If you’ve always wanted to sharpen your gardening skills, and you have an interest in sharing your knowledge with others, the Purdue University Extension Service of Hamilton County has the ideal program for you. This fall a Master Gardener training program will be offered for residents of Hamilton County and surrounding areas. The Master Gardener Program is a series of classes to train volunteers through an extensive course in home horticulture in exchange for a donation of volunteer hours to help teach others what you have learned.
Master Gardener classes will meet for 15 Thursdays beginning August 14, 2014 and finishing November 20, 2014. There will be two concurrent sessions offered on the same day. One series will be from 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. and the other will be 6:30 – 9:30 p.m. The program topic will be the same for both sessions on a given day. The afternoon session will be cancelled if there is not enough interest. Sessions will be held at the Hamilton County Exhibition Center located on the 4- H Fairgrounds in Noblesville. Deadline for enrollment is July 11, 2014.
Participants will be exposed to a wide range of subjects including soil and plant science, diagnosis of plant problems, pesticide safety, and culture of vegetable, flower, landscape, lawns, and fruit plants.
A supplies fee of $175.00 will be charged to cover such items as reference notebooks and the new Master Gardener Manual. The charge for the second person, from the same address, sharing the same materials is $50.00. These materials will become a part of the Master Gardener’s personal collection.
While the class will be encouraged to create new educational outreach programs, there are already plenty of opportunities for which volunteers are needed. Some of these projects include GrowLabs in elementary schools, a scholarship program, community display gardens at the 4-H Fairgrounds as well as other places, speaker’s bureau and more.
You don’t have to be a gardening guru to take advantage of this program. All that is needed is a passion for gardening, an enjoyment of learning, and a desire to help your community.
If you would like to receive more information about the program, please visit the informational website at http://www4.ag.purdue.edu/counties/hamilton/Pages/MasterGardenerProgram.aspx or give us a call at 317-776-0854, or Bill Rice via email at [email protected].
