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Finding
yourself in the d i r t
UI Master Gardener programs nurture plant
life & personal growth
By Donna Emert
We tend to forget that the seeds of civilization were planted with the first gardens. Finally, the food was right outside the hut, and we could hunker in and develop the sciences and the arts over fried potatoes and coffee.
If the UI Extension Master Gardener program is an indicator, gardens and gardening continue to nurture plant, critter, and human life, promote good science, and maybe even advance civilization by renewing our sense of connection to the land and each other.
Introduced to Idaho in 1976, the Idaho Master Gardener (MG) program now thrives in 32 of Idaho's 44 counties. Idaho MG has trained at least 2,000 volunteers; more than 775 are currently active. Certified MGs donate 13,640 hours-worth an estimated $208,000-of volunteer time annually, sharing with anyone who calls or seeks research-based knowledge of water conservation, composting, plant development, and environmentally astute insect, weed, and disease control.
When they're not responding to homeowners' questions or operating horticulture clinics, Idaho's MGs install public landscapes, organize community gardens, deliver instruction, and answer questions at garden centers, garden clubs, libraries, and churches to English- and Spanish-speaking gardeners. In 2004, MG also reached more than 6,000 Idaho kids through a Junior Master Gardener (JMG) curriculum modeled on the adult program.
Trading knowledge for volunteer time
MGs receive a minimum 30 hours of classroom training in horticulture from University of Idaho Extension educators and return at least 30 hours in volunteer time. Trained volunteers often answer phones at UI Extension county offices, solving gardening and landscaping problems.
They also work in less traditional venues: Debbie Cook shares her expertise over the airwaves each Saturday a.m., hosting Boise station KBOI's Zamzow's Garden Show; Sharon Jensen and other Benewah County MGs are weeding and seeding for seniors who can no longer maintain their gardens alone. In the MG program, tending a garden seems inexorably tied to opening dialogue and building community.
Next you'll meet current and future leaders of Idaho's diverse programs, and see how volunteers, educators, and kids find themselves in the dirt.
Idaho's Junior MG program:
kudzu growth, amaryllis pride
by Donna Emert
Junior Master Gardener (JMG) programs annually give 6,000 Idaho kids the opportunity to sow and reap. The program's rapid growth in Idaho-it was new in 2002-is reflected in a harvest that goes well beyond vegetables.
"Kudzu on steroids," is how Randy Seagraves, national curriculum coordinator for JMG, based at Texas A&M, describes it, referring to a vine that can quickly cover entire buildings and trees. "Before the program was five years old, over one million youth were impacted."
Why has JMG grown so quickly in Idaho and across the country? Simple, says Seagraves. "It works."
Better science scores; more veggies nibbled
JMG is modeled on the adult Master Gardener program, requiring classroom education and community service hours for kids to complete certification. Research finds JMG increases science achievement for participants, brings greater parental involvement to schools, and even ups consumption of fruits and vegetables by participating youth.
Each young participant "will have done over 128 activities and eight service learning projects to become certified," explains Kevin Laughlin, UI Extension educator and Idaho JMG state coordinator.
Of dirt, worms, roots, and compost
JMG curriculum focuses on developing kids' science, math, leadership, citizenship, and critical thinking skills. Horticulture and environmental science concepts are taught in the classroom and reinforced literally on the ground, in the seductively messy, child-friendly medium of dirt, worms, roots, and compost.
Hands-on benefits do not escape home-schooled Celina Wright, 10, two years into the JMG program, and soon to be certified. "You think it's boring at first, and then you get to play in the soil. It's a lot easier to understand when you have fun."
Her take on the science: "We learn about plants, and insects, and the plants' veins-like how grass can go straight or have leafs that go all over," said Celina. She and her brother Angus, 8, commute 37 miles from Horseshoe Bend to Donnelly each week in the spring and summer to participate in Sheri Hartshorn's after-school Wildlife Gardener's program.
