Extension Services and Master Gardeners
Budget cuts proposed for the University of Maryland Extension Service in Baltimore City would jeopardize the Master Gardeners program, and it is those volunteers who did the lion's share of work on the garden last season and were expected to do it this year, too.
And nobody seems to understand what's going on.
With the help of the venerable garden writer Adrian Higgins, let me see if I can explain.
Master Gardener programs are essential, especially in this time of renewed interest in sustainable vegetable gardening, because rookie gardeners and average homeowners have no idea what they are doing.
The Master Gardeners volunteer their time, in a variety of venues, to teach them. These volunteer hours are a requirement in exchange for their training.
They don't just tell Joe Homeowner how to kill crab grass. They help him understand how to do it without harming the environment and the creatures in it. And they can teach him how to grow his own food.
For example: when something like last season's tomato blight wipes out entire crops, Master Gardeners are at farmer's markets and elsewhere to help explain it and prevent it from happening again.
These Master Gardener programs operate under state cooperative extension services, which are funded by land-grant universities, such as the University of Maryland in our state, using both state and federal dollars.
Often, counties and cities establish extension services, too, with help and funding from the state agencies. That's what Baltimore City did back in 1942.
The Master Gardeners, in essence, extend the reach of the state extension service and, in this case, the city extension service. There are 157 volunteers in Baltimore City's Master Gardener program, and they work in dozens of programs, including school vegetable gardens.
Though Master Gardeners often establish their own nonprofit organizations, Higgins explained, they count on the state extension service for training, curriculum and science-based help in such new areas as organic pest control, native plants and other developments in growing our own food, Then they teach us, as well as the next generation of Master Gardeners.
But the extension services, and the Master Gardener programs under them, are "low-hanging fruit," said Higgins, for politicians in a budget crisis.
That's what is happening in Baltimore.
Extension services and their programs made much more sense when the United States was an agrarian economy and they helped farmers feed us. They are an easy target when you think that all they do now is help homeowners kill crabgrass.
Categories: Baltimore's City Hall Garden
Comments
That's sad, but there's hope: as long as these master gardeners are alive and pass on what they've learned to others, then concept of the program will live.
Although I'm grateful for the extension services in my area, people have lived, managed and survived for thousands of years without them.
Agrarian societies pass knowledge down by word of mouth. Today the internet, e-books and videos are readily available from a variety of places. The knowledge is being passed down, and the old word-of-mouth system lives on in a different way.
So, don't lose heart.
Posted by: Damon | April 8, 2010 8:42 AM
So, the real problem is the threat to the Master Gardener program. The city vegetable garden is a symptom of a larger problem.
Master Gardeners are an underutilized resource. How do we go about requesting that their funding be restored??
I'd say, write the mayor. The Master Gardeners have a pretty full dance card. I wouldn't say they were underutilized. And more than the veggie garden will miss them. -- Susan
Posted by: Susie | April 8, 2010 10:37 AM