The Polk County Master Gardener Volunteers earned three Awards of Excellence at the Florida Master Gardener Volunteer Conference in Kissimmee on October 23, 2024. Awards were earned in the categories of educational materials, personal communication, and communications.
The educational materials project, Soil and Nutrients; A Hands-On Training for the Master Gardener Volunteer Training Course, was developed for our Master Gardener Volunteers in training. This type of hands-on learning is an important component of our Master Gardener Volunteer training course. Encouraging our trainees to learn in a variety of ways helps them grasp important concepts that are critical to their future volunteer work.
The personal communication awardee, Celia Beamish, is a frequent volunteer in the Plant Clinic. Hundreds of Polk County residents utilize the services provided by the Plant Clinic annually. This award was made after a “secret shopper” style inquiry was made.
The communications project focused on the Growing Edibles in Your Central Florida Yard series of live webinars and recordings offered on topics such as growing bananas, Seminole pumpkins, tomatoes, pineapples, and general central Florida vegetable gardening. This project gave residents an educational base to begin to successfully grow some popular Florida edibles with tips about how to proceed and probable challenges that may occur. First-time edibles gardeners or new residents can avoid “giving up” by having useful growing information at
their fingertips.
The Polk County Master Gardener Volunteer Program consists of over 100 highly trained volunteers with a mission to “assist Extension agents in providing research-based horticultural education to Florida residents.” In Polk County, projects such as Agrifest teach thousands of 4th grade students about pollination and how new plants are created, the speaker’s bureau educates thousands of adults on the practices of Florida-Friendly Landscaping, and the spring and fall plant sales raise funds for additional educational projects focused on water conservation, environmental stewardship, and Florida-Friendly Landscaping.
For more information, contact UF/IFAS Extension Polk County at (863) 519-1041 or visit us online at http://sfyl.ifas.ufl.edu/polk. The Plant Clinic is open Monday-Friday, 9:00 am-4:00 pm to answer your gardening and landscaping questions. Give us a call or email us at polkmg@ifas.ufl.edu.
If you are not in Polk County, Contact your local UF/IFAS Extension Master Gardener Volunteer Plant Clinic.
The Florida Master Gardener Volunteer Program is a volunteer-driven program that benefits UF/IFAS Extension and the citizens of Florida. The program extends the vision of the University of Florida/Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, all the while protecting and sustaining natural resources and environmental systems, enhancing the development of human resources, and improving the quality of human life through the development of knowledge in agricultural, human and natural resources and making that knowledge accessible.
An Equal Opportunity Institution.
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