures, and hands-on learning with kids on our 33-acre organic farm in Coburg.

Our summer camps include:
🌱 Gardening, conservation projects, & nature play
🐓 Animal care with goats, pigs, rabbits & chickens
🎨 Art, music & creative projects
🔥 Food & drink preparation & outdoor skills
🪱 Soil science, bug exploration, ecology & sustainability
🏕 Farm hikes, games & outdoor adventures

We’re looking for kind, energetic, adaptable people who love:
• Working with children
• Nature & outdoor education
• Farming, ecology, art, music, or creativity
• Building community & making a difference

Expect days filled with sunshine, teamwork, silliness, learning, and connection to the land. Positions are ideal for educators, college students, homeschool mentors, artists, naturalists, camp counselors, and anyone passionate about youth & the outdoors.

Email your resume to [email protected] to apply!

Read the full job description: https://bit.ly/PLG-summer-jobs

Learn more about our camps: parkerlearninggardens.org/summercamp

Summer Camp on the FARM! Week 3: "Creative Roots" - July 20-24Campers explore self-expression, collaboration, and imagin...
05/16/2026

Summer Camp on the FARM! Week 3: "Creative Roots" - July 20-24

Campers explore self-expression, collaboration, and imagination through land-based art, music, movement, and storytelling, while rooted in the natural world.

Each summer camp theme includes farm animal care, free play & games, farm hikes & adventures, plant tending, food & drink preparation, and creative expression. This camp has the most creative expression of our camps, infusing it in most activities.
Learn through:

👨🏾‍🎨 Natural Art: Create charcoal drawings, sun prints, mud sculptures, natural dyed fabrics, and process art using plants, soil, and upcycled materials.

🐓 Creative Farm Life: Participate in gardening, harvesting, and animal care with extra silliness & imaginative fun. Meet and care for goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, and rabbits.

👯 Collaborative Creations: Work together to create large nature mandalas, painted signs, and a “Nature Museum” filled with our favorite found items.

🎭 Performing Arts & Play: Build skits from scratch, craft costumes from upcycled materials, and bring stories to life through pretend play.

🎶 Music & Dance: Create a Farm Sound Symphony. Craft instruments from natural and reclaimed materials. Listen quietly to bird song and belt the silliest songs loudly while dancing to the beat.

🌿 Kitchen & Herb Magic: Create simple teas, snacks, and recipes, learning how creativity flows from garden to table.

Grow creativity from the ground up!

Creative Roots is an experience of the farm as a shared masterpiece—one joyful, imaginative day at a time.

A familiar silhouette has been gliding over the farm lately…Long legs trailing behind.Slow wingbeats over the wetland.Wa...
05/15/2026

A familiar silhouette has been gliding over the farm lately…
Long legs trailing behind.
Slow wingbeats over the wetland.
Watching everything.

Our teens in Youth Discovery Project have been bringing one of these incredible beings to life in a new 8-foot mural 👀🎨

Sneak peek only for now…

This class is where teens get to:
🛠 build real projects
🎨 create meaningful art
🌿 work with natural materials and living systems
🔥 learn practical skills in a supportive community

No two seasons are the same.

🌞 Summer season starts after Memorial Day weekend - register soon!
📅 Mondays • 12–2 PM • Ages 12–17
💛 Scholarships + sibling discounts available

👉 Learn more & register:
parkerlearninggardens.org/youth-discovery-project

🌼🍍 Some days the best thing you can do…is disappear into the pineapple w**d patch.Turn off the noise.Put on the sunglass...
05/11/2026

🌼🍍 Some days the best thing you can do…
is disappear into the pineapple w**d patch.

Turn off the noise.
Put on the sunglasses.
Wear the headphones.
Let your body lead for a while instead of the schedule, expectations, or the outside world.

Harvest slowly.
Sit in the dirt.
Ground.

Pineapple w**d (often called wild chamomile) has been used ethnobotanically for generations as a gentle calming herb — commonly brewed into tea for relaxation, digestion, and settling the nervous system. Crush the flowers and you’ll understand the name immediately 🍍✨

It grows low to the earth, often where people walk most.

A tiny resilient plant thriving in compacted places.

Honestly… relatable.

🌿 We use pineapple w**d in our Tot Tea Blend, available in the Provide Youth Farmstand along our driveway during daylight hours. 

💛 Pay what you can
💵 Cash, check, or Venmo

Sometimes regulation looks less like productivity…
and more like sitting in a patch of plants that smell like sunshine and pineapple. Then magically a whole tray loaded makes it to the dehydrator, which leads to fava tops being harvested, to fennel fronds filling two more trays, and some dill too before it gets bolty.

If you’re stuck… just get out there and do the easiest most approachable thing, it will lead to more movement and more motivation to keep going. 

**d

🎨🌿 Successful Natural Dye Workshop!Today we rinsed out and unveiled some of the incredible pieces from our dye baths thi...
05/11/2026

🎨🌿 Successful Natural Dye Workshop!

Today we rinsed out and unveiled some of the incredible pieces from our dye baths this week — and WOW 😳✨

Participants with dye bath items will receive an email when their pieces are ready for pickup in the Provide Youth Farmstand.

This round featured:

🍄 Dyer’s polypore mushroom dye
🧅 Onion skin dye baths
(yes… onion skins saved from feeding 5–8 volunteers at a time for the past YEAR 😅)
🦋 Butterfly pea flower dye
❤️ Cochineal squeeze-bottle dye experiments
🌿 Smash dyeing (Farmer Knotwood’s preferred term for the therapeutic joy of whacking plants into fabric)
🧲 Rust dyeing with old rusty farm tools and implements collected over time on the land

Some of the strongest colors came from fabrics mordanted with:

⚫ Iron
✨ Alum

The unveiling is always the best part — unfolding cloth and seeing what the plants, fungi, metals, and time decided to do together.

