Master Gardener Summer School Level II

Summer School Level II is held annually for students who have completed the Level I Summer School, or for individuals with an interest in horticulture. The Level II Summer School encompasses two days of great learning activities in the classroom and outdoors. A special topic of interest is chosen each year, allowing students to learn new gardening information.

Take advantage of this unique opportunity to interact with other gardeners who share the same passion. Learn about gardening techniques, pests and diseases, and interesting information on our featured topic.

2012 Level 2 Schedule will be available at a later date

WORKSHOP SESSIONS

Year-Round Vegetable Gardening – How to Stretch the Season for a 365 Day Harvest!

Niki Jabbour is a passionate food gardener and garden writer from Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is also the author of The Year Round Vegetable Gardener (Storey Publishing) that was released in Jan 2012. Every Sunday from April through October, Niki hosts The Weekend Gardener, a call in radio show that airs across the Maritime Provinces. Her work is found in a variety of magazines including Garden Making, Gardens East and Canadian Gardening. Niki also enjoys lecturing and has given talks at Canada Blooms, the Boston Flower and Garden Show and to many garden clubs, libraries, schools and businesses around the Maritimes. To follow her gardening adventures, visit www.nikijabbour.com. 
Join Niki for a visual and hands-on workshop on year-round vegetable gardening. Topics that will be covered include:

• Benefits of ‘growing your own’ and a brief discussion on the rapidly growing trend of vegetable and herb gardening.
• Understanding shifting light levels – As the day length begins to shorten in the autumn, plant growth slows.  Therefore to ensure a non-stop supply of cold season vegetables, direct seeding and transplanting crops needs to be properly timed.
• Maximizing space and yield through interplanting and succession planting – These techniques are the key to a non-stop, high-yielding vegetable garden. Niki will show you how to use, and even combine these methods to ensure the largest harvest from even the smallest garden.
• How to design a year-round veggie garden as well as adjust your existing garden to suit 12 month production – A vegetable garden should be productive, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t also be beautiful! Niki offers plenty of design ideas, tips and techniques for ensuring your garden is as pretty as it is practical. Plus, her simple plans take season extenders like cold frames and mini hoop tunnels into consideration making year-round gardening a snap!
• Maintaining soil health in a 12 month garden - This topic will also detail some of the top amendments for an organic garden and touch on cover crops.
• Learning the basics of building and using five season extending devices (cloches, row covers, mini hoop tunnels, cold frames and unheated polytunnels). This section will include a demonstration on building mini hoop tunnels as well as a straw bale cold frame.
• Niki’s picks for the best vegetables and herbs – Picking which vegetables to grow is one of the highlights of having a garden, but in a year round vegetable garden, this can help determine success or failure. Niki will spotlight the best vegetables to grow and which varieties can really take winter’s cold (or summer’s heat!).
• The basics of growing edibles in containers and other innovative vessels (shoe bags, gutters, pallets, etc).

Garden Structures for Growing

After working at NSAC for 29 years, Randy Ross retired as co-manager of the grounds at NSAC in 2009. During his years working on the campus, Randy was very adept at building or fixing anything that was requested.  In addition to working at NSAC, he and his wife operated Ross' Nursery for 18 years in Tatamagouche. He continues to be an avid gardener in his retirement. 

Garden structures have an important role to play in your garden as they help improve your harvest, whether it is with respect to the health and yield of your flowers or the harvest of your fruits and vegetables.   When they are built to support plants, they give the plants room to climb and help them sustain the weight of their fruits. They also help gardeners increase their square footage by utilizing vertical space in the garden.  In this session, Randy will demonstrate and assist students in building garden structures such as an A frame support structure and a bean teepee.

Opening your Eyes to Plant Disease

Anna Fitzgerald retired from NSAC in the fall of 2011, after 25 years of teaching the laboratory portion of the plant pathology courses offered in the Environmental Sciences Department.  She's moved back to her native NB and is looking forward to the challenge of gardening in a deer-infested area. 

Heritage Plants in the Global Garden

Gilberte Doelle is a graduate of NSAC with a B.Sc (Agr) specializing in horticulture.  She has worked many years with vegetables, small fruits, and greenhouses.  She has worked with the PEI Vegetable Growers Association, PEI Soils and Crop Improvement Association, PEI Soils Lab, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.  Gilberte has been managing the Wild Rose Farm since 1995, which supplies restaurants, farmer’s markets, and the general public with fresh and dried culinary herbs.  This past year, Wild Rose Farm received the entrepreneur of the year award from the Digby Board of Trade and was in the top 5 for the Environmental Stewardship Award.
Join Gilberte on an exploration of heritage plants. Annuals, perennials, herbs, and vegetables were all coveted by settlers to North America. Some have travelled great distances to get here. Learn their stories and get to smell, taste, and feel some of her favorites. Sourcing them, open pollination, and seed saving information will ensure that you too can grow these plants.  Introducing others to these hard working members of the global garden will be pure pleasure!

Course Details

Note: A minimum number of students is required for each course. The “decision deadline” is the date on which courses with insufficient enrollment will be cancelled.