Marin IJ Articles

Interested in becoming a UC Marin Master Gardener?

• Jane Scurich

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  MMGs work in the Indian Valley edible demonstration garden that showcases sustainable agricultural practices.

  Are you looking for a new adventure involving plants, earth-friendly gardening, meeting like-minded individuals, and sharing your gardening knowledge with the Marin community? We may have a job for you!

  UC Marin Master Gardeners (MMG) are University of California-trained and certified volunteers who provide research-based knowledge and information on sustainable landscape practices, pest management, and home horticulture to gardeners in Marin.

  Currently, almost 400 of us volunteer for a host of projects. In-person projects include Water Walks, our popular collaboration with Marin Municipal Water District, offering personal consultation in home gardens to help with irrigation needs and help conserve our precious water resources. Dig it, Grow it, Eat it is an award-winning one-day class on edible plants and nutrition we offer at the Marin Art and Garden Center. Farm Day at Marin Civic Center allows us to introduce young children to some of their food sources. The Edible Demonstration Garden is a teaching garden at Indian Valley College where we get down and dirty, preparing the soil, planting more than 100 varieties of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers, and harvesting and distributing.

  

  Marin Master Gardeners staff the Help Desk, garden problem solving/information resource provided through UC Cooperative Extension for Marin residents.

  Behind the scenes, volunteers maintain the volunteer-created MMG website, lovingly known as the “pandemic website,” as those of us who worked on this extremely laborious project would never have found the time for this without stay-at-home mandates. Exciting opportunities for expansion of our mission resulted partially from the website rebirth and the talents discovered in our new classes of volunteers. The MMG Youtube channel is now filled with engaging, educational, science-based advice for gardeners on a multitude of topics. Teams of MMGs write scripts, identify venues, film, edit, and produce. Weekly IJ “Ask a Master Gardener” and the Leaflet, our quarterly newsletter for the public, tap into our journalistic interests.

  The list of projects involving Marin Master Gardeners is almost endless. If a member identifies a project that is missing, they need only present a well-thought-out proposal to the board, and quite possibly, it will become the next new adventure for this energetic group.

  We invite you to consider joining us! The first step is to learn more about our local chapter of the national Master Gardener organization, which was created in Washington State in 1973 and now extends to all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Currently, there are more than 84,000 certified MGs throughout the nation.

  

  Harvey's Garden, named for the late Harvey Rogers, an MMG who spearheaded the creation of this pesticide-free public garden of drought-tolerant plants

  Applications for the next training session open on June 27th  and close on September 2nd. Once your online application is submitted, we will schedule an in-person interview. This application is for Marin residents only. Once accepted into the program, you must be fingerprinted and pay the tuition fee. The 18-week training program begins on January 5, 2023, and graduation is on May 4th. You will be expected to complete a minimum of 50 volunteer hours of UC MMG-sponsored projects and 12 hours of approved continuing education in your first year. Subsequent years require 25 volunteer hours and 12 continuing education hours. You will be amazed how fast the hours accumulate as you meet and work with other members of the program on a vast array of community service projects. One new member of the 2020 class who quickly navigated to Zoom training in March of that year contributed 1000 hours her first year as she played a major role in the website reconstruction!

  As a member of the class of 1997, I have enjoyed participating in school gardens, our booth at the County Fair, Farm Day, nurturing tomato starts for our annual plant sale, as a speaker at various venues, writing, editing, learning, and digging in the soil with my fellow MMGs – and there are still projects to explore! There is never a lack of opportunity to share your enthusiasm and love of plants that are so essential to our very existence. Please consider joining us! Visit Master Gardener Class for more information and to complete the application, and learn more in this video.