Becoming a Master Gardener
Friends, I did it. I signed up, paid my fee, completed all my coursework, and passed the test, and your girl is officially a Master Gardener in the state of Iowa! Honestly, there were a few moments when I worried that my 40-something-year-old brain wouldn’t be able to retain information as well as it did in college, specifically when I got to the section on turf grass (not in my top 10 of gardening interests). But I rallied and was genuinely surprised by how much I learned.
Because I am a parent who gets extremely nostalgic for college every fall when I move another kid of mine into the dorms, I decided to treat this course like I was back in college… circa 1996. Unfortunately, I couldn’t move into the dorms to take this class, but it did mean buying a fun notebook, my favorite pens and color-coded sticky notes to organize my chapters.
Jumping into my Master Gardening course
In the first three weeks, I cruised ahead of schedule, taking diligent notes every evening and learning everything there was to learn about botany, plant life cycles and propagation. My confidence dipped slightly when I got to the chapters on soil, composting and mulch, especially because my real-life work schedule got busy. But before I knew it, I was back in the flow with vegetable, herb and fruit culture, which is my sweet spot in gardening.
It was at this point that I realized how much incredible information I had learned from my grandma about gardening over the years. She had never taken any courses, but was a Master Gardener in many ways. Funny enough, I also realized how many things I had been doing for years because they just seemed like the right thing to do, but actually weren’t. For instance, I was not properly pruning my hydrangeas for far too long. Instead of pruning my old-wood varieties at the end of the summer and the new-wood varieties in early spring before they started to grow, I was lopping everything off at the end of the fall growing season. Oopsie.
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Applying my new knowledge in the garden
The chapters on pest control management, coupled with information on plant pathology, were another surprise. I’m not a big fan of insects, but suddenly my past experiences with spider mites and squash bugs made a lot more sense.
And remember that turf grass chapter that I didn’t think I could cram into this tired brain? It turns out I was actually able to use it to create a plan for tackling some really aggressive chickweed taking over our backyard. (Stay tuned for a column where I detail just exactly how this plan panned out.) OMG… does this make me a Master Gardener superhero?
I couldn’t be more excited to get my hands dirty as a member of the Polk County Master Gardeners. What a fantastic group of humans to work side by side with. The first project I’ll be working on is a cut-your-own wildflower raised bed garden made entirely from recycled and donated materials. Stay tuned for more Master Gardening adventures! You know I’m going to be too excited to stay quiet about this.
Find a Master Gardening Program in Your State here!
While Jamie was doing her Master Gardener training, she also started taking piano lessons. It took her six months, but she can finally play through the entirety of “Walking in Memphis” by Marc Cohn. Her next piece is “She Used to be Mine” from “Waitress” by Sara Bareilles.
Read More In the Weeds:
Lettuce Might Be Magical
My Dahlia Journey: Learning to Overwinter Tubers
When Gardening Doesn’t Go as Planned…
