Today I spent four hours weeding and planting in the butterfly garden next to the Air Force museum at Cape Canaveral. The ground is like hard pan - horrible; but bit by bit we've dug away and the plants are mostly thriving and we are seeing the butterflies. I do this with another MG who is also a close friend. She and her husband had a sign made up at Office Depot and he framed it and set it up for us. Those hours count towards our volunteer hours.

What a huge garden. Beautiful! Such a nice way to get your hours and spend time with a good friend.

I've been meaning to get back here and post but this past week has been just beautiful and guess what, in my spare time I've been out gardening!!

I have enjoyed reading all your opinions and experiences with Master Gardening, whether it be your experiences as a MG or going through the program or your interactions with MGers, etc. One of you asked what I hoped to accomplish by becoming a MG and I thought about this quite a bit and realized that what I was most hoping for was meeting other people who are as interested in gardening as I am. I know no people my age who are interested in gardening to the extent that I am and almost as few people of *any* age who are into it like I am. Of course learning more about gardening and horticulture is also a motivation for me, but camaraderie is my primary one. I'm actually not even sure if being a MG would fulfill that now that I think about it. I wish there was a garden club in our area--we used to live in a bigger suburb and there was an active garden club there and I enjoyed going to the meetings and the plant sales. It is funny because then we had a small lot and very little space to garden (yet a garden club in our area) and now I have my dream of almost 5 acres to garden but no garden club. (But I'd rather have our big yard )

I am still interested in becoming a MG at some point but I think it may have to be when the kids are much older, which is fine. The volunteer hours would be a big strain for me I think at this point. I just need to find some gardening community in my area in the meantime. Usually in the spring there are a bunch of plant sales around this area so maybe if I ask around at those I'll discover a secret garden club nearby.

I totally agree with the importance of passing on gardening to the next generation...our 7 year old has been begging for her own garden for the past 2 years and this year she's getting it! (a small one anyway) My mom was/is a huge gardener so I learned a lot from her and my grandma who also loved gardening. Hopefully our kids will have an interest and learn and pass it on to their kids too.

Thanks!

This is a great thread and I have a few recent posts to re-read. I still have interest in the MG program but the opinions and experiences expressed are very much appreciated. There are a million ways to donate time or money and I have more time than money. I have other interests and with time, time will become more limited. My "donated" time might be spent better on other indulgences. Some gardening related.

It is quite interesting to read about everyone's personal experiences and I appreciate the contributions. I'm sure I'm not alone in regard to others that don't have personal experiences Master Gardener program. Thanks!

I'm resurrecting this thread temporarily to report that as I drove into town today, what should I behold but a sign saying "(my town) Area Garden Club's Plant Sale"!! I stopped in and I am SO excited to have found one here, I seriously didn't think I would but yay! Needless to say I signed up right away. They were all super nice, especially a 92 year old gardener who is an expert on hostas and ferns. They don't meet much but I'm at least glad to have found it, and who knows, maybe there's a young crop of gardeners who will all start to join and get it more energized again!

Of course, I walked away with a few plants too...who can resist a plant sale!

Our master gardeners had a huge plant sale a couple of weeks ago to benefit a botanical garden we are building. It will be a long work in progress for a couple of years.
This past week we had our monthly MG pot luck lunch followed by a speaker. Some of you may know him, or heard of him --- Wae Nelson, who was the owner of Florida Gardening Magazine, which he recently sold. Wae spoke on Bio-Char -- he's very knowledgeable about it and I know a lot of the MG's were very interested in learning more about it. I first heard Wae talk about this a few years ago -- he actually came to my garden and help me set up all the bits and pieces in order to make the "char". I was concerned about the flames (n a residential area) and my next door neighbor saw them and thought we had something seriously go wrong - ready to call the fire department. I now make my bio-char the simpler way - with brute force. I use plain charcoal (no brickettes with added chemicals); put some chunks in very heavy bags and pound it with a hammer (you still get dusty). Then after charging it and letting it settle for a few days, it's ready to add to your garden.