Master Gardeners April programs
Published 10:03 am Friday, March 29, 2019
The Heart of Virginia Master Gardeners (HOVMG) will focus on “Why Local Food Matters in a Globalized Food Economy” at the April 4 Lunch and Learn at noon at the Prince Edward County Extension Office. The speaker will be Nicole Shuman, who has been the Community Food Systems Extension Agent with Virginia Cooperative Extension Service’s Prince Edward Office since September 2018.
Shuman will discuss both the benefits and the pitfalls of local food within the context of national food policy and economics. People become interested in local food for health, environmental and economic reasons. Home and community gardens are one of many ways to become involved.
At the local Prince Edward Extension Office there will be a demonstration garden for educational purposes. This year it will be using the garden to conduct a three-part series on sustainable vegetable gardening. The dates for the series are April 27, Aug. 17 and Oct. 14. In addition to this series, the garden is open for tours and programming upon request. The produce grown in the garden is donated to FACES Food Pantry.
Also this year Shuman will be renewing work on the community garden at the YMCA. She hopes to organize some work days and conduct some youth programming. Anyone looking to get involved should contact her at the Extension Office.
Although not a Virginia native, Shuman spent her formative years in Richmond and attended William and Mary where she earned a B.A. in Government. After her undergraduate education and a stint as a math tutor in an underserved high school in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Shuman began apprenticing on farms. Captivated by agriculture, she focused on learning as much as she could and in 2015, enrolled in Cornell University’s International Agriculture and Rural Development M.P.S. program. To complete her degree, she joined the Peace Corps and in 2016 left for Paraguay as an agriculture volunteer. In Paraguay, Shuman primarily worked with school and home gardens and on soil conservation, but she also instructed Peace Corps trainees in biointensive gardening and assisted fellow volunteers with a seed bank project.
Plan to join the Master Gardeners Thursday, April 4, to learn about both a globalized food economy and local community gardens. You are welcome to bring your lunch and come on your lunch hour.
The Buckingham program Saturday, April 13, at 10 a.m. at the Buckingham Extension Office will feature the Socrates Project. The speaker, William Birkhofer, will explain the Socrates Project, which focused on the development of a guide to poisonous native plants in Virginia. The Socrates Project was initiated by the Old Rag Chapter of Virginia Master Naturalists about two years ago. The idea was originally developed and advanced by Alfred Goossens and led to development of a peer reviewed first edition featuring 11 poisonous plant species in conjunction with Virginia Tech and Virginia Cooperative Extension Service, in consultation with the University of Virginia and the Blue Ridge Poison Control Center.
A second edition of the guide, which will subsume updates of the first 11 species plus an additional 14 species is in development now, for production in early 2020. The presentation will cover this in detail.
Birkhofer is a retired engineering and construction industry executive residing in Madison and a Certified Master Naturalist in the Old Rag Chapter of Virginia Master Naturalists. As a citizen scientist, in addition to his work as a Socrates author, he is active as a lead grassland plants surveyor in the Virginia Working Landscapes program, in bluebird counts for the Virginia Bluebird Society, and in North American Butterfly Association butterfly counts. In his spare time, he is developing native pollinator meadows on his Madison property and at Barboursville Vineyards where he serves pro bono as estate naturalist.
Both programs are free and open to the public.