Master Gardeners Offer In-Person Programming for 2021

Jamestown, NY (April 23, 2021) - It is time to get into the garden again. The state of New York can claim about 2 million people garden at least once a year, according to the Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Science Garden-based Learning. That is not much of a surprise as gardening offers a way to grow your own food, provide for a relaxing use of time by reducing the amount of day-to-day stress, and the physical activity outdoors gives you a good excuse to get away from binge television watching.

A great resource for gardening is the Cornell Cooperative Extension Master Gardener Program. In Chautauqua County the Master Gardeners are all volunteers. The goal of the program is to bring sus-tainable, tested and educationally based garden training to the community gardener and the general public. These activities are widely available to the public and allow Master Gardener volunteers to help others through their skills and advice in building and maintaining beautiful and productive gardens.

Master Gardener volunteers will once again offer visits to their demonstration garden which is now located at Jamestown Community College on Curtis street. These events will adhere to the guidelines from the Center for Disease Control and local Health Department recommendations. At the demon-stration garden, plants grown are applicable to our area. The gardeners will teach skills and techniques that will help to make anyone have a “green thumb”. Several friendly Master Gardeners will be pre-sent to assist and answer your questions.

New to the 2021 season a gardening program is kicking off called “Seed 2 Supper”. This statewide train-ing program is geared to the new or maybe inexperienced gardener that needs the little extra help in getting started. The program is also for people that have space challenges, there will be significant emphasis on container and patio gardening. Details on this program will follow in May.

The Master Gardener Help Line is open April through September. They are available to answer garden-ing questions using their knowledge from numerous horticultural resources around the country. The Helpline is available to the general public. Once again, the Master Gardeners are offering soil pH test-ing at the demonstration gardens. Please contact the Help Line via email at chautau-quamg@cornell.edu or call 716/664-9502 Ext 224 with your questions.

Master Gardeners assist with community gardens throughout Chautauqua county. Members work with the Audubon Community Nature Center, Lawson Marine Center, Dunkirk and Jamestown com-munity gardening programs. Volunteers provide countless hours of help to the community. Recogni-tion is important in the mission of supporting sustainable gardening. The following volunteers have gone well above and have donated 1,000 hours of Master Gardener community service; Connie Dutcher -Lily Dale, Mary Erlandson -Frewsburg, Janet Forbes -Jamestown, Stephen Rees -Dunkirk, Peg Hite -Jamestown, Mike Jabot -Fredonia, Sharon Reed -Jamestown, Carolyn Smallback -Silver Creek, Pat Martonis -Jamestown.

The Master Gardener Program is one of many programs offered by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Chautauqua County (CCE-Chautauqua). CCE-Chautauqua is a subordinate governmental agency with an educational mission that operates under a form of organization and administration approved by Cornell University as agent for the State of New York. It is tax-exempt under section 501(c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The association is part of the national cooperative extension system, an edu-cational partnership between County, State, and Federal governments. As New York’s land grant uni-versity Cornell administers the system in this state. Each Cornell Cooperative Extension association is an independent employer that is governed by an elected Board of Directors with general oversight from Cornell. All associations work to meet the needs of the counties in which they are located as well as state and national goals. For more information, call 716-664-9502 or visit our website at www.cce.cornell.edu/chautauqua. Cornell University Cooperative Extension provides equal program and employment opportunities.

Last updated April 23, 2021