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The Taylor County Master Gardeners & Friends joined the WIMGA in March 2001. We have 11 certified members, 9 Friends, and 16 in training.
In 2005 we volunteered 9 hours in youth education
66 hours in community education
455 hours in support services
and participated in 164 hours of continuing education
As usual, our members participated in several garden-related community events with booths at the County Fair, the Gilman Harvest Festival,and the Friends of the Library Annual Plant Swap, where a member also demonstrated grafting techniques. All of these projects were well covered by the county’s only (weekly) newspaper, where we have also launched a monthly column to provide both gardening information and MG publicity. The column, "Garden Talk, with Taylor County Master Gardeners," is in addition to our newsletter and a web site now under construction.
Several workshops on concrete leaf castings and hypertufa troughs were conducted. All were well-attended by both members and the public. Three planted troughs given away in a raffle held at the Taylor Co. Fair attracted additional interest and favorable attention.
In July, a bus trip to Rotary Gardens in Janesville, with a stop at The Flower Factory, was widely publicized throughout the county and neighboring communities. Forty-five members and guests participated.
Several of our members, working through the Taylor Co. Extension Community Partnership Advisory Team (CPAT), proposed and helped organize a community garden program resulting in raised beds in Medford and three of the county’s four villages. These gardens, using the square foot method, were a huge success, and will almost certainly be an ongoing project.
TCMGs continued to maintain and improve the Garden of Dreams, a section of a Medford cemetery dedicated to miscarriages and stillbirths, which we started in 2003.
Our main fund-raiser was the third annual spring plant sale. As usual, the plants were taken from our own gardens, potted, labeled, and sold at the Medford farmers’ market. Proceeds support our newsletter and other projects.
Monthly meetings included demonstrations on propagation, grafting, growing iris, and a tour of a greenhouse/market garden, as well as a presentation by a visiting gardener from Nicaragua.
Our major undertaking for 2005 both in terms of effort and impact was "The Riverwalk Garden." TCMG proposed to clean up and beautify the run-down approach to a footbridge across the Black River in the Medford City Park. The city approved the plan, and even helped put it into action. After many hours of work involving design, dead tree removal, building a berm, placing large stones, planting and mulching and watering and weeding, Medford now has a public garden its citizens take so much pride in they financed the purchase of a stone bench, which was installed in September.
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Gayle Emmerich-Thums |
Maria
Bendixen,
Agriculture Agent Taylor County Extension Office Room 103 County-USDA Service Center 925 Donald St. Medford, WI 54451-2095 (715) 748-3327 Fax (715) 748-9772 |
