The UCCE Amador County Master Gardeners offer free public education classes on a variety of topics throughout the year. Master Gardeners with specific areas of interest and expertise generously give of their time to prepare and present the classes in a practical, interesting way. Whether demonstrating how to get started with a victory garden, prune fruit trees, or demonstrating how to plant in containers, the UCCE Master Gardeners have a class for everyone.
Dates and times of upcoming classes can be seen on the UCCE Amador County main page calendar. Most classes are held on Saturday mornings.
Some topics covered in 2008 were: Rose Pruning, Fruit Tree pruning, grafting and budding, garden irrigation systems, firesafe landscaping and defensible space, composting and vermiculture, good bugs in the garden, and apples. If you missed any of these classes, check out our calendar periodically!-many classes are repeated each year.
One of the focus points of the Master Gardener's Public Education program in 2009 will be Victory Gardens. These are small space, high yield home vegetable gardens modeled after the very productive and successful Victory Garden program during World Wars I and II. In 1943, Americans planted over 20 million Victory Gardens, and the harvest accounted for nearly 40% of all the vegetables consumed in the country that year. Emphasis was placed on making gardening a family or community effort -- not drudgery, but a pastime, and a national duty. One of the goals of the UCCE Amador County Master Gardeners for 2009 is to provide public education on Victory Gardens so that this successful model can be replicated and in so doing provide food security while strengthening the health of individuals and our community.
The last Public Education Class for 2009 will be "Community Gardens" on Saturday, November 7th from 9am to 12 pm, at 12200-B Airport Road, Jackson.
The class will cover how to start a community garden, getting it oganized, mistakes made, and successes. The class will be presented by Master Gardeners that have helped to establish successful church and other community gardens.
If you would like to receive notification of our classes and other events via email, please email us at mgamador@ucdavis.edu with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.