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MASTER GARDENERS ACTIVE IN 83 OF 87 MINNESOTA COUNTIES
I get asked frequently what a Master Gardener is.
The Master Gardener Program in Minnesota is an educational outreach of the University of Minnesota Extension Service. The program utilizes volunteers to assist people and their communities through gardening information and activities.
A person becomes a Master Gardener when he or she completes 48 classroom hours of core-course training and contributes 50 volunteer hours the first year and a minimum of 25 hours annually thereafter.
The program began in Minnesota in 1977 and today, 83 of Minnesota's 87 counties are served by Master Gardeners. As of 1995, there were 1,383 active Master Gardeners in the state. The program is active in most parts of the U.S.
Master Gardener activities in Carver and Scott County are combined. Presently, our two counties have 46 active Master Gardeners.
Typical volunteer activities include answering phone inquiries on home horticulture, teaching classes and workshops, guiding and supervising community plantings and school gardens, teaching and judging horticultural projects and exhibits, writing newsletters and newspaper columns (like this one), holding plant clinics at garden centers, and staffing answer booths at fairs and public gardens.
Some Master Gardeners are involved with horticulture therapy and teaching horticulture in hospitals, nursing homes and retirement centers.
This past summer, one of our members helped Shakopee prison inmates establish and maintain a garden. Several others helped organize community gardens in their neighborhoods.
Most phone inquiries result when a homeowner calls the Carver or Scott County extension office with a gardening question or problem. The extension office staff person asks the caller enough questions to understand the nature of the query and then gives the caller the name of a Master Gardener who specializes in that area. My specialty is trees and shrubs and I answer approximately 150 phone inquiries a year on related topics.
Two of our members spend Sundays at an answer booth at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, fielding whatever questions visitors choose to ask that day. The same space is occupied on Saturdays by Master Gardeners from Hennepin County.
In 1996, we sponsored the Carver/Scott Master Gardener Big Pumpkin/Big Sunflower Growing Contest. Many entries of both species were grown and delivered to the two weigh-in sites on September 28 and prizes were awarded for the largest pumpkins and sunflower heads. It was a very rewarding effort that will likely be expanded in 1997.
Our Carver/Scott group meets once a month and typically hears a presentation by an outside expert on some aspect of horticulture. During the growing season, we go on tours to arboretums, prairies, retail garden centers or other horticultural points of interest.
I have found the Master Gardener program to be an excellent way to learn more about gardening and to give back to the community information and knowledge I've accumulated along the way.
If you'd like to learn more about the Master Gardener program - either to have a question answered or to explore training to become a Master Gardener - call your county extension office (442-4496 in Carver or 492-2370 in Scott).
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PUTTING DOWN ROOTS:
A Delightful Blend of
Gardening Wisdom, Wit
and Whimsy
$10 + $2 for shipping
by Cliff Johnson |
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