Garrett Neese
John Areford, a member of Greene County’s Penn State Extension Master Gardener program, gives a baby tomato plant to Aurora Klinzing, 7, of Aleppo as part of the Tiny Tim Tomato Project at the Bowlby Library in Waynesburg Wednesday night.
Twenty-one volunteers make up the Penn State Extension Master Gardener program in Greene County, helping coordinate everything from giving children baby tomato plants to creating pollinator gardens.
And they’re always looking for more people to help.
“It’s a good program for people who want to get out in the community, who love to be outdoors and work in the dirt, and love kids,” said Cheryl Brendel, Master Gardener coordinator for Greene County. “We do the senior fair, we work with adults, too, but most of our work is with kids.”
The activities span the county. An event at the Center Township Fire Hall raised awareness of the invasive spotted lanternfly. They work with the Corner Cupboard Food Bank to grow produce, distributing 250 pounds in 2003. Master Gardeners identify the early-blooming ephemerals during spring walks along the Greene River Trail — which this year included a rare variety of trillium, Brendel said.
In the Seed to Supper program, fledgling gardeners spend six weeks learning how to plant their garden, care for it and harvest their plants, capped by a lesson in preparing foods from the plants they’ve been growing.
The Master Gardener program has room for more volunteers, especially younger ones, Brendel said.
Many of the younger volunteers are the most active, including one participating in a Penn State study to find out what kinds of bees are in Pennsylvania.
“I have one girl that says she’s a bee nerd, and she goes out and does walks along different areas, and she’ll catch the bees, and then she’ll send them back to university for identification,” Brendel said.
It’s important for people to find their niche, Brendel said, reassuring people that “they don’t have to be good at everything.”
“I have people who won’t work with kids, and I have people who don’t want to work with adults,” she said. “And I think that’s important. If you want to go out and do something, you want to enjoy doing it.”
After only recruiting one person last year, Brendel wants to have as many as seven new people in the next round of classes.
People should register “as soon as possible,” Brendel said, but at least by September.
After people go through an initial interview with Brendel, they begin weekly online classes starting in October and continuing through March, with breaks for the holidays.
Trainees must get at least 80% on a mid-term and a closed-book final. Every county has 20 required subjects, including soil health, plant diseases and landscape design.
After they start classes, the trainees must complete 50 hours of volunteer service within the first year.
They also have to finish a project, whether that’s an article, educational poster or presentation.
Once they’ve achieved Master Gardener status, volunteers have to put in 20 hours a year into the program and 10 hours a year of continuing education to retain it. Some are more gung ho: Brendel said one younger volunteer logged 200 hours last year.
It’s a way to be active in the community and provide people with good, scientifically backed information, Brendel said. With the climate changing, they can help tell people the best time to plant specific crops.
Some new gardeners also might not know the difference between growing warm-weather crops like tomatoes or ones that fare better in colder weather, like lettuce.
“It’s important to teach people the right way to do things,” Brendel said. “Otherwise they say, ‘I don’t have a green thumb.’ But you could.”
It costs $250 to sign up for the classes, which includes $75 for a manual students get to keep afterwards.
For more information or to sign up for a class, go to extension.psu.edu/programs/master-gardener/counties/greene.