1. You can remember a snow-free day in Flagstaff, but not your husband's birthday.
2. On laundry day, you find seeds in your pocket and you don't remember where they came from, but you plant them anyway.
3. Trying to save Christmas poinsettias for next year.
4. They insist that every vacationer should visit the botanical garden, regardless of the season.
5. Everyone you know will tell you when you picked your first tomato this season.
6. You insist on keeping the 100 tomato plants you planted, even though you only have room for six.
7. You give your seedlings, but you never leave your fertilizer.
8. You wash your hair to clean your nails.
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9. You enjoy watching a group of high school students happily root.
10. You wake up in the middle of a cold night and think you should go cover up the tomatoes.
11. You consider worms your friends.
12. They love local plants.
13. You think a heated compost pile is great.
14. You have two copies of native plants for Tall Western Gardens.
15. They ask for manure on your birthday.
16. You use the word Mis in everyday conversations.
17. Do you know how much fertilizer (or manure) goes into your car?
18. It won't be hard for you to wrap yourself in a blanket before dawn to kill a deer in your backyard.
19. You want to name your daughter Lily, Petal or Violetta.
20. You named your favorite plant after your dog.
21. You use your favorite local flora as your computer password.
22. You get invited to dinner at your friend's house and ask if you can take the leftover vegetables to the compost pile.
23. You can't sit in the garden without noticing weeds that need to rest or dead flowers that need to die.
24. You proudly display photos of your garden and vegetable crops instead of photos of your children and pets.
25. Dirty smell and smile.
If you have six or more of these characteristics, lean in and consider becoming a Coconino Master Gardener. You are already on your way. Cocoono's next gardening workshop starts on January 23rd. This year there are two options: an in-person class offered every Monday night from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., and an asynchronous online version. Both episodes will conclude with the final outing on May 8.
The Coconono Master Gardener Program has been in operation since 1991 and is administered by the Arizona Cooperative University Coconono Extension Office. Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the Extension Master Gardener program. It was started in 1973 in King County, Washington to help educators answer the many gardening questions homeowners have. But the show does more than just answer questions. One of the founders, Dr. David Gibby, believed in helping people become better gardeners by solving problems and sharing information. His motto is "Do good and good will happen."
Our Gardening Master Class aims to train volunteers in horticulture and inspire them to contribute to their communities through horticultural education. We teach about alpine horticulture and horticulture, plants, soil, plant propagation, diagnosing plant problems, insect control, pruning, fruit tree care, berries, vegetables, ornamental plants, fertilization, watering, management, plant testing, native plants. , invasive plants and urban forest. Wow!
We ask that you give us 50 hours of volunteer time by visiting the county office, talking to gardeners, answering gardening questions, or volunteering anywhere, including the Olivia White Hospice Home Garden, school gardens, Flagstaff Arboretum. Or local parks like Riordan Mansion State Historic Park. The choice is yours, but we ask that you participate in horticulture classes.
More information about the Master Gardener program is available here: https://extension.arizona.edu/coconino-master-gardener.
Hattie Brown is the District Director of the University of Arizona's Coconino Cooperative Extension and coordinator of the Coconino Master Gardener Program.
