If you love gardening and want to make your community a better place, consider becoming a North Dakota State University Extension Master Gardener. Convenient online training starts in 2025, offering a great learning experience for adults.

The Extension Master Gardener Program is a national volunteer service organization that works in cooperation with land-grant universities. The program trains and empowers volunteers to teach others how to garden, to conserve natural resources such as pollinators, to beautify communities and to fight food insecurity.

NDSU Extension is now accepting applications for the 2025 Extension Master Gardener Core Course. Accepted applicants will take a 40-hour horticultural training course designed to provide participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to complete volunteer projects. Weekly classes will be held from January 24 to April 4, 2025.

Course topics include vegetable and fruit production, soil health, composting, plant diseases and insects, annual and perennial flowers, tree selection and maintenance, landscape design, houseplants and lawn maintenance. NDSU faculty and Extension personnel teach the classes.

“The ten-week training is designed to be flexible for both working individuals and for those wintering in other states,” says Esther McGinnis, NDSU Extension horticulturist and Extension Master Gardener director. “Students from around the state can participate from their computers in the live Friday morning classes. Alternatively, students can watch the recorded lectures at their convenience. Students near Fargo have the option to be present in the NDSU campus classroom.”

Once participants complete the 40-hour training, they are known as Extension Master Gardener interns. They must volunteer 48 hours of time during a two-year period on horticultural projects in cooperation with NDSU Extension. After that, they will be certified Extension Master Gardener volunteers.

Potential volunteer projects include answering gardening questions, organizing horticultural workshops and tours, teaching children to garden, growing fresh produce for food pantries, designing and maintaining pollinator gardens, and conducting citizen science projects.

The program fee ($225) for the 2025 class remains the same as 2024 to make the class more accessible to individuals. A non-volunteer option which leads to a Pro-Horticulture certificate is available for $450.

Twenty-six North Dakota counties will be accepting a limited number of Extension Master Gardener applications. The process will be more competitive in urban counties. The application deadline is Nov. 1 at noon.

Application forms and a list of counties that are accepting applications are available at ndsu.ag/mastergardener25.

For more information, contact your NDSU Extension county office at ndsu.ag/countyoffice or McGinnis at esther.mcginnis@ndsu.edu.

  NDSU Agriculture Communication – Oct. 15, 2024

Source:  Esther McGinnis, 701-231-7406, esther.mcginnis@ndsu.edu

Editor: Kelli Anderson, 701-231-6136, kelli.c.anderson@ndsu.edu