VT M aster
Gardener

Locations:

Bennington, Brattleboro, Johnson, Lyndon, Montpelier, Middlebury, Newport, Randolph Center, Rutland, Springfield, St. Albans, Waterbury, and White River Junction. The Chittenden County class site has been filled.

Overview:

The course will cover the fundamentals of plant and soil science and home gardening application. Training focuses on a variety of horticultural topics such as; vegetable and flower gardening, botany, sustainable landscape design, soils, plant diseases, entomology, invasive plants, and more. Students who wish to earn Vermont Certified Master Gardener status are required to fulfill an internship following course completion.

WHIP Related Reading

Backyard Wildlife Habitat in Vermon by Steve Parren, Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department

Conserving Vermont’s Natural Heritage, Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department

The Place You Call Home: A Guide to Caring for Your Land in Vermont, Northern Woodlands

Vermont Coverts: Woodlands for Wildlife, www.vtcoverts.org

Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program, www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/whip/

Working With Your Woodland: A Landowner’s Guide by Mollie Beattie, Charles Thompson, and Lynn Levine

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Honoring of Farm & F orestry Operations

Every year the Winooski NRCD honors farmers and forest stewards who manage their land utilizing exemplary conservation practices. This year our focus was on composting operations in Chittenden County and WHIP (Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program) participants in Washington County.

On September 17th Winooski NRCD staff, supervisors, and partners visited composting operations in Chittenden County to learn about how to best manage manure and nutrients, and divert organics from the waste stream, at various scales. We would like to honor the UVM Dairy Farm and Champlain Valley Compost for their efforts to compost dairy manure and treat dairy parlor waste through a constructed wetland in South Burlington. We would also like to honor Intervale Compost Products and the Chittenden Solid Waste District for their efforts to divert food scraps and other organics from the waste stream in Chittenden County. Finally, we would like to honor Gary and Tammy Davis, who compost horse manure from their neighbors in Jericho.

WHIP property tour, Northfield

The 2008 Forestry Tour, which was held on October 14th, honored three Washington County WHIP (Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program) landowners for their wildlife habitat improvement practices. As part of the tour, we also visited a portable skidder bridge at Fontaine's Mill in East Montpelier. (For more information about this project, see page 3.) We would like to honor Goddard College in Plainfield, for implementation of a forest management plan. We would also like to honor Bob and Carroll Nelson, who are managing their land in Middlesex for wildlife, and Lynn Sanders who transformed an old farmstead landscape in Northfield into a beautiful apple orchard. Finally, we would like to honor Ellen Sivret, NRCS and the Barre District Forestry staff for their role in conservation and forest stewardship in Washington County.