Hartshorn is one of 65 Idaho adults already trained and certified to facilitate JMG programs. She also acknowledges the appeal of the program's research-based, hands-on approach. "It's the doing, and the being with others, and you have an end result. The kids thoroughly enjoy it.
"Last year we got some amaryllis bulbs, about a hundred of them. We learned about planting and plant nutrition. The kids grew amaryllis at home and gave some to the elderly in the area. They're now quite large, and the kids are very proud, even posing for pictures with them."
Hartshorn's JMG kids have also learned how to attract and observe salamanders, make bat houses, and calculate how many mosquitoes a bat kills in a day. "They love to work that out," she said.
Boise's Laughlin-a JMG pioneer
JMG partners with cooperative extension agencies in 30 states. Its much-lauded curriculum-check it out at jmgkids.org-and those who deliver it are keys to success. "The program simply could not be where it is today without the cooperative extension network across the nation," said Seagraves. "UI Extension's Kevin Laughlin is a perfect example of why the program has such a strong impact. Kevin is a pioneer in many ways; one is developing the one-of-a-kind and very successful JMG facilitator training."
The 18-hour training targets adult Master Gardeners, third-through-eighth-grade teachers, 4-H and Girl Scout leaders, and other youth development specialists. JMG facilitators learn how their curriculum meets Idaho educational standards for language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies.
Helping kids grasp science concepts
The JMG program helps kids grasp scientific concepts such as photosynthesis and aims at giving them big-picture knowledge of the interdependent relationships among all living things.
"They gain information in JMG to identify pest problems and the capacity of trees to capture and filter light, which provides a foundation for forestry, landscape architecture, wildlife management, nursery production, and pest management that will last a lifetime," says Laughlin.
"Every child needs to feel accomplished and accepted," adds LaWana Stevens, Celina's grandmother. "Celina simply loves the program."
Contact Laughlin at laughlin@uidaho.edu.
Spanish-language gardening classes translate
into new knowledge for new audiences
By Marlene Fritz
There isn't a gardener in eastern Idaho who hasn't wondered what to do with frost-threatened tomatoes when the region's frustratingly short growing season comes to an end. That's what Hispanic gardeners were wondering, too, at Spanish-language gardening classes pioneered by two of the area's UI Extension educators last year.
Their Hispanic students mirror the gardening interests of other eastern Idahoans, say Spanish-speaking educators Reed Findlay of Bannock County and Wayne Jones of Bonneville County. But these students weren't tapping into UI Extension's research-based know-how until Findlay and Jones began offering Spanish-language gardening classes to Hispanic congregations at a Catholic church in Pocatello, an LDS church in Idaho Falls, and the Franklin County UI Extension office in Preston.
Classes began after Sunday services
At St. Anthony's Catholic Church in Pocatello, the hour-long classes began shortly after Sunday services. "I had a blast," says Findlay. "I would have done it even if it wasn't my job. It was a fun opportunity to work with a new group."
The Pocatello students learned how to manage soils, irrigation, weeds, plant diseases, and nutrient deficiencies; more than 90 attended at least one of six classes. Two Idaho Falls classes attracted 20-plus students, and four Preston classes drew another six. Regardless of location, the students reported increasing their knowledge several-fold.
This year, the Preston site will be swapped for a Hispanic LDS church in Pocatello. The Hispanic gardeners prefer the familiarity of their church settings and are "already staying after mass anyway to gab and gossip and talk," says Findlay. "We just integrated part of the Master Gardener program into the gab sessions."
LDS church endorsed Master Gardener program
The local LDS branch president Reno Torres endorsed the program's development in Bonneville County. A former Master Gardener himself, Torres says most of Idaho's Hispanic residents "have been close to the soil all of their lives."
Jones and Findlay adapted their gardening curriculum from Spanish-language materials they had already prepared for Hispanic farm workers. With a UI Extension mini-grant, Bonneville County's new Master Gardener program assistant, Jedediah Solomon, will help translate other materials directly from UI's comprehensive Master Gardener handbook.
