Master Gardener Program

I love gardening!!!!!!!

When I was young I loved to hear my mother talk about plants with her friends. It was as though she was speaking a different language. "Thorny eleagnus, aspidistra, aucuba, fatsia, quince, rubeckia."  I was also impressed with her knowledge about this hobby that is part science, part art. She started the garden club in our home town and one month they had an event where you had to use plant material in an unusual way.  Mom and her friend, Looney, hollowed out cabbages and put them on their heads. After the addition of other vegetables and flowers their "hats" could have rivaled anything seen at the Royal Ascot.

  I have a friend who says you shouldn't retire from something, but to something. One of the things I have been saving for retirement is becoming a Master Gardener.  I have gardened for a long time, but quite honestly, have no real idea what I am doing.  I am ready to learn!

The Master Gardener program started in 1972 in Washington state.  It got its start in Louisiana in 1994 in East Baton Rouge. Today their are 19 programs in our state and 235 yearly graduates.  It  falls under the umbrella of the LSU AgCenter.  Classes are taught by local college professors, county agents, and master gardeners.

The program is a twelve week study of the following topics:

     Basic Botany and Plant Propagation
     Basic Entomology
     Plant Pathology
     Weed Science
     Lawn Care
     Soils and Nutrition
     Pesticide Safety and Water Quality
     Organic Gardening
     Vegetable Gardening
     Composting
     Fruit and Nut Production
     Ornamental Horticulture

There is a test (open book) at the end of the course and a requirement of forty hours of community garden education projects over the course of twelve months to become a certified Master Gardener. I can't wait!!!!!

Love ya'll,

Shelli

There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling. ~Mirabel Osler

I think that if ever a mortal heard the voice of God it would be in a garden at the cool of the day. ~F. Frankfort Moore, A Garden of Peace

I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and a large Garden. ~Abraham Cowley, The Garden, 1666

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. ~Margaret Atwood

Early to bed, early to rise;
Work like hell and fertilize.
~Emily Whaley