Master gardener program

They're dog Artie and Squee, a cat who's far too intelligent for anyone's good.

In 2023, Felicia was accepted into the Master Gardener program through Cornell Cooperative Extension in Schenectady County, and she began speaking about ecologically-minded resident garden development.

She has completed certificate programs at the New York Botanical Garden, Berkshire Botanical Garden, and the American Horticultural Society, including programs on ecological gardening, growing cannabis, and landscape design.

She has written on gardening and food culture for Edible Capital District.

So I got into it because he was interested in this idea of ownership.

And then I just fell into it deeper and deeper and deeper.

So I eventually became a master gardener through the local county cooperative extension.

But even in doing that, like if you look at my bookshelves, it's

I had somehow been lassoed into being a chaperone and a driver.

And I met the master gardener of the garden out there.

Oh, cool.

And he was talking about, oh, you can grow stuff all winter and this.

So we'll talk a little bit about that.

But we're also just going to be talking about what can grow in El Paso, maybe in general, but especially during the winter.

So we have a master gardener with us.

That's cool.

It's our last chance to do that for the year.

We'll have Eric Bosler, Central Gorge Master Gardeners.

We'll talk about how you can be a Central Gorge Master Gardener.

And we'll talk about some other gardening-related topics here as we head into the colder season.

It is 8.12 in the morning on Mid-Columbia Today.

It's now time for us to talk gardening.

And for the Central Gorge Master Gardeners, Eric Bosler is with us.

Good morning, Eric.

This is a treat for me, too.

I enjoyed meeting you in February at the Master Gardener Symposium in Greenville for the first time after hearing you, listening to the podcast.

And yes, that was really fun to get to meet in person and now chat again.

It

And then you're curious to know a little bit more, and then you're curious to know a little bit more.

And So as I started to research and learn about what I had, I just got more and more interested.

And I, back in 2017, took the Clemson, which is the South Carolina Land-Grant University, I took their Master Gardener class.

And it was a whole bunch of retirees and me.

Yeah.

[chuckles] So a- 18, I, I, you know, I went through the program too, and I know a lot of Master Gardeners, and I don't know anybody that started at 18.

[laughs] Are you the youngest that you know of?

of?Um, I have not met somebody younger, but I hope they're out there-

But that got it all started, and every year it progressed bigger and bigger.

By 2010, the Sandoval County Master Gardeners had... offered support to the project.

And in 2012, Seed to Need was incorporated into a 501c3 nonprofit.

Obvious advantage, deductible donations.

I've never seen so many acorns.

Anyway, I did speak at a Master Gardener event last Saturday.

Lovely time.

Met some lovely people.

I pulled out the dead sunflowers.

Cool.

I forgot to mention at that Master Gardener event, they had some moms like up front on display.

And as a speaker, I got to take one of the moms home.

So put together a group of us on the parks board to look into it.

And at, at some point, somebody was like, uh, "Well, hey, Jesse, aren't you a master gardener or something?" And I'm like, "I'm blessed to go through the master, Master Gardener program quite a few years ago." Uh, and I'm like, "Yeah." And they're, "Well, well, hey, to get things rolling, why don't we start a community garden?" And I was like, "Oh, man, that's a novel idea." And at, about the same time, I held out my hand.

[laughs] You know? Like, all it takes a budget, you know, however much you got here.

Yeah.

Uh, so got it constructed in, I guess, about 90 days.

Uh, and by March 1st we were ready to start planting.

So, uh, you know, the, the folks came and, uh, we were, we're also blessed with a couple other master gardeners, so most of our folks that come in here and garden, uh, are first-time gardeners, so we wanted to make it, you know, as, as easy as possible, and, and hope that they had the, the best success possible.

So we literally looked around.

People, uh, get involved.

What do, what do they look up if they're interested in this thing called 4-H or Master Gardeners?

So, uh, Master Gardeners and 4-H all fall under the land-grant institutions, which each state in the United States has a land-grant institution.

So for Maryland, it's the University of Maryland.

Um, and our programs fall under that, so no matter where you live, um, there should be a 4-H program.

Nice.

Absolutely.

And Master Gardeners is available everywhere through that same organization.