UC Master Gardeners are University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) trained volunteers from your own communities. It is a public service and outreach program that provides research based information about home horticulture and pest management to the public and is done by our volunteers at no cost to the public. More information about the program can be found at: http://acmg.ucanr.edu

 

The proceeds from this plant sale will support our public outreach and community education efforts like talks and demonstrations, plant clinics and our help desk. They will also go toward training at community gardens, support for school garden programs and information tables at farmers markets and nurseries.

 

Outreach and Education

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Interest in backyard and community gardening continues to be high, so our outreach is even more important. We are answering more questions via our remote help desk than ever before.

We launched an additional community garden program to support homeless family shelters and partnered with existing community gardens committed to providing fresh produce to communities and neighbors in need.

In spring of 2021 we launched the Beginning Gardening Virtual Support Groups program.  This consisted of six online sessions where the participants learned best vegetable gardening practices based on UC research-based information and have their gardening questions answered. It was so well received we are holding our third round of sessions this year.

In response to continued Covid-19 restrictions we held many of our educational events virtually.  We had over 700 attendees to these events.  We also posted many of them to our YouTube channel Master Gardeners of Alameda County where they were viewed over 1,500 times.

Our school programs continue to thrive.  As an example of our school programs, we supported 38 Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) Learning Gardens in Title 1 schools, and mentored 20 Food Corps interns and Garden Stewards to manage the school gardens. We also donated 3,000+ vegetable seedlings and 800+ seed packets to schools and established a seed library. We built 700 take home garden kits for Cal Fresh to distribute to low income and OUSD pre-school students.

This year we are resuming many of our garden talks and in-person events at our demonstration gardens where you can see first hand, drought tolerant landscaping and vegetable gardening techniques and methods. These events are published on our website https://acmg.ucanr.edu// and in our newsletter. Sign up for our newsletter here.
 

We hope you love the plants our Master Gardeners have selected for this year’s sale. Thank you for supporting our mission to have healthier plants, a healthier environment, healthy gardeners and healthier communities.

 

And if you didn’t purchase plants, but would still like to support our mission, please click the Donate button below.  It will take you to the Give page on our website.

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