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Applications are Open for the 2025 Master Gardener Program

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The hot, hazy summer days are a great time to plan for next year’s gardening activities! Apply now for the 2025 UConn Extension Master Gardener Program; the deadline for applications is Friday, October 25, 2024.

“The program provides the opportunity for beginner, intermediate or experienced gardeners to increase their personal knowledge of the practice of gardening … The program allows you to meet with like-minded people over a common interest – growing plants,” says Advanced Master Gardener Ken Sherrick of Middletown.

UConn Extension Master Gardeners have an interest in plants, gardening, people and the environment.  Specifically, they are willing to share their knowledge, passion and enthusiasm with their communities, providing research-based information to homeowners, students, gardening communities and others. They receive horticultural training from UConn, and then share that knowledge with the public through community volunteering and educational outreach efforts. UConn Extension Master Gardeners help with community and museum gardens, school gardens, backyard projects, houseplant questions and more.

Classes begin the week of January 13, 2025. Subject matter includes basic botany, plant pathology, soils, entomology and other aspects of gardening such as plant categories, native plants, and pest management. After the classroom portion, students complete 60 hours of outreach experience during the summer, along with a plant identification project.

“The Master Gardener program gave me an understanding the role of plants and insects within the ecosystem, which fostered a passion for removing invasive plants,” says Advanced Master Gardener Karen Berger of Canton, who now volunteers on a project to remove invasives, replacing them with native plants that benefit the local environment.

More information and the application are available on our website.

UConn Gives is Coming!

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Jonathan the Husky with words All Paws In and UConn Gives, April 17-18

UConn Gives is right around the corner! This is a great opportunity to give back to an organization that gives to so many people. The UConn Extension Master Gardeners organize community projects, provide horticultural training and expertise, and donate and grow vegetables for food banks. What better way to give back to your community, than by giving to an organization dedicated to serving Connecticut’s communities! We’ve appreciated all your support during our previous UConn Gives efforts and hope you will support our program again this year.

2024 Ocean State Job Lot Seed Order

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garden pots with seeds sprouting in them

February 15th Update: We are no longer accepting seed requests, please check back in January 2025 for next year's opportunity. We will reach out to those who completed the form in the coming weeks.

Each year, the UConn Extension Master Gardener Program partners with Ocean State Job Lot to distribute free seed packets to community groups, non-profits, schools, and municipal groups. We are pleased to continue offering this service to community organizations and groups.

We reserve the right to substitute seed packets due to availability, and orders are filled on a first-come, first-served basis. You must select the location where you will pick up your seed order.  You will be contacted by someone from that location regarding pickup dates and times. Happy Gardening in 2024!

Master Gardener logo

FULL: Learn Gardening Fundamentals in New Online Course

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four pots on the ground with different plants growing in them
Photo: Markus Spiske

Class is full, stay tuned for the next session. Interested in how plants grow? Do you want a healthy, productive, and sustainable landscape for your home?  UConn Extension now offers the Fundamentals of Home Gardening, an asynchronous online series of classes covering a wide variety of gardening topics. These classes explore the foundation of good gardening practices, and help explain the “why” of successful gardens.  Taught by UConn Extension educators and specialists, and drawing on the Extension Master Gardener curriculum, this four-part, online series can be taken at your own pace, at times that work for you. Choose just the segments you’re interested in or complete all four components and earn a certificate of completion in the Fundamentals of Home Gardening.

The four modules cover Core Fundamentals, Environmental Factors, Ornamental Plants and Growing Your Own Foods. Each module is independent and does not require any prerequisites. All modules will be available by the end of April, and a registrant will have six weeks to complete the three or four classes contained per module.

Modules are $150 each. A flyer with more information is available. Registration is at https://uconnmastergarden-ers.gosignmeup.com/  or for more information, contact sarah.bailey@uconn.edu.

State of the Garden: Coronavirus

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UConn Master Gardener LogoIn the 40 years of the UConn Extension Master Gardener program, we have never faced anything quite this … unknown. This isn’t a flood, or hurricane, with a clear finish. This pandemic is an onslaught: health, finances, social interactions, and daily routines are all impacted.

What doesn’t change is the incredible value of gardening; of digging our hands into the soil, of the warmth of the sun on our faces, of fresh food and beautiful vistas, of the sounds of the garden and the wild spaces around us.

As a friend, Gary Oppenheimer of AmpleHarvest, said recently, “Gardening has NOT been cancelled”. Our Master Gardener programming and volunteer work will continue as scheduled, although we will have to be creative in some areas.

Here’s where we stand today:

The 2020 Master Gardener class is continuing on schedule. We have moved the remaining five weeks to an all-online format with online discussions replacing the half-day in-class sessions. This allows us to stay on schedule and we will continue to add new content opportunities as we go forward.

As many of you are aware, the CMGA symposium has been postponed until fall. They will update us as more information becomes available.

We are in the midst of arranging Hot Topics. Originally scheduled for May, it is likely that we will now hold a virtual Hot Topics online. My hope is that it will be interactive. Stay tuned….

Outreach and Office Hours:  Many of our outreach projects will not be impacted by the social distancing restrictions, others will. We will adapt as needed to current and evolving restrictions and we will develop new opportunities that best respond to new needs in our communities. If you have thoughts on how we can best respond to the new reality, please don’t hesitate to share them.

Office hours fall within the current recommended group size. Many of our clients may not want face-to-face interactions; we are looking into options such as online “office hours” and promoting the use of email for communication. For anyone who has underlying health concerns (their own or an immediate family member) making face-to-face contact unwise, we will adjust and adapt.

In summary, this is a time of change, adaptation and creative thinking. There are a lot of unknowns, and it’s likely we will be dealing with this reality into at least some of the summer. We are, however, versatile. We are resilient. Gardeners are constantly adapting to the changes in the surrounding environment; this is just one more. Please do not hesitate to share ideas, issues and concerns with me or with your coordinators.

Getting outside into the fresh air and the sunlight is one of the recommendations for offsetting the negative reactions to social distancing. We’re ahead of the curve!

Keep Calm, and Garden on,

Sarah Bailey

State Program Coordinator, Master Gardener Program

sarah.bailey@uconn.edu