New Year’s in the garden is the same as in the house, same as in the heart. It is full of renewed purpose, determined resolutions and good intentions. For me – and for many – this resolve is all about setting things in order. Not from any grandiose hope for perfection, but simply as a way to at least start things off on the right foot. Before the winter pruning of roses, grape vines and fruit trees, before top-dressing vegetable beds or herbaceous borders with fresh compost, before the spraying of dormant oils, “starting off on the right foot” for me means sorting out my tools.

Late December and January will include cleaning, sharpening and - as needed or if possible - mending my favorite tools. We gardeners are particular about our tools and every gardener I know has their own set of favorites. Mine include the following:
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In 2003, Shasta College in Redding became a host college for the California Extension Master Gardener Program. Leimone Waite, who has been a Horticulture Instructor at the college since 1998, is the administrator of the very successful Master Gardener Program there. At Shasta College, a member of the California Community College System of schools, the program is a collaborative venture between the college and the University of California system’s Agricultural Extension offices, which officially oversees and is responsible for the Master Gardener program throughout the state of California. Butte County began hosting a Master Gardener program in 2008 and will run the training every other year.

The Master Gardener program was originally conceived and started in Washington State in 1972 by David Gibby, Ph.D, a horticultural Extension agent for the University of Washington.
But wait. To truly understand the Master Gardener program, you need to understand a little bit about the history of the agricultural or horticultural Extension Agent system, and to understand that, you need to understand a little bit about American history.

If that sounds almost Epic - it is. The rigorously trained, enthusiastic volunteer corps we now know as Master Gardeners are at the end of one thread of the history of Westward Expansion, the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions, and the subsequent suburbanization and even more recent Technological Revolution of the United States. In my humble opinion, the Master Gardener program is one shining example of a good and effective marriage between government resources, educational institutions and those of us at home on the farm – or in the garden as it were.
According to what is now known as the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service:

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Here’s what I have on my Christmas list: Books. Gardening books to be precise, and a whole long list of them: the big heavy ones, with full-color glossy photographs and detailed captions involving plant zone information and the correct Latin names of the plants photographed (some people refer to this as Gardener’s Pornography). I am a garden-book- aholic. I have been for a long time. It is a hereditary disorder and I have books that were my maternal grandmother and grandfather’s, my paternal grandfather’s, my mother’s and an assortment of books from second-hand bookstores with the names of total strangers scrawled inside the front cover. I like most kinds of garden books: old, new, encyclopedic, photographic, single plant profiles, garden novels, garden history, garden philosophy, garden miscellany, garden coffee table books depicting the world’s most beautiful places – and so on. And every year for my birthday and then Christmas, I ask for garden books. Lucky for me, other garden writers and horticultural and garden publishers continue to work hard - every year - to keep me happy.

The history of gardening writing and garden publishing (in various forms) stretches back to antiquity in many cultures – from the Greeks and Romans, to the Chinese and the Aztecs. As North State gardeners we are lucky to live in a region well-served by several good gardening publishers – one of them being Timber Press out of Portland, Oregon. Timber Press is one of the leading publishers of gardening and horticulture related books in the world. Founded in 1978 by Richard Abel, Timber Press’s mission is to provide “quality books for sophisticated gardeners” and pretty much all other plant lovers. Timber Press joined Workman Press in 2006, gaining even greater international stature along with the merger. I recently had occasion to speak to Tom Fischer, Editor in Chief of Timber Press.
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Warm, smoky, mouth-watering and full-bodied. That was the dominant sensory experience on a walk around Nancy Heinzel and Brian Marshall’s market garden, Sawmill Creek Farm, in late summer. The entire garden was scented with the heady aroma of Hungarian peppers smoking over hickory chips at one end of the garden.

Nancy Heinzel and Brian Marshall are truly avid gardeners. That love and passion became much of their livelihood, “like all good things, by accident!” says Brian, “about 10 years ago,” when they decided to allow their 1-acre garden to continue on its ever-expanding way and become not just their garden but an outstanding market garden. Today, Nancy tends to the farm as her full-time job and Brian pitches in half time, his other half-time is spent as landscape designer and installer. Much of the goods from the farm are grown to sell at various markets around the area – including the Chico Thursday night Market and the Saturday Market in Oroville, April to November.
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Teresa Wolk Hayes, is the Executive Director and founder of the Little Red Hen Nursery and Gift shop in Chico. The Little Red Hen is a 501c3 non-profit corporation whose mission is to serve children and adults with developmental disabilities (DD), which it does through a variety of hands-on learning and employment opportunities for the developmentally disabled in a retail nursery (for absolutely ANYONE who loves to garden), greenhouse and potting facility, and a home and garden oriented gift shop. Photo Above: Teresa Wolk Hayes, The Little Red Hen, standing in the front row with employees Alan Jackson, Kevin Dzerigian and Brandon Shoop, who are working the coldhouse crew under the supervision of Jim Belles, at back.

To meet Teresa Hayes in person is to encounter a remarkable combination of the legendary Little Red Hen of childhood storybook fame and a garden Angel: If she has to, Teresa gets things done ALL BY HERSELF, but mostly she likes to work together with others and she loves sharing the results of her hard work with everyone and anyone. And many of her results are made possible through the beauty and wonderfully therapeutic aspects of gardening.

Teresa started adult life as a trained Registered Nurse having graduated from Chico State. She had always loved to garden. But when her eldest son was 3 1/2 and diagnosed with broad DD, her life as she knew it tilted somewhat on its axis. During the next phase of her life, in response to her son’s diagnoses she truly called on the therapeutic aspects of gardening for herself. “Gardening at that time helped me to heal.” It also helped her to move her life to its next amazing phase.

One of the things that Teresa quickly discovered all those years ago was that not a lot of programs existed – interventional, educational or therapeutic or employment – within a reasonable distance, to help her or to help her son. But one thing she knew was that he loved to swim and be in the water. As time went on, Teresa developed a playgroup of other parents with children that had similar diagnoses and who also seemed to benefit from the experience of swimming. Swim therapy, more precisely. “It was a self education for me,” laughs Teresa, shaking her head, remembering. “It was parenting, networking, sanity, support and friendship - for the parents and the kids!”

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