Extension
It Starts With Us
Author: Erika Wood
Major Program: Master Gardener
The Pennyroyal Master Gardener Association offered a new event to the community for 2021 known as Art in the Garden. Every year, master gardener volunteers oversee and manage the educational demonstration gardens at the Hopkins County Extension Service, which are used for various educational programs. Typically, the master gardeners have tours of the gardens at their annual Spring Lawn and Garden Fair event but were not able to do so due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, the
Author: Deborah Stumbo
Major Program: Master Gardener
The Demo Garden at the Pike County Extension Office is sponsored by the Extension Office and the Pikeville Master Gardeners. It is designed to demonstrate to the local people that you don't have to possess acres of land to produce fruits & Vegetables for healthy eating. Garden uses multiple methods of "Small Garden" demos. It consists for multiple types of raised beds, as well as in ground gardening. Everything from wooden beds (set up for Handicapped ga
Author: Adam Leonberger
Major Program: Master Gardener
The Kentucky Master Gardener Program is an intensive fourteen week series of classes focusing on various aspects of horticulture. While it does benefit the participants, the primary goal is to train new volunteers to be better gardeners and stewards of the land, as well as grow in their leadership skills and in community involvement. Each person who completes the program must return 40 hours of community service through the Cooperative Extension Service during the first year after the com
Author: Kathryn Wimberley
Major Program: Master Gardener
Toolbox Class Oct 2021 on Houseplants The Need: The Covid-19 pandemic was still an issue when the Horticulture Agent, Assistant and McCracken County Extension Master Gardeners (MCEMG) recognized the need to help residents learn how-to prepare houseplants to winter indoors. Shortage of availability of professional potting mix at local retailers through the 2021 growing season indicated that residents are gardening at home more in these unusual times. MCEMG had a supply of 12 large and
Author: Erika Wood
Major Program: Master Gardener
In the past several years, the Pennyroyal Master Gardener Association has held a spring and fall plant swap at the Hopkins County Farmers Market. The purpose of the fall plant swap was to give the community an opportunity to come swap plants with one another. Participants brought plants they were willing to give away and then could pick from plants donated by other participants to take home. A wide range of plants were brought to the swap and included the following: herbaceous
Author: Lori Bowling
Major Program: Master Gardener
For the past 20 years the Boyd County Extension Service has offered the Master Gardener course to the inmates of the Federal Correctional Institution in Ashland, Ky. In December 2021, 15 inmates earned their Kentucky Master Gardener certification. Upon release from the prison the inmates will be able to use this certification as well as the knowledge they have gained in horticulture to help secure gainful employment to aid in their quest to become reintegrated back into society. &nbs
Author: Robert Smith
Major Program: Master Gardener
This past fall another graduating class joined the ranks of nearly 100 other Master Gardeners in Nelson County. Eight participants completed the 12-week training that consisted of online, in-person, and applied fieldwork. The collaboration of the state offered programming and the helpfulness of local gardeners for the use of their gardens as labs created a unique opportunity to learn together in different ways.
Author: Nick Roy
Major Program: Master Gardener
In 2019, the Adair County Community Assessment facilitated by the Adair County Cooperative Extension Service revealed one of the top priority issue to citizens was the need for more local citizens solving local issues. In 2018, Extension Master Gardeners provided over $140 million dollars of volunteer work nationally. Recognizing the need for more local volunteers and the impact the Extension Master Gardener program has on communities, the Adair County Extension Master Gardener Progr
Author: Lori Bowling
Major Program: Master Gardener
The Boyd County Master Gardeners are developing an educational vegetable garden that will be used to not only demonstrate how to raise common garden vegetables but the bulk of this garden education will be devoted on how to rebuild soil that has been depleted of organic matter, good soil structure and nutrients. They are starting with a plot that is reclaimed strip mine land that for the past 30+ years has just been a fallow field. They have set up a research committee to develop edu
Author: Lorilee Kunze
Major Program: Master Gardener
This year the Bullitt County Horticulture Program hosted the first hybrid Master Gardener Training. Beginning with six participants, 5 fully completed the training course (one had to drop out due to Covid complications). The course consisted of 18 weeks of classes, 13 online via Zoom and 5 in person labs. At the end of the course, each participant was tasked with researching a horticultural topic of their choice and using land grant publications to present a lesson to their fel
Author: Kara Back
Major Program: Master Gardener
In January 2022 the Taylor County Horticulture agent taught her second group of Master Gardeners. Within the previous 2 years it was difficult to obtain participants for classes due to concerns of COVID-19. Zoom options for webinars had not done well in Taylor County. An in-person Master Gardener class began on January 13th and met for 18 weeks. This program met at night because there were several requests for it to occur after 5:00p.m. This was taught solely by the Horticulture agent (a m
Author: Erika Wood
Major Program: Master Gardener
The Extension Master Gardener program is a volunteer organization dedicated to teaching and training people about horticulture related topics. This program is a part of the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service and assists county extension agents in providing education and outreach in the community. Master Gardeners are required to undergo training and complete 40 hours of volunteer service in their first year before becoming certified. After the first year, Master Gar
Author: Nick Roy
Major Program: Master Gardener
The Adair County Extension Master Gardener program was offered in 2022 with the goal of expanding horticulture education efforts offered by the Adair County Cooperative Extension Service. Through the hard of volunteers, the fruits of this effort are already being harvest. In late Spring 2022, one participant began developing curriculum for a series of education meetings targeting youth. Soon after other Master Gardener participants volunteered to offer assistance in teaching t
