How Did the Jackson County Master Gardener Association Get Created?

 

The Jackson County Master Gardener Association is one of many programs in all 50 US states, the District of Columbia, several Canadian Provinces and South Korea. How did this program come into being?

In 1862 the Morrill Act, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, created a nationwide system of Land Grant Colleges and Universities to provide education in agriculture. These institutions provided access to liberal, practical higher education for people who could not otherwise afford to attend the private colleges of the time (i.e., the working or industrial classes). The Land Grant focus was defined in statute, “…to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanical arts.”

In 1868 Oregon State University, formerly Oregon Agricultural College (OAC), was established as the designated Land Grant College in Oregon. In 1914 the Smith-Lever Act established the Cooperative Extension Service to distribute objective, scientific-based information developed by land grant colleges and research stations to citizens.

In 1973, Dr. David Gibby of Washington State University created the first Master Gardener Program to meet the high demand for gardening advice, particularly for the urban setting. The program began training volunteer gardeners in King and Pierce Counties in Washington state and the concept quickly spread.

In January 1979, Donald W. Berry, Area Extension Agent and Peter Giffen, Home Horticulturist, offered area garden clubs and other experienced gardeners in Jackson County the opportunity to receive 60 hours of training over a 10-week period at no charge with an agreement to volunteer 60 hours of service time to the community in the new Master Gardener program. The volunteers would then become leaders in horticultural community service and/or garden educational programs.

Peter Giffen was quoted as saying, “This training program has been developed in response to the recent overwhelming interest in home gardening by the public and the resulting flood of questions received each gardening season by the Extension office. A single horticulturist cannot handle all these requests – over 8,000 calls last year alone.” Although the program had been successful in the Eugene area for two years and had been instituted in eighteen other states, this was the first time it had been offered in Southern Oregon.

Over thirty community members took that first class in 1979 to achieve certification as OSU Master Gardeners. A new group of gardeners has been trained every year since, except during the Covid pandemic of 2021. Today the non-profit Jackson County Master Gardener Association has a membership of nearly 300 volunteers who provide unbiased, research-based information on sustainable gardening to their communities through educational outreach programs.

Interested in joining us? Please see our website for information about all our programs (you don’t need to be a Master Gardener) and how to become a Master Gardener.

Garden for Life!

 

 

References

Jackson County Master Gardener Association, About Us

Wikipedia, “Master Gardener Program”

Extension Master Gardener Program (national)