Master Gardener

As of Thursday night, I managed to obtain enough hours to satisfy my Master Gardener certification. Interns needed 50 volunteer hours. Next year, I will only need 15 hours per year. Let me tell you, 15 hours will be a walk in the park compared to 50. 

In order to get my hours, I managed to find a great program to help out with: the Bowie County Community Garden Coalition. We met every week. There were extra hours obtained for playing in the garden, growing seedlings at home, keeping the Facebook site and running errands on behalf of the Community Garden Coalition. What I found astounding is that I was only one of three of us interns latched on to this program. My hours are done six months early. 

As far as what I learned, it would be something along the lines of a brain dump to include everything. But, here are a few highlights. 

• Hemlock and carrots are in the same family. Please don't confuse them. 
• Okra can grow taller than me. For that matter, so can tomato plants. 
• The suckers in between the branches of a tomato plant should be taken off. It will make the plant produce more tomatoes.  
• Once the sunflower has bloomed, take the seeds out, add a bit of oil and salt and cook those seeds a 450 degree oven for about 20 minutes. Polly will thank you. 
• Okra is gross. However, the best way to swallow the stuff is to bake it in a 450 degree oven with a bit of oil and salt for about 20 minutes. 
• A tomato pulled from a vine is the best tasting tomato in the world. 
• Putting cardboard in the bottom of your garden, covering it with soil and mulch will kill the weeds. 
• It is important to change out your soil every couple of years if you are growing vegetables. 
• If you plant sunflowers, do not alert the local armadillos. Those thugs will dig them up in the middle of the night.