Author: Kelly Jackson
Major Program: Master Gardener
Master Gardeners is a program run by the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service to train citizens in many areas of horticulture. Upon completion of the Master Gardener education program, participants return 30 hours of community volunteer service through organized projects within one year to earn the title Master Gardener and 15 hours annually to maintain their volunteer status. During the 2021 program year Master Gardeners volunteered:1,264 hours of service in planting and maintai
Author: Kelly Jackson
Major Program: Master Gardener
The Christian County Master Gardener Program is an outstanding opportunity to develop community horticulture volunteers. To become a certified Master Gardener volunteer, participants must complete a minimum 13-week training, which consists of 24 hours of core subject courses including Cooperative Extension/Volunteerism, Botany, Soils, Plant Pathology, Entomology, and Pesticides/Pesticides Safety/Environmental Issues. They must also pass a final exam with a seventy-five percent score and voluntee
Author: Paul Andrew Rideout
Major Program: Master Gardener
The Master Gardener Program is alive and growing with over 80,000 volunteers nationwide donating over 5 million volunteer hours with over 1 million direct contacts. In Kentucky, there are more than 1500 active volunteers donating over 43,000 hours with 83,000 direct contacts. Covid had a significant impact on the Master Gardener program. With good leadership and good communication, the program is recovering. Even with a decline since COVID, Henderson County Master Gardeners have 36 a
Author: Mary McCarty
Major Program: Master Gardener
The Little Sandy Correctional Complex requested a Master Gardener program in 2009. The program continued for 5 years until the ANR agent transferred to the Menifee ANR/4-H Position. The program had a lot of success throughout the years. Each inmate that graduated from the 12-week class received 90 days off their sentence and received their restricted use pesticide license. There were 5 inmates that received initial jobs in the horticulture field after being paroled.  
Author: Traci Johnson
Major Program: Master Gardener
Residential/suburban areas make up over half of Oldham County. With a population of 68,685 comes a big demand for home garden and landscape information. Extension Master Gardener volunteers help address this demand by volunteering in a variety of roles and sites in Oldham County. Their work helps support Extension’s mission of teaching self-reliance skills as well as supporting tourist destinations in the county through their volunteer service.Master Gardeners complete t
Author: Annette Heisdorffer
Major Program: Master Gardener
Extension Master Gardener volunteers play a vital role in the outreach of the Cooperative Extension Service into the community. They seek opportunities to fulfill their goal of helping others through sharing science-based gardening knowledge gained through this extension program taught by the horticulture agent in Daviess County. A total of 50 Extension Master Gardeners reported that they volunteered 3,393 hours toward educational projects involving horticulture in the community this
Author: Erika Wood
Major Program: Master Gardener
The Spring Lawn and Garden Fair is a program run by the Pennyroyal Master Gardener Association. The fair takes place at the Danny Peyton Outdoor Education Pavilion and offers a variety of activities including educational talks and demonstrations relating to horticulture, lawn and garden vendors, plant sales, and activities for children. The purpose of the fair is to educate local residents about different topics relating to horticulture, as well as raising awareness of the Master Ga
Author: Deborah Stumbo
Major Program: Master Gardener
The Pikeville Master Gardeners took a 2 day excursion to see some of the estates and horticulture centers that also serve as arboretums and research models for the state. The excursion took place May 13th and 14th, using funds that had been raised by the Master Gardeners. Due to Covid it had been couple years since the MG's were able to go look at historic gardens and gardening areas. First stop on the trip was the Henry Clay Estate in Lexington. They saw many d
Author: Sharon Flynt
Major Program: Master Gardener
Cooperative extension volunteer programs are essential as they help the cooperative extension service reach its state-wide mission of making “a difference in the lives of Kentucky citizens through research-based education.” Understanding the monetary value of volunteer time is extremely valuable as well, as this additional knowledge gives “tools” to our land-grant universities’ leaders and extension leaders. How? By putting a realistic financial value on
Author: Lorin Fawns
Major Program: Master Gardener
The horticulture agent and program assistant have been working together to offer a Master Gardener program at the local detention center. The program is once a week for 14 weeks and requires 40 hours of volunteer service, there are a total of 13 participants (four women and nine men). Through the program one participant said "The Master Gardener program is very interesting and because of this class I plan to apply for a position AppHarvest, I have been burnout from other careers I hav
Author: Annette Heisdorffer
Major Program: Master Gardener
The Extension Master Gardener program promotes leadership, personal growth, and outreach. Through the program, two Extension Master Gardeners, trained in Daviess County by the horticulture agent, shared their love of butterflies and photography with each other. As they took thousands of photos and identified over 60 species of butterflies in Kentucky, they created a PowerPoint presentation and through their leadership, began to teach others. Over the past fo
Author: Amy Aldenderfer
Major Program: Master Gardener
Hardin County has over 42, 000 households with over 110,000 residents. Extension Master Gardeners enable residents to access research-based information as an extension to the county Horticulture Agent. The Extension Master Gardener Program consists of 15 classes of intense training in various areas of interest to a horticulture enthusiast. After the classroom training is complete a minimum of 40 hours of volunteerism is required to be given back to the community through ex
Author: Sarah Imbus
Major Program: Master Gardener
The Kentucky Extension Master Gardener Program began in the late 1980’s and was initially active in a few urban counties. Fifty Kentucky counties have an active master garden program who have contributed 11,300 volunteer hours across those fifty counties. With the national hourly volunteer rate of $24.69, Kentucky Extension Master Gardener volunteers have contributed over $279,900 in annual service to the state! This amount was reached due to the 735 existing Kentucky Master Garden volunte
