Last week I talked about how the fall vegetable season has begun. Well, if it’s fall garden season that must mean it’s also Become a Master Gardener Season. I say season because we only offer our classes to become a Tulsa Master Gardener once a year.

While I find that quite a few people are familiar with the term Master Gardener, not that many actually know what that means. So, let’s talk what a Master Gardener is and how you can join us in serving our community through horticulture.

The Tulsa County OSU Master Gardener program is actually part of a nationwide group of Master Gardener Associations throughout the country. Our roots can be traced back to 1862 when Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act into law which established the Land Grant University program.

The Morrill act authorized Congress to allocate 17 million acres of land throughout the United States to individual states so they could sell that land and then use the proceeds to establish endowments to fund universities. Iowa State was the first one to sign up, but Kansas State was the first actual land grant university to be established under this program. Oklahoma State was established in 1890 through this program.

At the time most colleges were “liberal arts” schools, but land grant schools had a different mandate. Not only were they expected to teach, but they were required to conduct research, and then share the results of their research. Because of this, Oklahoma state has its teaching arm, but there is also a research arm along with what is called Extension which is the branch that shares information with the citizens of our state. OSU has Extension offices in all 77 counties with most of them having at least one dedicated Horticultural Educator on staff. In the early days, that was probably sufficient, but as populations grew, it became more difficult for Horticultural Educators to effectively meet all the horticultural and agricultural needs of everyone in the county. Enter the Master Gardener program.

The first Master Gardener program began at Washington State in 1973 as a way to help meet the needs of an expanding population. Current estimates suggest there are about 100,000 Master Gardeners throughout the country associated with their various county Extension offices. In Tulsa we have about 350 active Master Gardeners who last year contributed almost 40,000 volunteer hours in service to our community. So, what are we doing when we are racking up those volunteer hours?

First of all we are answering your horticultural questions 5 days a week from 9:00 am until 4:00 pm in our Diagnostic Center at the Extension office. You can email, call, or drop by to get all your horticultural questions answered. If you come visit our office, spend a little time looking at our beautiful Memorial Garden that is created and maintained by Master Gardener volunteers.

In addition, we teach classes each year including our Lunch and Learn Series in conjunction with the Tulsa County Library. We also teach our Urban Gardener classes where we teach about the best practices to growing vegetables at home as well as a yearly Master Composter class where you learn not only how to be a great composter but then become a teacher to help educate others on the benefits of composting.

We also teach classes in area elementary schools. Each year we find ourselves in front of about 18,000 elementary school students as we teach them about butterflies, insects, spiders, worms and other horticultural topics. This one takes quite a few Master Gardeners to pull off successfully.

A few years ago, we started a program called Exploring Insects where we invite about 1000 3^rd graders to join us for some fun hands on activities involving insects. These activities include maggot art and an opportunity for the brave to find out what friend meal worms taste like among others.

Tulsa Blooms is one of our programs you may have seen but didn’t know we were involved. In Tulsa Blooms, we plant and maintain flowers in flowerpots in the Brookside area. The point of this is to help make our city more beautiful. You may have seen people driving around Brookside with a large water tank on the back of a John Deere Gator. Those are Tulsa Master Gardeners delivering water to those thirsty flowers.

There’s also our annual Garden Tour where Master Gardeners open their yards so you can not only learn about gardening but get ideas on how you might be able to transfer some of what you see into your home landscape.

Most of us are familiar with Habitat for Humanity. Well, the Tulsa Master Gardeners partner with Habitat for Humanity to landscape the homes they build so that these new residents have not only a great new home, but one with beautiful landscaping.

Also, this is our third year for our Seed to Supper Farm where we teach Master Gardeners how to grow vegetables at scale. Once we harvest those vegetables, we donate them to area food pantries. So far this year we have donated about 6000 pounds of fresh, home-grown vegetables, helping to put healthy food on the tables of those in need. If this year is anything like last year, we will have harvested and delivered over 15,000 of produce.

And then there’s a new program we started last year in conjunction with the Tulsa Boys’ Home. In this new program we teach horticulture classes to the residents during the months of July and August as part of their summer program. The rest of the year we lead and help with what they are calling Garden Club in which the boys that are interested in digging a little deeper into horticulture get the opportunity to grow their own vegetables. It is very rewarding for us to see boys who didn’t want anything to do with this at the beginning become actively involved in not only planting, but maintaining and then harvesting the produce they have grown. As you can tell, we have a lot going on.

If you are interested in learning more about what we do and how you can join us in these efforts as a Tulsa County Master Gardener, we have two informational meetings coming up: August 7^th at 10:00 A.M. and again on August 14^th at 1:00 P.M. In both of these meetings you’ll have the opportunity to not only learn more about the program, but then you’ll be able to fill out an application and schedule an interview. These meetings and classes will be at the OSU Extension Office at 4116 E. 15^th. Classes will be conducted each Wednesday throughout the fall from 9:00 in the morning until 3:00 in the afternoon. We hope to see you at the info meeting. Either way, I’ll see you in the garden!

You can get answers to all your gardening questions by calling the Tulsa Master Gardeners Help Line at 918-746-3701, dropping by our Diagnostic Center at 4116 E. 15th Street, or by emailing us at mg@tulsamastergardeners.org. Photo: Steven Hall