How does your garden grow?
Master Gardener Association of Cape Cod Can Help You Make Sure It Grows Well.
Whether you’re an experienced home gardener who needs a little help with this year’s tomato crop or a relative novice looking to grow herbs in pots on your deck, the Master Gardener Association of Cape Cod can be your go-to resource. “We want to have a presence to guide people to successfully grow their own food,” says Mary Bowker, a master gardener and past president of the association.
Master Gardener Association of Cape Cod was established in 1993 to “help Cape Cod Cooperative Extension bring science-based information from our land grant universities to the public,” explains Russell Norton, the association’s Cooperative Extension representative. Nationally, Cooperative Extension was created by Congress in the early 1900s to give farmers and the general public access to the most current scientific agriculture-related information through land grant universities. Cape Cod Cooperative Extension conducts its programs in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts (UMass), Amherst, and the US Department of Agriculture. The first Master Gardener program was created in 1972 in Washington state by cooperative extension agents to address the specific needs of home gardeners. Gradually the program expanded to all 50 states.
To become a Cape Cod Master Gardener requires a 50-hour training course (and there is a test!) and commitment to several hours of volunteer service per year. There are currently around 200 master gardeners on the Cape and, according to president Kathy Bryan, “They want to give back to the community. They learn so much from each other. The knowledge sharing is at a very, very high level.”
Other than its 2020 plant sale — which takes place every spring — the organization, which holds a number of courses, lectures and other events during the year, was able to maintain just about all of its activities throughout the pandemic, though like so many others it had to move a lot of them online. “In March 2020 on the Cape there was a resurgence of people who wanted to grow vegetables,” says Bowker, who lives on a former dairy farm in Sandwich with her husband, Roger, also a Master Gardener. Initially association members worked with parents and children by phone and email. “It took us a while to realize there was a digital universe that we could access,” she says. But once they did, they moved to Zoom, holding more enriching sessions during which they “encouraged [participants] to get a start with doing something they may not have done before but all of a sudden had value.”
According to the Cape Cod Commission, Bowker explains, the average Cape Cod yard is 50,000 square feet, so people should not feel intimidated. She says those who are not experienced growers can start slowly, with a salad garden, for example. Children can begin with a pizza garden, “so they can grow all of the vegetables they can use in one of their favorite foods.”
Children who have a more serious interest in gardening and growing vegetables might enjoy participating in the Children’s Garden, which is maintained by the Master Gardener Association on a portion of land within the Brewster Conservation Trust. From the first week of May through the last week of August, 16 children between the ages of eight and twelve spend an afternoon a week in the garden; eight on Tuesdays and eight on Thursdays. Each child has his or her own bed, roughly 18 feet by 4 feet, and each is assigned to a mentor. All of the mentors are Master Gardeners.
“Early in the year we try to guide [the children] to put seeds in the ground that will come up rather quickly, so they will have that thrill,” says committee co-chair Chris Harrington. Every child gets two tomato plants. The rest of the garden is up to what they and their mentors want to plant. In addition to tomatoes and radishes — one of the early crops — peas, squash and beans are favorites. Some of the children like to add flowers to their gardens as well.
The mentors teach the young gardeners to plant, water, weed, watch for signs of insects and how to determine if their plants look healthy, among other basics. There are 20 raised beds in all. The Master Gardeners grow potatoes, garlic, herbs and the “three sisters” — beans, squash and corn — in four demonstration beds reserved for group instruction. “There’s always an excitement in looking at the garden and seeing what’s happening,” Harrington says. “Once the garden has enough growth and it’s time to harvest, the children take the vegetables home to share with their families. Then they get to enjoy the rewards of their work.” Rewards can also come in the form of a ribbon from the Barnstable County Fair if the children choose to submit their specimens. Mentors encourage this and will sometimes guide their charges in which seeds will produce plants that will be ready for submission by the time of the fair, in mid-July.
In addition to working with the children, the mentors prepare the beds before the session begins and maintain the property throughout the season. This includes mixing soil and other plant material, irrigating and mowing around the yard. In the summer of 2020, the association did not accept children, deferring that year’s accepted group until 2021. They did open the garden for Master Gardeners who wanted to grow vegetables for local food distribution programs. Harrington, who set up a cooler for contributions, delivered vegetables to the Dennis Senior Center distribution center, one of 13 distribution sites in eastern Massachusetts for the Boston Food Bank’s Brown Bag program. “Many of us wear different hats,” she says. “It’s all hands on deck all the time.”
“We are best in person, and now our programs are starting to be held in person [again],” says Bowker. The year’s February through April Backyard Horticulture, a comprehensive eight- to ten-week gardening class for the general public, was offered in person and on Zoom; the in-person classes were more highly attended. In April the Master Gardeners held a session at the Sandwich Council on Aging, “where people are no longer bending and weeding and tending their yards. They’re growing in pots. We are now encouraging them,” Bowker says, “because not everybody knows how to grow in pots. It might seem relatively straightforward, but there are some things that can go wrong.”
Master Gardeners also try to show up where people buy their fruits and vegetables, so don’t be surprised to see an “Ask a Master Gardener” booth at your farmers’ market. This summer they will participate at the Provincetown, Orleans, Bass River and Falmouth markets. (As of press time, they were also working on Harwich, Sandwich and Osterville.) They are frequent speakers at community events through their speakers bureau, and run spring and fall symposia, regular and native plant sales, the annual Cape Cod Hydrangea Festival and a year-round horticulture clinic and hotline.
“We have a great group of volunteers,” says Norton. “They’re interested in gardening, but they’re also very interested in helping others learn to garden, sharing their information and skills and using sustainable gardening practices to take care of Cape Cod, a valuable natural resource.”
