Synopsis:
Powell Gardens has unveiled what may be the first garden of its kind in the country. The 100-percent-edible, 12-acre Heartland Harvest Garden shows the path of food from seed to plate. The new area includes a demonstration kitchen, education garden and four acres of intricate quilt gardens that visitors can view from the top of a 45-foot silo.

Full Story:
The Heartland Harvest Garden is a delicious garden designed to satisfy all of your senses. Here's a preview of what you'll see, hear, taste and touch:

The Menu Garden offers an appetizer of thumbnail plantings to highlight what lies ahead. In the Seed to Plate Greenhouse, sprouting seeds illustrate the beginning of the botanical miracle that ultimately leads to the foods on our dinner plates. Down the path, the Apple Celebration Court showcases Missouri's finest apple varieties. Next you can explore the latest gardening trends in the Author's Vegetable Garden, where a current author's philosophies will be brought to life in a rotating exhibit.

The project’s tour de force is the Quilt Gardens. Each of these three-quarter acre plots will be planted in traditional "Old Missouri" and "Kansas Star" quilt patterns. The first "quilt" focuses on fruits and berries; another focuses on forage grasses; a third on Missouri farm crops such as corn and soybeans; and the last on vegetables. In this most intricate quadrant, you’ll find elaborately detailed plantings of vegetables, edible flowers and culinary herbs.

The Missouri barn will be an interpretive resource center, a place to rest and catch a sandwich or cold drink and peruse the satellite gift shop. The adjoining 45-foot silo becomes an overlook where you can take in a birds-eye view of the quilts below and the Missouri landscape. Alongside the barn, the Kansas City Power & Light All Electric Kitchen will provide ongoing demonstrations as well as in-depth cooking classes on the weekends.

Last but not least is the youth education garden, where children can dig in for hands-on learning about plant science, water conservation and nutrition using curriculum tied to Missouri and Kansas education standards.

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Photo Credit: Photos Courtesy of the Kansas City Convention & Visitors Association.