I’m a Master Gardener now :)

This winter, I signed up with my local Cornell Cooperative Extension Program to do their Master Gardener training program. It was lots of reading and going through videos they clearly produced during Covid (when they had to transition the program to online learning), as well as in person classes and hands on learning.

And, I’m mostly a vegetable gardener… so all of the learning about landscaping, flowers, color design, etc. was all new to me. And I learned so much about pruning (that I never do, but clearly should be doing more of) for my berries and roses and hydrangeas, etc.

While I have always gardened (at least since my first solo apartment with a fire escape- haha, probably NOT where I should have been growing tomatoes, ooops— probably at age 20), I really got into gardening in the spring of 2020. And so quickly realized the mental health benefits of it.

Since then I’ve been thinking a lot about how to play with and combine gardening and mental health. Having even named my practice, Rebuild & Grow- which was certainly garden-inspired.

So, for my final presentation I went a bit deeper and put together this little booklet.

Walking you through a 6-step framework of how to view your life as a garden, and how to start tending it if it’s feeling a little overgrown or abandoned.

And after my final presentation, I GRADUATED with a class of 17 other gardening geeks. We now embark on our first year as “Master Gardener Volunteers”- having to do 120 hours of volunteering in a variety of categories/programs over the next 2 years.

My hopes are to find way to incorporate mental health & gardening with the local community, and continue to shine the light (and make accessible) gardening for everyone. Because it is so darn good for you!

I’m not fully sure what form(s) this will take over the coming years, but I’m exited to be one step closer and to have more tools in my toolbelt and be connected to many very smart people who know a whole heck more about gardening than I do.