The Master Gardener program, conducted throughout the United States and Canada, is a two-part educational effort, in which avid gardeners are provided many hours of intense home horticulture training, and in return they "pay back" local university extension agents through volunteerism. Master Gardeners assist with garden lectures, exhibits, demonstrations, school and community gardening, phone diagnostic service, research, and many other projects.
Purpose of the Alabama Master Gardener Volunteer program- To increase the availability of horticultural information to Alabama- To improve quality of life with community projects related to our mission.
We learned that weeds are just plants out of place! These weeds were beautiful at our lake where we used to live in the country.
Today was my final Master Gardener Class, #12. The classes were taught at the Coffee County Extension Systems office building. I have learned so much in the past 12 weeks. And I have a stack of handouts about 7" tall. I need to buy a file crate to hold all the folders and books. We had 22 people in our class, with only 2 attending from Elba. Most were from Enterprise. Today they honored us with a nice luncheon the last hour. The classes were 4 hours every Wednesday. We had outstanding lecturers and specialists in their fields of horticulture.
Each week was a different topic, ending with an interesting session on Fire Ant Control today. Only a few southern states have these pests. They make big mounds in the yard and if you are bitten by them, they inject poison into your system and leave little "boils" that itch and make sores. We are always trying to kill them and I think I might have learned what we need to do to better control them in our yard - using fire ant bait. You have to isolate and kill the "queen" to get rid of the ants. She lives 5-7 years and lays about 1,000 eggs a day!!
I have to volunteer for 40 hours before I receive my badge and certification. I hope to complete that by next summer.
Today was "graduation" of a different sort. Wonder what I can find to sign up for next, that will be of benefit to me of course. Here is a photo of my "classmates".
Purpose of the Alabama Master Gardener Volunteer program- To increase the availability of horticultural information to Alabama- To improve quality of life with community projects related to our mission.
We learned that weeds are just plants out of place! These weeds were beautiful at our lake where we used to live in the country.Today was my final Master Gardener Class, #12. The classes were taught at the Coffee County Extension Systems office building. I have learned so much in the past 12 weeks. And I have a stack of handouts about 7" tall. I need to buy a file crate to hold all the folders and books. We had 22 people in our class, with only 2 attending from Elba. Most were from Enterprise. Today they honored us with a nice luncheon the last hour. The classes were 4 hours every Wednesday. We had outstanding lecturers and specialists in their fields of horticulture.
Each week was a different topic, ending with an interesting session on Fire Ant Control today. Only a few southern states have these pests. They make big mounds in the yard and if you are bitten by them, they inject poison into your system and leave little "boils" that itch and make sores. We are always trying to kill them and I think I might have learned what we need to do to better control them in our yard - using fire ant bait. You have to isolate and kill the "queen" to get rid of the ants. She lives 5-7 years and lays about 1,000 eggs a day!!
I have to volunteer for 40 hours before I receive my badge and certification. I hope to complete that by next summer.
Today was "graduation" of a different sort. Wonder what I can find to sign up for next, that will be of benefit to me of course. Here is a photo of my "classmates".
