The Greene County Extension Office will be offering its Master Gardener program later this month.

The educational training program is a 40 hour course that helps you to become a Master Gardener of Greene County.  The sessions are every Tuesday night, starting January 22nd to March 19th, from 6:30-9:30pm.  Greene County Extension Coordinator Michael Cooley says that this program covers several different aspects of gardening.

“The topics of those sessions include turfgrass, soils and botany, plant pathology and entomology as well as weeds and pesticides.  Landscape trees and landscape shrubs, animal ecology, fruits, sustainable landscape design and good agricultural practices.”

During these sessions and topic discussions, Cooley points out that most will be from webinar and are provided from experts from Iowa State’s campus broadcasting online to the Greene County Extension Office.  He says that there will be local Master Gardeners from Greene County who have already been through the training to provide help and assistance during the sessions.

Cooley states that on Saturday, February 23rd participants will travel to Iowa State’s campus in Ames for some hands-on training.

Pre-registration is encouraged by Monday, January 7th.  The cost for the training is $125 by January 7th, otherwise, it will be $150 after that date.  Applications may be picked up at the Extension office in Jefferson or printed out from the website.  For more information, contact Cooley and the Greene County Extension Office at 386-2138.