Garden Rant, Again.

Another open letter to the folks at the Garden Rant, who have another post up about perceived shortcomings of the Master Gardener programs across the nation.

Let's see if I can unpack the logic here.

• We don't like the name - it implies undeserved accreditation to people who take advantage of it for other than volunteer purposes. Change it to something else, like Extension Volunteer. Besides, Jerry Baker uses the title, and his stuff is nonsense.
• There's a policy that all Master Gardeners sign, that they won't abuse the title by touting it professionally, or using it to imply endorsement of (any) product. Ranters don't think highly of that policy, when politely asked to discourage violation of the policy. Besides, lowly Lowe's employees (you know how *they* are) abuse the policy, so we get to, too.
• There should be better management over the various programs in the states in order to avoid situations like the DC one that Susan was a part of, but exercising management is considered heavy-handed, because it was directed at a Rant-inspired event.

Sorry Susan. Your continued rants against the Master Gardener program come across as sour grapes. It's reminiscent of professional journalists griping about the phenomenon known as blogging back in 2002.

Face it. The publishing world is being challenged by a new paradigm. No longer do publishing houses, editors, and their professional writers have a monopoly gateway filter on getting good gardening advice to the public.

Now, in a world of free, internet, social media access, with accreditation given by Land Grant Universities, Extension Educators, and their Master Gardener volunteer support staff, can make their science-based, objective information stream widely available, and directly to the public, skipping the value-added gateway function of your profession, which (apparently) you find threatening, hence the sneers and attempts to discredit the program. I think you'll be as successful as professional journalists were in 2002. I'm completely willing to accept the marketplace decisions on the value of the Master Gardener program. Are you willing to do the same with your product?

Learn from your colleague on the Rant, Master Writer (my appellation) Amy Stewart. A talented, entertaining writer will always have an audience and buyers of her product. And I doubt I'll ever give up reading my favorite gardening columnists, like George Weigel, Adrian Higgins, Barbara Damrosch, and Margaret Roach, so long as their newspapers and publications don't adopt a business strategy with a subscription model firewall.

Lee Reich, Jeff Gillman, Linda Chalker-Scott, and others will always have me as a buyer of their book product (even The Troll, Greg, despite his antipathy.)  I'll even endure the ads and solipsistic book promotions on the Rant, since I don't begrudge at all, attempts to increase income in order to keep the free ice cream flowing. I skip, however, Rant reviews of gardening books. I'm even beginning to question the value of their endorsed speaker list, because of that experience. Fluff PR has no credibility with me, and I will continue to challenge Rant advice (like organic lawn fertilizers are better than their synthetic counterparts, even when they violate recommended NPK ratios that pollute, because the Organic Industry is our friend and I like them, but I dislike the big companies, because they're big), when it conflicts with my training as a Master Gardener.

I also wonder how self-defeating this crusade is. Master Gardeners probably (purely an anecdotal guess) represent a major part of the garden book, and high-end, plant-buying clientele. And yet, you continue to insult us with cherry-picked examples that support your narrative. Odd.

What Do We Think of "Paid Garden Writers"?

An open letter to some of the commenters at The Garden Rant, responding to this post by Susan Harris headlined, So, what do we think of "Master Gardeners".   I tried posting this in their comments section, but for some reason, perhaps related to the many links and html involved, it may have gotten stuck in their spam filter.

Susan graciously also tried to post it, but technology (or our limited understanding of such things) seems to have its own drawbacks, hence this post. I'm putting it up here, as a bit of rebuttal, in the category of "Response to the Minister of Controversy."

So, first, go there, read the post and the comments, and come back here to finish.  Rather anfractuous, I know, but I'm not sure how else to proceed.  Here's my comment:

My recommendation to all those out there ragging on volunteers, is to take the plunge and become one – you might learn something, and have a different perspective. And if we're going to question motivations - how about paid garden writers writing reviews of gardening books because they share the same book agent, or publisher?

Even a respected (and wonderful regular read for me) garden writer of the caliber of Margaret Roach still recommended putting coarse material like pebbles in the bottom of containers to improve drainage.

The garbage coming from natural organic enthusiasts about compost tea and its magical unicorn benefits is baffling to anyone who also reads the Garden Professors, and I’ve yet to hear natural organic enthusiasts ever acknowledge that “natural” pesticides (or fertilizers for that matter) can be more toxic for people AND the environment than their synthetic counterparts. Master Gardeners are taught, and try to provide to the public the science of integrated pest management, or IPM, not a gardening philosophy of naturalness, in all its Hobbesian savagery, which starts from an unassailable axiom that natural and native is better, regardless of any evidence to the contrary.

And one of the biggest promoters of planting invasive species are the Permaculture enthusiasts as Dr. Chalker-Scott noted discussing the highly praised book Gaia’s Garden. (See here, here, here and here).

And there are plenty of independent nurseries out there still making a profit from selling Butterfly Bush, as well as the Barberries, Japanese Spirea, and Burning Bush. And I’ll note, that the science of invasiveness is hardly settled, nor as black and white as some of the native-only, anti-immigrant fundamentalists would have you believe. I believe even Dr. Gillman and Dr. Chalker-Scott take different positions on the issue, as they’ve shared with the rest of their readers.

And while I share the snicker at Jerry Baker, the lone reference to Biodynamics on The Rant I could find, is hardly dismissive.

Pot, Kettle, folks.

So, I strongly urge you Susan, to try again in the University of Maryland system. Jon Traunfeld is an excellent manager of the program, and I’m sure your experience will be quite different than the DC one you've ranted about several times now.

This site for home vegetable growers, for example, is run and written entirely by its MG volunteers – Growit Eatit, and I doubt you’ll find better information elsewhere, even from people paid to write about the subject.

Update: Sunday, March 3.  Karen Jeannette of the eXtension Master Gardener blog responds to Susan in the comments section here.  And I should correct the misnomer that USDA has jurisdiction over the program, as Susan indicated.  As I understand it, each state, under the aegis of its Land Grant University college of Ag Sciences, in the department of consumer horticulture under Extension outreach, has jurisdiction, to varying degrees.  The fed's role, and the purpose of eXtension, is as an umbrella resource to bring together and share with the participants, best practices and ideas for fullfilling the outreach mission. 

And read through these posts to see how we go about recruiting folks to give of their time and talents in support of that mission.