Extension Master Gardener

 

What were you doing in your garden this June?  Watering, weeding, planting/re-planting, or sitting in the shade?

EMG Blog Firsts this month!

This month on the Extension Master Gardener blog, we had some firsts! We celebrated National Pollinator Week through several blog posts, and we launched the beginning of Wordless Wednesdays.  We were also excited to have blog posts submitted from a few new contributors this month. We hope to see more in the future!

Wordless Wednesdays

As a precursor to our new Wordless Wednesday blog posts, Washington State Master Gardener Doug Bascom shared photography tips.  I especially appreciated his suggestion to get the full use out of the camera you have before talking yourself into investing in a new one!

Stay tuned in the coming weeks for future Wordless Wednesday posts by Maggie Lawrence (AL), Doug Boscom (WA), Connie Schulz (NC), Terri James (NE), and Mary-Jean Grimes (WA).

Pollinator Week

Pollinators –  there is just such admiration for pollinators, isn’t there? But perhaps not enough, which is why we devoted several National Pollinator Week blog posts to the week highlighting them in 2012 (June 18-24).

Here is a quick look at what we covered during National Pollinator Week:

• Extension Master Gardeners Create Pollinator Awareness and Educational Opportunities – Examples of how a few EMG programs are spreading the word about pollinators.
• 3 Ways Penn State Master Gardeners are involved with pollinator education and research – Check out their program to certify your property as pollinator friendly, and how Penn State MGs are involved in research.
• Wordless Wednesday – Pollinator Week in the Backyard – Pictures truly are worth a thousand words

• Pollinator Benefits, CCD, and Citizen Science Takeaways for Pollinator Week 2012 – Need a recommendation for a good movie about bee health and Colony Collapse Disorder, how to create a safe haven for pollinators, or how to get involved with citizen science? This blog post is for you.
• Power of Pollinators – Train-the-trainer educational modules for those interested in educating others about pollinators. One person on our Facebook page had reviewed these and commented “Good information and great PowerPoint presentations”

Extension Master Gardeners At Work

We heard about vertical gardening as one of the top trends at the International Master Gardener Conference 2011.

Anna Ball: Horticulture Trend 3: Green walls .. as in vertical#IMGC

— Karen Jeannette (@kjeannette) October 12, 2011

Hats off to Extension Master Gardeners of Pasquotank County, North Carolina for helping people make sense out of the vertical gardening trend by making the science practical through their “Garden Up” display and booth at the annual Currituck Flower and Garden Show.

 

 

Volunteer Management

How does your Extension Master Gardener program manage volunteer event signups? Daphne Richards, Travis County (Texas) Extension Agent shared her experience of a new on-line system to manage volunteer signups in her county of over 200 volunteers! If you’d like to streamline some of your volunteer signups or take some of the management headaches out of signing up for events…don’t miss Discovering a New Way to Organize Events!

Educational and Volunteer Opportunities

You can check out any of the monthly updates for educational and volunteer opportunities at any time.

This month we blogged about the Power of Pollinators educational modules.

In the next week or two, we’ll let you know more about an opportunity to sign up for a Tomato IPM Webinar for Master Gardeners in the North Central states (The North Central region includes Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.).

Last, but not least, check out this video on the Value of Trees (Alabama Cooperative Extension). This animated drawing helps bring life to the story about the value of trees and may be helpful should you choose to communicate or provide education on their value.

 

-Karen Jeannette
eXtension Consumer Horticulture Content Coordinator

Tags: monthlyupdate

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