May 19, 2009
Making Raised Beds Work for You
More folks are planting vegetable gardens this year than have done so in many years. The National Gardening Association’s recent survey, The Impact of Home and Community Gardening in America, indicates that the number of households planning vegetable gardens in 2009 is up nearly 20 percent over 2008. But unlike our grandparents who had enough land to devote to a large garden plot, most people these days have much less land to devote to vegetable production. They also have less time to devote to a large garden. It is a safe bet that many of these new vegetable gardeners are looking for the easiest ways to raise the most produce in a small space.
One way to maximize your production is to use raised beds. Raised beds lend themselves to more intensive planting and can mean greater production per square foot.
Novice gardeners may not know where to begin in creating a raised bed garden. The Alabama Cooperative Extension System recently released a new online publication, “Raised Bed Gardening.” It offers a lot of great information for both new and veteran gardeners. Hard copies of this publication will be available in county Extension offices across the state in the near future.
http://www.garden.org/home
http://www.gardenwriters.org/gwa.php?p=meetings/webinar_2_25.html
http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1345/ANR-1345.pdf
http://www.aces.edu
May 08, 2009
Junior Master Gardeners Growing in Alabama
The Master Gardener program has been active in Alabama for about 30 years. These adult volunteers go through an intensive training course in horticulture and other related disciplines. After completing their class work, Master Gardeners devote thousands of hours annually to community service projects across Alabama related to gardening and the environment.
But these days, adult Master Gardeners are being joined by school-age children. The Junior Master Gardener program is growing in the state. It can be found in schools where teachers use the curriculum to enhance science coursework as well as at botanical gardens and other nonschool locations.
Luci Davis, who is the state coordinator for the Junior Master Gardener program, will be this week’s guest on Backyard Wisdom. Be sure to tune in on Saturday, May 9 at 2 p.m. to Troy Public Radio to learn more about this exciting program that helps connect young people with both the environment and gardening.
You can learn more about the Alabama JMG program by visiting their Web site.