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The Community and School Gardens Committee meets monthly to plan and support school gardening at 14 schools in EBR Parish.
Sixteen LMGs were actively involved in 2022, 10 of whom volunteered at one or more schools. LMG duties varied, depending on school needs.
Some LMGs gave gardening advice, others primarily helped teachers garden with students. At least 28 teachers gardened with their class, though some offering STEM or gifted instruction taught all grades.
In February, the committee shared cool season vegetable transplants and spring gardening advice with garden coordinators at the Burden Children’s Garden. During the summer, six LMGs explored the Burden Children’s Garden with five families that home school.
LMG Fran Martin (left) and two LaSalle Elementary
teachers “talk pollinators” with students.
When school resumed in August, school garden coordinators received vegetable transplants, seeds, and advice on prepping beds for fall.
In October, the committee chair teamed with the garden coordinator at St. Aloysius Elementary for a session on using gardening as an instructional tool before an audience of roughly 75 at the 2022 Farm to School Conference.
Extension Agent Bert Hammett and LMGs taught home
schoolers a lesson in the Burden Children’s Garden.
This grant supports the acquisition and upkeep of equipment and facilities at the LSU AgCenter Botanic Gardens at Burden. The grant is primarily made possible through revenues from the annual plant sale by Master Gardeners and Burden Botanic Gardens.
LMG Kathy Smilie gives two customers advice on growing
succulents.
The Plant Health Care Committee holds clinics at eight locations around East Baton Rouge Parish, providing horticultural information to the gardening public.
The program has offered clinics at seven participating garden centers for several years. In 2022, 49 EBR Master Gardeners participated, volunteering an estimated 200 hours and speaking with 150 gardeners.
The Plant Health Clinics also serve as a teaching opportunity for Apprentice LMGs, who use the experience to deepen their knowledge and build confidence in their ability.
In addition to the clinics held at gardening centers, the Committee sets up a plant care booth during most months of the year at an eighth location: the Red Stick Farmers Market in downtown Baton Rouge.
The clinics are offered on the first Saturday of the month and were visited by 250 visitors.
The Library Series (as it is popularly known) is the primary project of the Education Presentations (Ed Pres) Committee. The series offered a total of 28 presentations on a range of basic gardening topics at eight public libraries within East Baton Rouge Parish.
Approximately 350 people attended during 2022.
Great Garden Speakers is another program of the Ed Pres Committee. This program offers free gardening talks on request to nonprofit and other community organizations. LMGs provided 14 presentations on a variety of horticultural subjects at various garden clubs, civic associations, and group homes, reaching over 259 people.
This program provided Master Gardeners as docents to lead 23 tours of the public gardens at the Governor’s Mansion. A total of 684 visitors, the vast majority being children, toured the gardens in 2022 and received basic information on herbs, vegetables, and pollinator plants.
LMG Alethea O’Quinn helps a customer with directions.
The Health Clinic tent and table draw customers for
advice on a wide variety of horticulture problems.
Jon Goeckel helps a shopper with a plant care question
at the Red Stick Farmer’s Market.
LMG Kathy Conerly delivers a presentation on
Orchids at the EBR Main Library.
One of the EBRMG Great Garden Speakers
Our Lady of the Lake Hospital
Cabbages at the Governor’s Mansion garden.
This program by Master Gardeners (a joint project with the Independence Park Botanical Garden Foundation and the Main Library) provided educational resources as they spread throughout the Botanic Gardens and introduced over 35 children to the birds commonly found in each area and how they could encourage them to visit their gardens.
Magnolia Mound hosts over 17,000 visitors from all over the world who come to see its plantation house, the open-hearth kitchen, and several other small structures on the site.
One of the highlights for the visitors is the kitchen garden, which is in operation year-round as a demonstration garden. Managed by Master Gardeners, the garden contains vegetables, herbs and flowers that would have been used in the kitchen to feed the occupants of the plantation.
Each season the garden is a showplace for children and adults alike to see how vegetables, herbs and flowers are grown and harvested.
This grant provides funding for LSU AgCenter's AgMagic events. AgMagic provides an opportunity to learn how plants grow, where animals live, the important role of bugs and many more interesting aspects of the world in which we live.
In 2022, the program hosted over 5,000 children, teachers, parents and other adults from a nine-parish area surrounding Baton Rouge.
This grant provides funding for the Hodge Podge plant propagation group at the LSU Hilltop Arboretum. The Arboretum is under the management of the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture with the intent that it remains a model of the natural landscape and continue its use as an outdoor laboratory.
LMG Leo Broders has a laugh with campers at Hilltop.
Some of the crops grown at Magnolia Mound.
Children exploring at AgMagic Baton Rouge.
LMG Diane Leche and her campers take a closer look at what’s growing.
Overview of Programs EBR Parish 5-17-2023pdf / 1.63MB