The Jessamine County Cooperative Extension Services offered a four-week online gardening program. The Agriculture & Natural Resources Agent, 4-H & Youth Development, and Family & Consumer Sciences Agent partnered together to create a dynamic learning experience. Each week the agents worked together to create a spotlight video as the main lesson for the week. Topics included seeds, raised beds, transplants, and recipe demonstrations. In addition to the spotlight videos, the agents shared the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension publications, recipes, food preservation demonstrations, and weekly “Ask the Expert” posts to answer participants’ questions. The program had 40 participants, and many of the participants were new to Cooperative Extension. The program concluded with participants stopping by the Extension Office to pick up transplants to start their home garden.

An end of program evaluation was distributed, and below are findings from those who completed the evaluation:

100% of participants plan to garden more in the future

100% of participants anticipate gardening to be a new hobby

100% of participants hope to save money by growing their own vegetables

When asked what something new they learned about fall gardening, one participant shared, “I have never done a fall garden, but this gave me the motivation and tools I need. I learned about the best things to plant and ways to use my harvest.”

When asked what something new they learned about cooking or storing fall vegetables was, one participant, shared “it was nice to see canning is not the only option for preserving food.”

We also had participants share pictures of their fall garden harvest. Below are the pictures we received.