So much beauty straight from the earth 💛

Interested in more workshops like this?
Check out our upcoming community workshops at:
parkerlearninggardens.org/workshops

05/06/2026

🔪🌱 Volume UP for this one.

Farmer Knotwood chopping fresh fava tops for dinner with the giant cleaver and somehow it sounds like trees crashing down in a storm 😳🌲

THWACK.
CRACK.
CRACKLE CRACKLE.

Absolutely unnecessary levels of farm ASMR.

Fava tops are one of Farmer Knotwood’s favorite spring greens — tender, nutrient dense, and incredible sautéed, tossed into pasta, folded into eggs, or added to soup, “Tastes nutty and bright.”

Honestly the audio sounds less like cooking…
and more like the forest collapsing dramatically in the distance.

Woah.

It takes a village 🌽💛A huge thank you to our incredible on-site volunteers — joining us through WWOOF and Worldpackers —...
05/04/2026

It takes a village 🌽💛

A huge thank you to our incredible on-site volunteers — joining us through WWOOF and Worldpackers — who show up ready to learn, work, and be part of something real.
Just this week, they:
🌽 Planted an entire garden of Painted Mountain heirloom corn
🌾 Added rows of sorghum/broomcorn for our Historic Broom-Making workshop
💧 Designed and laid out a full drip irrigation system
🐖 Moved pigs and reset solar electric fencing
✂️ Learned and practiced sheep shearing (hands-on!)
🐐 Milked goats + handled daily barn chores
🌿 Harvested 10+ trays of herbs for dehydration
💦 Watered greenhouses and raised beds
🧹 Cleaned and organized shared spaces
🎨 Painted signs around the farm
🐓 Completed daily animal care — every single day

All while learning real skills in real time.
This is what makes this place what it is.

People coming from all over…
bringing their energy, curiosity, and willingness to jump in…
and leaving a real mark on the land.

We’re so grateful for every one of you 💛

🌿 Want to join as an on-site volunteer?

Request a visit through our WWOOF host profile and we’ll connect with you there:
https://wwoofusa.org/en/host/53614-educational-farm-in-oregons-willamette-valley

🌱 THE SECRET TO MORE FAVA BEANS… IS CUTTING THEM BACK ✂️Most people let their Fava bean plants grow tall and leggy……but ...
05/03/2026

🌱 THE SECRET TO MORE FAVA BEANS… IS CUTTING THEM BACK ✂️

Most people let their Fava bean plants grow tall and leggy…

…but at Parker Learning Gardens, we harvest the tops on purpose.

Why?

Because those tender top shoots are:
✨ Delicious (like buttery spinach + pea shoots)
✨ A built-in pest control strategy
✨ And a way to grow stronger, bushier plants with more bean potential

⸻

🌿 WHAT ARE FAVA TOPS?
The soft top 3–6 inches of the plant—young leaves + growing tip.

This is where all the plant’s energy is focused… until you step in.

⸻

✂️ WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU HARVEST THEM?

When we pinch the top:
→ The plant stops growing straight up
→ It sends energy into side branches
→ Those branches = more places for flowers + beans

It’s called breaking apical dominance… but around here we just call it training the plant 😉

⸻

🐜 BONUS: NATURAL APHID CONTROL
Fava tops are where aphids love to gather (especially Black bean aphid).

So when we harvest the tops early…
we’re literally removing the problem before it spreads.

No sprays. No stress. Just timing.

⸻

🌱 HOW WE DO IT (AND TEACH IT)
✔️ Wait until plants are about 1–2 feet tall
✔️ Snip the top 3–6 inches above a leaf node
✔️ Harvest once… maybe twice
✔️ Then STOP and let the plant flower

That pause is everything.

Too much harvesting = fewer beans
Just enough = stronger plants + great yields

⸻

🌾 WHY THIS MATTERS AT PLG

This is what regenerative learning looks like:
🥬 Early harvest → fresh greens for our community
🌿 Healthy plants → less intervention needed
🌱 Later harvest → protein-rich beans
🧠 Real-time lessons in plant biology + ecosystem balance

One plant. Multiple yields. Zero waste.

⸻

If you’ve never eaten fava tops… this is your sign.

And if you’ve only grown favas one way… try this method and watch what happens.

⸻

This is where kids fall in love with the outdoors 🌻If you want your child to:🌱 spend less time on screens🪱 get curious a...
05/03/2026

This is where kids fall in love with the outdoors 🌻

If you want your child to:
🌱 spend less time on screens
🪱 get curious about the real world
🍓 eat food they helped grow
👫 build friendships that actually stick

Children’s Garden Club (ages 5–12) is that place.

Every week, kids are out on the farm:
🌿 planting, harvesting, and caring for gardens
🐓 learning from animals and pollinators
🪱 digging into soil, worms, and compost
🎨 creating art, cooking, and wildcrafting
🏃‍♀️ exploring, playing, and just being kids

This is hands-on, student-led learning — where curiosity leads and kids grow at their own pace.

💛 Led by instructors you can trust

Our lead instructor, Sarah “Redbud”, brings years of experience in outdoor education and organic gardening — known for helping kids come out of their shell, find their voice, and feel confident in their own way.

With a low student-to-teacher ratio, we’re able to support a wide range of learning styles and create a space where kids feel safe, seen, and successful.

📅 Summer Session: Wednesdays 11 AM – 1 PM (June 10 – Aug 19)
(First week runs 4–6 PM)

💛 Scholarships available through our Seeds of Success program
Kids leave this class muddy, proud, and full of stories.

👉 Register now:
parkerlearninggardens.org/classes/childrens-garden-club/

Address

31239 Lanes Turn Road
Eugene, OR
97408

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