Manatee County Agricultural Museum

09/04/2026

The Ag Museum will be closed this Saturday, September 5th for Labor Day weekend. We will reopen Tuesday, September 8th with our regular operating hours.

09/02/2026

Save the date for a FREE homeschool morning at the Ag Museum and Palmetto Historical Park on Friday, October 23rd! Join us from 10 AM - noon to explore a variety of hands-on stations exploring agriculture and history.

While this is a drop-in event, please ensure you allow yourself enough time to explore all stations at your own pace. This event promptly ends at noon. No registration is required. First come, first served. Children under 18 must be supervised at all times.

Please Note: This event is now offered in lieu of scheduled homeschool field trips.

09/01/2026

Can you recognize any faces or places in our Fruits & Vegetables Room collage? This photo exhibit features over a hundred years of Manatee County agriculture from 1900 to 2004! 🍅🚜🌱

Can you spot Don Burgis measuring tomatoes at the UF/IFAS Agricultural Experimental Farm in 1977 or Emmett McCray checking plants with Dallas Woodson in the 1960s? Look for a 1900 pineapple farm, gawk at a massive 1938 white winter radish, and take a peek into a Farmer's Night Class from the 1950s.

Grab a photo key next time you stop by to identify all these scenes and more. What else can you find?

08/29/2026

Did you know the Ag Museum's Hall of Fame library is open to you? That's right! Anyone can book an appointment to browse our collection of agricultural books or request access to the Ag Museum's archives, which are open to the public for research. 📚🌱

We have everything from historical Audubon guides to orchid growing guides. Here's a peek into a book from our collection, "The Yearbook of Agriculture, 1954" focused on agricultural marketing, printed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Did you know Florida produced 30% of the nation's fruit at the time?

To make a research appointment, please contact [email protected] or call 941-721-2034.

08/24/2026

Did you know you can enjoy your homegrown herbs year-round... no matter where you live? 🌿🌱

Learn how with this Learning Library guide on preserving herbs by The National Gardening Association at https://garden.org/learn/articles/view/3159/Preserving-Herbs/?utm_source=nl&utm_medium=mail&utm_campaign=nl_2025-10-18.

08/23/2026

Save the date for another adults-only evening at Ag Museum—this time, all about plants! 🌙🌸🌱

On Tuesday, September 29th from 5-7 PM, you can chat with local experts about home vegetable gardening, native plant gardening, and foraging in Florida. Weave your own palm frond coaster, learn how to make the most of your cooking scraps, and plant an herb garden to start your own kitchen garden at home. 🥕🌿🥔

Ag After Dark: Plant Palooza (ages 18+) is a drop-in event where adults can explore a variety of hands-on stations and talk with local experts at their own pace. Tickets open September 1st on www.ManateeCountyAgMuseum.com at $12 for members and $15 for non-members.

08/21/2026

We had a fantastic time sharing all things ag with the Kiwanis Club of North Manatee this morning! What a great start to the day! ☀🚜

🌾 Preserving Our Past & Inspiring the Next Generation! 🌾

This morning, the Kiwanis Club of North Manatee welcomed Diane Ingram from the Manatee County Agricultural Museum, located within Palmetto Historical Park. Diane has served the museum for an incredible 25 years! We are so grateful for the years she has dedicated to preserving and sharing Manatee County’s history! ❤️

Diane gave us a wonderful look at how the Agricultural Museum and Palmetto Historical Park are doing much more than preserving artifacts—they are creating hands-on opportunities for children and families to experience history, agriculture, literacy, and science.

Some highlights she shared included:

🌱 Farmer for a Day through Suncoast Remake Learning Days, where children interacted with farm animals, planted, explored weather, searched crops for “bugs,” tasted produce, and learned where their food comes from.

📚 The museum’s Little Free Library, which recently celebrated its fifth birthday and has distributed more than 3,300 books—not even counting books donated and exchanged by community members!

🌳 This summer’s Florida ecosystems Make It & Take It program welcomed more than 500 participants to explore the woods, swamp, shore, and backyard ecosystems.

👨‍🌾 Free school field trips introduce students to agriculture and life in early Florida. Last year alone, the museum hosted 74 field trips, and transportation assistance is even available to help make sure bus costs don’t prevent schools from participating.

📖 New agriculture-themed early literacy kits, funded by the Manatee County Farm Bureau, are being added to the Manatee County Library System. Children will be able to explore topics including farming, where food comes from, planting, and dairy.

And there is even more ahead! The museum is preparing for Ag After Dark, Christmas in the Park on December 4–5, and a very special milestone: the Manatee County Agricultural Museum celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2027! 🎉

The museum is also expanding with a much-needed new storage building, expected to be completed by March 2027, allowing the organization to preserve additional artifacts and rotate more pieces of Manatee County’s agricultural history into its exhibits.

One thing was especially clear from Diane’s presentation: preserving history isn’t simply about remembering where we’ve been. It’s about using those stories to educate, engage, and inspire the generations coming behind us.

Thank you, Diane, for spending the morning with us—and for 25 years of service to our community and its history! 💙

08/20/2026

The Ag Museum is now reopened with our regular hours of 10 AM to 4 PM! Thank you for your patience during our temporary closure. Come visit us to see what we've been working on.

08/20/2026

Hop on over to the Ag Museum tomorrow! We will reopen with our regular business hours of 10 AM - 4 PM. 🐸

Thank you for your patience during our temporary closure. We can't wait to show you what we've been up to!

08/18/2026

Did you know there is an abundance of FREE learning resources available through the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture? From educational online games and agricultural book recommendations to interactive 360° videos, there is so much to explore for parents, educators, and volunteers at https://www.agfoundation.org/resources.

Agricultural literacy resources for educators and ag literacy coordinators