Findlay hopes one day to offer an entire Master Gardener program-rather than a few hour-long courses-in Spanish. In the meantime, he and Jones will settle for other rewards. "When we get done with our classes, our students all want to shake our hands and have their pictures taken with us," Findlay says. "That gives us a really good feeling."
Contact Findlay at rfindlay@uidaho.edu or Jones at wjones@uidaho.edu.
Boise prison's Magic Garden
By Donna Emert
Don't call retired Boeing engineer Claude O'Tyson on a Wednesday; he's out delivering Meals on Wheels. Other days he teaches first-year Master Gardeners about beneficial insects. O'Tyson, a certified Advanced Master Gardener (AMG) since 1996, also devotes many hours to the South Boise Women's Correctional Center garden and the inmates who tend it.
O'Tyson began work in the facility's garden in 2000, when it served 80 male inmates. The goal was to raise fresh veggies to augment prison table fare. Today the minimum security facility houses about 135 women. Two years ago, an inmate asked Janine Falk, the facility's food service supervisor who helped plant the original garden, if she could participate in the gardening program. There was no program. Falk turned to O'Tyson.
He developed the Magic Garden program, a shortened version of the Master Gardener curriculum. The eight-week program offered to inmates each spring and summer includes 20 hours of class work and 30 hours of internship-hands-on gardening and landscaping. Participants also keep an 800-page horticulture guide, developed by O'Tyson from MG materials.
Forty-five women received program certification in 2004. Twenty more signed up for the 2005 spring class. O'Tyson began the class working with AMG Bonnie Bryant. Others include a retired plastic surgeon, Ph.D. in plant pathology, and a website designer. "A great, diverse group," says O'Tyson.
Job training & source of hope
"We actually give inmates a good enough education in horticulture that it would be an asset to anyone working in the gardening industry," O'Tyson notes. Both coursework and internship hours are cited on the certificate, making it a useful job-search tool.
"Raking, planting, growing-it's a great way to release the stress and energy they have being locked up," said Shelly Lang, drug and alcohol rehabilitation specialist at the facility. "They talk about it when they're in the class as something constructive they can do with their kids. They're excited to go home and grow tomatoes, and to pick them with their children."
"Typically, inmates are real committed to the class," said Falk, who retired from the correctional center last July. "I truly believe, and so does Claude, that a garden has the capacity to save lives. None of it would have happened without Claude. It's just an oasis out there in the desert. It gives people hope."
Contact O'Tyson at coty3219@msn.com.
Getting & Staying Involved
"Master Gardeners are critical to answering home horticulture questions in Idaho," says UI soil scientist Bob Tripepi, statewide Idaho MG contact. "As the state's urban population increases, they're going to be even more critical."
To fuel their interest as volunteers, UI Extension in 2003 underwrote costs for 19 Idaho MGs to attend the University of Oregon Gardener's Mini-College. They learned how to organize and deliver educational conferences to help MGs and Advanced MGs continue to build on their gardening expertise.
The volunteers staged conferences in all four UI Extension districts during 2004, attracting a total 455 people.
For MG education opportunities in your area, see CALSCalendar at http://calendar.ag.uidaho.edu. Or, contact UI Extension educators:
 North-Central and Northern
Idaho (District I), Bob Wilson, 208-263-8511, rwilson@uidaho.edu
Southwestern Idaho, including
Boise (District II), Susan Bell, 208-377-2107, sbell@uidaho.edu
South-Central Idaho, including
Twin Falls (District III), JoAnn Robbins, 208-788-5585, jrobbins@uidaho.edu
Southeastern Idaho
(District IV), Wayne Jones, 208-785-8060, wjones@uidaho.edu
State MG contact,
Bob Tripepi, 208-885-6635, btripepi@uidaho.edu
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