Best Class EVER

What prompted this admission was a visit with the current training class. I was there to listen to Gill and his insights into vegetable gardening. I think I could listen to him forever and work at the East Ocean View Children’s Garden and still never come close to implementing his wide experience and practical insights. I’ve learned more by doing (potting, digging, weeding, planting, watering, harvesting) but the lectures stimulated my curiosity enough to ask the how’s, the when’s and whys. I ask better questions out in the garden.

At the visit, I observed the current and beautifully diverse Class of 2020. They were in their seats, with their materials before them, listening intently to the lecture, causing me to remember my own experience just last year.

Our class leaders were so welcoming, hoping that we would find what they had earlier discovered about being a Norfolk Master Gardener. Our training class leader’s enthusiasm was contagious, and don’t you know, after a couple of weeks, many of us started to look around to see who was next to or near us.

Our class included a nurse, librarian, dental hygienist, physicist, educators, Norfolk Botanical Garden employees, federal government workers, and others; most were recently retired from years of doing something else. We were eager to do something else and our Master Gardener training was just the right thing at the right time for us to pursue.

First, our training lectures and lecturers were excellent. They were the very best at combining scientific underpinnings with practical and inciteful applications. Most of these instructors are fellow Master Gardeners. There was never a doubt that we were receiving the very best of horticultural best practices.

We learned from the beginning the mission of Virginia Cooperative Extension, its history and educative opportunities.

We had field trips. How cool was that!

We learned about the numerous Norfolk Master Gardener projects with our weekly project advertisements. In each instance we were invited to come out and check them out. It was not to just settle on one thing but try out the numerous opportunities the calendar afforded.

If the field trips weren’t cool enough, we did something every week that was even better. We ate. No one can claim that they lost weight in a Norfolk Master Gardener training class. If you went away hungry, it was of your own doing.

We took tests that were never turned in except for the final. It wasn’t that we had learned and memorized the curriculum, but we did learn how to use the resources that were available.

Several of us even met to talk about the final exam in the comfort of a class member's home at East Beach.

Projects? Yeah, we had projects. But the variety was rich, interesting, and practical. In each instance, I thought, “Yeah, I can try that.”

As my ride back home ended, I thought to myself, “It was a great winter and early spring of learning.” What our training leaders hoped for came true: we were more knowledgeable about where to go for help and supportive of the mission of Norfolk Master Gardeners. More importantly, we became friends.

So, you can see what I mean when I say, “Mine was the best Master Gardener class ever.”

* I chose to not provide names because what happens in class stays in class - to protect the not so innocent.