The Covid pandemic created a problem for continuing education opportunities for the Extension Master Gardeners. Having a virtual educational program was a good solution. 

What began as a short term stop-gap for in person programming during the 2020 Pandemic, has become a much-attended weekly horticulture program. Due to the continuing popularity of the Horticulture Webinar Wednesdays program a team of Kentucky Horticulture Agents have continued to present weekly Wednesday Webinars at 12:30 ET (11:30 CT) as a “lunch and learn” horticultural program. This team also includes Agents, University of Kentucky Specialists, and other experts who present a 30–45-minute horticultural class to the public, with a live question and answer session between the participants and presenter at class end.  All the presentations are recorded and posted to the Kentucky Hort News website (www.kentuckyhortnews.com/horticulture-webinar-wednesdays/) along with the slides, notes, a survey, and any other resource materials that the viewer may need.  The live program, advertised via social media and traditional media outlets by agents and specialists, as well as the recordings, draw viewers in from across Kentucky, the U.S., and internationally. Viewers are Master Gardeners achieving Continuing Education Credits, Extension agents earning in-service credits, farmers fulfilling CAIP grant requirements, and others who enjoy learning trusted horticultural principles from a researched based land grant university. 

McCracken County Horticulture Agent assisted by reading questions to the presenter from the “chat box” in twelve of the sessions. 

Since February 2021, when the 2^nd season started, through June 30, 2021, a total of  2,324 attendees have participated in the twenty-two weekly webinars.  A weekly survey is made available to attendees after every presentation. Agents and citizens-at- large have both commented how much they appreciate the program. One survey question asks, “What did you learn?”, to which the participant responded “ Too much to list!!  This was fantastic!!...Thank you for scheduling this!!”