Dirty Hands Gardens – Goochland
This project is a joint venture between the Goochland-Powhatan Master Gardeners and the horticulture department of Reynolds Community College – Goochland Campus. Its main purpose is to provide educational outreach programs for the community and to offer learning experiences for the garden volunteers.
The college boasts formal landscaped areas and ornamental gardens which include a wide variety of perennials, trees and shrubs, seasonally planted garden beds, an organic vegetable garden, a rain garden, an herb garden, and a conifer garden. The extensive gardens at the college are used as teaching tools and are opened to the public daily during daylight hours (subject to COVID-19 restrictions). To virtually tour many of the campus garden areas, click here.
Working under the direction of Reynolds Agriculture Specialist Karin Stretchko and senior MGs volunteers, volunteers assist with the development and installation of new garden areas as well as the maintenance of existing ones. Dirty Hands project volunteers maintain a demonstration Herb Garden on campus showcasing a wide variety of herbs that can be grown in the local area.
Click here for a virtual tour of that garden. They also maintain a demonstration Rain Garden planted with native plants that can withstand the wet-dry cycles found in a rain garden.
During the winter months, this project grows the plants for the GPMGA Plant Sale in at Spring Garden Fest (generally in April). Volunteers learn proper techniques for starting, maintaining, and grooming healthy plants for sale to the public.
Throughout the year, project participants plan and present educational sessions for community gardeners. Each session focuses on gardening topics related to that particular season. The format for these sessions may be classroom presentations, hands-on workshops, or garden tours. During weekly garden work sessions volunteers learn from the experiences of other volunteers and from the college staff. To see some of the interesting educational informational the team has compiled on herbs, click here.
Volunteers work on Wednesday between 9 a.m. and noon from February through November and can be found in and around the gardens and greenhouses on the far-left side of the college’s main building. Volunteers may work as many Wednesdays as they like and arrive and leave as their schedule allows.
Come and join in on the fun while learning and teaching – you can get a little education, do a little gardening, explore some marvelous plants, and best of all get your hands dirty!!
For more information contact dirtyhandsgpmgaproject@gmail.com.