The Colorado Master Gardener Program: Planting Gardens, Growing People

CMG Outreach in Jefferson County
Junior Master Gardener Program

Children gained life skills with participation in a Junior Master Gardener Project at the Jefferson County Extension Office.  The raised bed gardens became a showy landscape design feature of the Extension Office landscape at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds.

The Junior Master Gardener project was innovative and creative.

• Taught science through gardening.
• Outreach was targeted to low-income, at-risk youth (Pleasant View Elementary).
• It was cross-disciplinary (4-H and horticulture)
• Methodology followed approved Junior Master Gardener curriculum.
• Utilized experiential learning.
• Connected disadvantaged youth with environmental stewardship and created an environment filled with education, enrichment and productivity.
• Taught youth and their families how to produce their own food; more families are turning to this because of the economic downturn.
• The project complements the goals of engaging 4-H youth in urban settings.

Outcomes

• Participants learned how to correctly use common garden tools, how to plant transplants and how to plant garden seeds.


• Participants ate vegetables they had not eaten before and enjoyed them (raw green beans, lemon cucumbers, Crenshaw melon).


• One participant changed his drawings in art class.  Previously he had drawn violent scenarios – guns, knives, etc.  After participating in the Jr. Master Gardener program, his artwork consisted of flowers and trees.


• One child who had difficulty writing and expressed his dislike of writing to staff filled two pages in his record book with statements about his experiences in the Junior Master Gardener program.


• The participants raised approximately 317 pounds of produce to share with their families, valued at $ 922.95.


• Testimonials

• “My child has always had difficulty focusing, but was always focused on gardening whenever he was in the youth garden and even in the home garden.”  (Editor’s note:  this is a new behavior for him.)


• “My children never experienced picking green beans off the plant.  They enjoyed it so much they ate their pickings raw on the way home.”


• “I learned a lot of things about gardening like how to look for bugs and how to know when a honeydew melon is ripe to pick.”


• “At 4-H I made a garden because I need to have vegetables.”


• “Before 4-H, I did not know how to garden.”


• “Weeding and harvesting “rocked”.

Contact Us

CSU Extension, Jefferson County Office
     15200 West Sixth Ave, Suite C
     Golden, CO 80401-6588
     Phone: 303-271-6620
     Fax: 303-271-6644
     Jefferson CMG Phone: 303-271-6620

Horticultural Staff

• Mary Small, Horticulture Agent
• Curtis Utley, Clinic Assistant
• Patti O'Neal, Horticulture Program Assistant