Dear All, The heart and soul of Gateway Greening's volunteer corps in St. Louis is Master Gardener volunteers. The demographics of the MG program in St. Louis is central corridor, wealthy suburbia, Junior League and retired guys. Just because they are white and have money does not mean you cannot pull them into doing the "right thing' with shovels at the ready.
They are on our board, they run the selection committee for new garden awards, they run special events like Great Perennial Divide, they judge our garden contests, they wear their badges and venture into the inner city to conduct demonstrations, they team up with schools and gardens as mentors, they run our outdoor office every saturday, they passionately voice support and write big checks. They come highly trained and certainly get it about gardening as a force for change. I would heartily endorse consistant and aggressive cultivation of these world class volunteers! Gwenne -----Original Message----- From: Don Boekelheide [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 10:28 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [cg] More on master gardeners Hi, all, I agree with all that's been posted thus far - working with Master Gardeners is a mixed bag. That said, the trick is, echoing Adam, finding ways to turn MG programs into assets for CGs. One key element is your extension agent. In our community, we've had 3 since I moved here a decade ago. One was a splendid resource, two (including the current one) - whatever their other qualifications and expertise - have no interest in community gardening at all. The point is, if you have a good extension agent, support them!!! Become a Master Gardener yourself, or send a garden group through the training (Betsy Johnson in Boston has a great training guide that can help). And keep an eye on extension politics. Coop Extension is becoming an endangered species these days, particularly in urban areas. In our county, they've just been moved under Park and Recreation, which may represent an opportunity to recruit for a new kind of agent (4H or extension) with training appropriate to community and school gardens. One reason most current agents aren't interested in community gardens, especially food crops, is that they haven't been trained appropriately (ag and hort are vast fields, as it were). Anyway, a good agent is worth their weight in in gold (or prime compost?), and quite a few are in leadership positions in ACGA (Tom, Bobby...). Another idea, look for the president of the MG group and other key people. Our county MG president is a peach. She did better than help out with the new community garden this year - she deftly delegated responsibility to other MGs! A page right out of ACGA's book. It helps, I think, to know a bit about the history of MGs. The program started in Seattle, and is less than 30 years old (no, it hasn't been around forever). The agent who started it was overwhelmed answering phone requests for info - 'something is eating my roses, what should I spray?' kinds of things. He had the bright idea of putting experienced home gardeners through a 'mini-ag school', then letting them answer the phones and do other jobs, to free up his time. The gardeners would get training they'd really enjoy and the status of being a 'Master', and the public would get better service. This brilliant idea has really worked well in some ways. Of course, right from the beginning, the experienced gardeners tended to be older and/or retired (with the time to attend trainings and meetings), suburban home gardeners, mostly white and middle class, and maybe 3/4 women. An MG group becomes a club. People make friends, there are cliques, there can be snobbery and silliness about organic approaches being 'flaky' and 'not research based' or about how so-and-so mispronounces Buddelia, but no more so than any other group. By and large, these are gardeners - good hearted folks who like to grow things. So, harvest the good 'uns. Another option, which has worked quite well for me (and Betsy, and ? Sally in Philly?) is to create a separate non-cooperative extension 'Master' program. Here in Charlotte, for instance, under the county recycling program and a state environmental grant, we set up a 'Master Composter/PLANT' training (PLANT is our native plant landscaping, toxic reduction, soil and water quality program for residents). We looked at lots of other programs (Alameda Co. CA has a great one). Instead of answering phones and the like, MC/PLANT trainees 'pay back' their training by designing a project to apply what they learn in their community. We (for better or worse) don't have monthly meetings, dues and all that stuff. Our volunteer projects have been great, though - and equally important, we've made some terrific allies (we recruit shamelessly, and try to give a real knockout training). For the record, we started as partners with coop extension on this project, but our then (wonderful) extension agent left, and when our current (indifferent on a good day, hostile more often) agent showed up, she wanted nothing to do with it. Maybe that's for the best - we avoided having to 'push' chemicals because they were the only 'research-based' option. Point is, think about starting your own 'Master' program. Work as closely as you can with coop extension - my gripes are with individual agents, not with the program overall. What makes sense to me would be an urban 'horticulture/ecology/agriculture/landscaping' ('Heal'?) agent, specializing in school and community gardens, community habitat restoration, 'pocket parks' and street/community beautification, and small-scale urban agriculture (market gardens for herbs, veggies and flowers mostly, I guess...). You still need an agent to advise on turf grass and pruning, but there seems to me to be a place for a new kind of coop extension agent - and, perhaps, the birth of a new kind of 'master community gardener' program. Just a thought, better get back to work, Don Boekelheide 704-599-94335 ______________________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden
