Broward County Master Gardener Volunteers Awarded 2019 Legacy Fund
UF/IFAS Broward County Master Gardener Volunteers received the 2019 Legacy Fund Award Grant for creating a demonstration vegetable garden to show homeowners how to grow veggies in their urban yards and community gardens. This grant will provide funding for the expansion of the demonstration garden to include alternate growing methodologies such as growbags and Earthboxes™ that can be used in small spaces, patios and cement, or hard ground.
The legacy grant expansion will build on the successes already seen in the Broward County Master Gardener Volunteer vegetable demonstration gardens such as growing 30 different types of edibles, a pollinator garden, and the garden serving as an outdoor classroom for multiple classes for the public and volunteers. The gardens have been so productive that donations have been made to local food pantries. The future expansion will provide more training opportunities led by the Master Gardener Volunteers and IFAS faculty to help Broward County residents, teachers, and community gardeners in learning vegetable growing methods that they can try at home, and how school and community gardens can be as productive as possible.
This project is important because of how many people it will affect. Broward County is the second most populous county in the state and is "built out" — which means all available land suited for housing has been developed. "Even in this urbanized county, residents want to grow, consume, and purchase locally grown produce," said Lorna Bravo, UF/IFAS Broward County Extension Director.
Director Lorna Bravo also wrote a post for IFAS Blogs about the award; you can read it here online.
The Master Gardener Legacy Fund was created to provide financial support to Master Gardener programs throughout Florida. Counties can apply annually to receive grants for new or continuing educational projects. Money will be awarded by the UF/IFAS Florida Statewide Master Gardener Volunteer Coordinator and a review committee.
Garden Coordinator Vivian Landrix giving a tour of the vegetable demonstration garden to the new Florida Master Gardener Volunteer Class, at UF/IFAS Extension Broward County in April 2019.