Focus on Food, Fuel as Master Gardeners Program Turns 35
Some 250 Master Gardener volunteers from across Washington state gathered at Fort Warden State Park near Port Townsend June 12 – 14 to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the world’s first Master Gardeners program.
There has never been a better time for the state’s Master Gardener volunteers to have a positive impact on their communities, according to Bill Havens, president of the Master Gardeners Foundation of Washington State.
“Now is the time we can have a major beneficial impact as people cope with the problems of high fuel and food prices, and environmental concerns,” he said. “People are wanting more locally grown food, food banks have an increasing need for more fresh local produce, and we’re in a place where we can make a real difference.”
The program was born in the early 1970s when Washington state was in a major recession after 60,000 aerospace workers were laid off in the Puget Sound area, and the Arab oil embargo imposed on the United States triggered fuel shortages and increasing food prices. At the same time, many young people around the nation were emerging from the sixties with an interest in “getting back to the earth.”
Today, there are nearly 4,000 trained Master Gardeners in the state, serving more than 300,000 people annually and providing literally millions of dollars worth of volunteer time and services to their communities.
“We must cultivate our gardens,” Voltaire famously wrote, and there’s never been a better time to get involved with the nation’s first Master Gardeners Program.
For more information, please visit: http://mastergardeners.com/.
Farmer-to-Farmer Series Goes to Farrier School
The WSU Snohomish County Extension farmer-to-farmer tour series goes to farrier school with a visit to Mission Farrier School near Snohomish.
Participants will learn to view horses from the farrier’s point of view, and how the school’s students learn to evaluate each horse’s needs. Each horse is then shod taking into account whether it is to be ridden on a trail or in a ring, or used in field and farm work. Mission School teaches a process of individualized evaluation and the use of the latest technologies.
The tour will be held on Wednesday, June 25, beginning at 10:30 am at Mission Farrier School located at 17028 Trombley Road near Snohomish.
For more information contact Kate Halstead at (425) 357-6024 or at khalstead@wsu.edu.
New shoes, new skills as the Farmer-to-Farmer series heads to the Mission Farrier School.
Mt. Vernon, WSU Puyallup Field Days in July
Members of northwestern Washington’s agricultural community are invited to participate in the annual field day and picnic at the WSU Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center at Mount Vernon. The event will feature tours of field research trials, a picnic dinner, and meetings of the Northwest Agricultural Research Foundation and other crop research advisory groups.
The NWREC field research tour will get underway at 4 p.m. on Thursday, July 10, at the Treehouse on the NWREC campus located at 16650 State Route 536 (Old Memorial Highway). The picnic dinner will begin at 6 p.m.
Farmers and others will be able to learn innovative techniques for developing and maintaining a healthy farm at an upcoming Field Day on the WSU Puyallup campus July 21.
The WSU Puyallup Field Day will also highlight pastured poultry, chicken processing, organic farming systems, canola trials and compost concerns.
For more information on the WSU Mt. Vernon Field Day, please visit: http://tinyurl.com/4u53ld.
For more information on the WSU Puyallup Field Day, please visit: http://tinyurl.com/3kus4n.
West side field days are coming up in July.