Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Catherine Fenner" <c1fenner@comcast.net>]

When I was a master gardener it was made very clear that all questions were
to be answered from the university research data and recommendations. No if,
ands, or buts. There was an organic gardening specialty on the master
gardeners speakers bureau but there was no distinction whatsoever on what
was recommended. It never occurred to me to tell a caller I was an organic
gardener and to use my method.

That philosophy worked both ways for organic gardeners and for old-fashioned
chemical gardeners. The only way to get fired as a volunteer was to
recommend pesticide/herbicide use against label instructions. As we used IPM
methodology it was pretty hard to get a well behaved master gardener to
suggest a chemical without going through due process. The only time I saw a
hort agent fly out of the office into the phone room was when he overheard a
MG tell a client to pour a non-selective herbicide straight out of the
bottle over a lilac bush to kill it.

I never felt any hostility from a hort agent or professor. They were trying
hard to keep home gardeners and their families safe and to keep chemicals
from being purchased in the first place. On the other hand, I didn't preach
my philosophy at or over anyone else, so I may have flown below the radar.

I don't think an organic gardener who would find it spiritually or morally
uncompromising to suggest chemicals should be a master gardener. Once you
sign that agreement you're agreeing to speak for the university and not for
Rodale.

Catherine
 

> 
> Same here in Virginia.  While organic and sustainable 
> concepts are kinda sorta mentioned in the class textbook, 
> there is no special unit on them.
> Those who staff our Help Desk (I'm not among them) are 
> inclined to answer questions with reference to Virginia Tech 
> publications on what fertilizers to use and what pesticides to spray.
> 
>