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Impact Report

For plan Plant Management Systems: Urban Horticulture (Santa Fe County)
Date November 1, 2010, 8:05 pm
For Objective Short-term Show short-term objectives
Impact Report Two different sections of the Master Gardener course were offered once again during the spring months of 2010 in Santa Fe and Eldorado. The 16 week course prepared a total of 58 citizens from Santa Fe County with research-based knowledge on proper gardening techniques of the Santa Fe area. The information which was gained will assist the course participant not only with their own gardening experiences, but also to assist the County Agent in disseminating sound home horticultural advice to other gardeners who have inquiries or wanting to know how to correct their own horticultural problems. Of the 58 students who enrolled in the classes, 52 completed the course successfully. Furthermore, of those students submitting their course evaluation forms, 82% rated the course as "highly satisfactory" in terms of meeting their expectations, with the other 18% of the participants rating it as "satisfactory". In order to facilitate travel cost savings for the specialists once again, the Agent took on the responsible for contacting speakers, developing the course syllabus, ordering manuals for the Taos and Los Alamos County Master Gardener Programs as well. On one August afternoon as it is now becoming tradition, many of the prospective students were invited to attend a social gathering at the Audobohn Center (which is one of the sites in which the Master Gardeners do some volunteer work) so that they could interact with Certified Master Gardeners and ask questions about the program. Through this event, it becomes more apparent to many of the prospective students that this is a volunteer organization. As Master Gardener interns and Certified Master Gardeners, this group of volunteers continues to provide a great amount of service to the greater Santa Fe area in the form of education, outreach and community service. Over 3600 hours of volunteer service valued at minimum of $57,600 was provided by the Master Gardeners from the Fall season of 2009 to the late summer of 2010. Some of the ways in which the Master Gardeners provide volunteer hours to the County Extension Office are as follows: The sixth annual Gardening Fair was organized and facilitated which included 9 different gardening-related presentations. For the fourth consecutive year, the master gardeners also developed a directory of landscape and gardening related businesses and organizations which were distributed at this one day event and other public outreach venues. Also inclusive of the Gardening Fair once again this year was the trade-fair in which 36 organizations and businesses were invited to have an information table. Due to the weather pattern the day prior to this event,the estimated attendance was 2000 people which is about the same as last year. The one thing that remains constant from last year is that there is a renewed interest in people wanting to grow their own food. A plant sale was held once again in conjunction with the annual Garden Fair with the proceeds being used to cover the cost of projects that the Master Gardeners have been working on or are in the process of developing. Some of the plants that were sold were plants which the Master Gardeners themselves propagated in the hoophouse. The planning of the Gardening Fair is becoming a year-round process. The Master Gardener Home Gardening Hotline was staffed a little differently this year. Master Gardeners took turns in checking messages on the hotline answering machine at least twice per week from May to the end of October. This dedicated phone line provided by the County Extension Office was established in 2002 received an average of 8 calls per week. Several demonstration gardens continue to be managed and cared for by the Master Gardeners. 1) The Herb Demonstration Garden continues to be maintained by the master gardeners. The committee responsible for this garden pulled up some of the existing plants and replanted them after they developed a new design for the plot. This demonstration garden which was originally developed as a Rio Grande Basin Initiative project , demonstrates the efficiency of drip irrigation in backyard gardens while demonstrating varieties of culinary herbs suitable to grow in the Santa Fe area. 2) The Xeric Demonstration Garden in front of the County Extension Office continues to be maintained to demonstrate low water use ornamental landscape plant material. It also serves as an outdoor classroom to teach the interns how to maintain these types of plant material. 3) The Randall Davey Audobohn Center Native Plant Demonstration Plot is a small garden which was planted and has been maintained since 2003. The purpose of the plot is to demonstrate native plants that can make for an attractive landscape and yet attract small wildlife into the landscape. 4) Anew demonstration garden which the master gardeners helped to maintain during the 2010 growing season was the garden at the Friends Meeting House. To support the master gardeners in their efforts, the Agent provided a pruning demonstration to the work crew at the Audobohn Center and another demonstration to the crew at the Friends Meeting House. Both groups expressed that being able to see how to prune the trees and shrubs in the way that they were done helped them to understand why certain practices were used. The nurseries recognize that Master Gardener volunteers are well trained in the subject of horticulture and can provided unbiased and sound information to the public. Two nurseries in Santa Fe asked the Master Gardener Association to come back to their locations to staff information tables while an additional nursery offered the same opportunity. One location had an information table staffed on Thursday mornings from May thru July and the other two locations had an information tables staffed on Sunday afternoons. Through the information table the master gardeners provided literature, answered questions, promoted the hotline and promoted the Master Gardener course. Approximately 1400 contacts were made through the course of the market season with the vast majority of the contact being related to gardening questions or problems. An average of 12 calls were received on a daily basis beginning in March on best gardening practices including pest identification and their control, vertebrate pest management, soil fertility, watering practices, pruning, and the use of mulches. These types of call continued on through mid-October when Santa Fe has experienced a hard killing frost. This does not take into account the office walk-in traffic which would average out to 2 persons per day.