Dig in with the Master Gardeners

Wel­come to the Gazette’s new gar­den col­umn. Instead of one writer, we have 12 con­trib­u­tors who will all write columns in their respec­tive areas of exper­tise. Also, we would love to hear from you — if there is a topic you feel we need to cover, let us know by call­ing the Exten­sion Office at 740–833-2030. This inter­ac­tive approach allows the voice and per­spec­tive of the col­umn to change. With so many dif­fer­ent moti­va­tions for the mod­ern gar­dener, we hope to encom­pass all of our read­ers’ inter­ests. On our panel of con­trib­u­tors we have herb enthu­si­asts, long time veg­etable grow­ers, gourmet cooks, florists and a lawn care spe­cial­ist among other very tal­ented individuals.

To some a gar­den is a place to relax and enjoy beau­ti­ful botan­i­cals, for oth­ers it works to feed the fam­ily that tends it. It can serve as a lush escape of rare exotics or a tes­ta­ment to how beau­ti­ful our Ohio natives can be. We encour­age you to build the gar­den that inter­ests you, if you love it and it grows — it’s the per­fect gar­den. This is a new ven­ture we could not be more excited to begin and we all sin­cerely hope you will enjoy read­ing it every week and after­ward will be just as excited to go out­side and gar­den as we are.

OSU Exten­sion Mas­ter Gar­den­ers come from many back­grounds, but what they share is an enthu­si­asm for gar­den­ing. Trainees pay for mate­ri­als and receive approx­i­mately 50 hours of instruc­tion from var­i­ous speakers/presenters. Upon com­ple­tion of this course, the Mas­ter Gar­dener trainees must ded­i­cate 50 hours of vol­un­teer time to the Mas­ter Gar­dener pro­gram in Delaware County through­out the fol­low­ing year. To main­tain Mas­ter Gar­dener sta­tus, an addi­tional 20 vol­un­teer hours and 12 hours of advanced edu­ca­tion are required annually.

This year, a new class of Mas­ter Gar­dener Interns com­pleted their 50 hour course learn­ing about lawn care, herbs, prun­ing, veg­eta­bles, small fruits, botany, Inte­grated Pest Man­age­ment (IPM), com­post­ing, plant pathol­ogy, weed ID and plant nutri­tion, to name a few. The OSU Exten­sion Delaware County Mas­ter Gar­dener pro­gram held the first class in 1994, with only 15 mem­bers. Last year 92 Mas­ter Gar­den­ers vol­un­teered more than 4,000 hours in the county through projects and pro­grams. Some included Green Thumbs Gar­den­ers Fair, Ash­ley Com­mu­nity Gar­den, Earth Day, speaker’s bureau and the county fair gates and booth. Plans for 2011 include a part­ner­ship with Habi­tat for Human­ity, Blue Lime­stone and Genoa Town­ship Com­mu­nity Gardens.

The OSU Exten­sion office Helpline is now open from 8:30 to 4:30 daily, please call 740–833-2030 to dis­cuss your gar­den­ing issues with a qual­i­fied Mas­ter Gar­dener, or to leave a mes­sage and receive a call back.

We would like to thank all the mem­bers of the com­mu­nity for their sup­port of our pro­gram and the Delaware County Com­mis­sion­ers for all their sup­port over the years.

Posted by Master Gardener on May 7 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.