WISEWOMAN Gardening

Another sure sign of spring is the startup of the WISEWOMAN Entrepreneurial Gardening project. It is still too early to plant a garden in northern Michigan, but it is never too early to plan! Within the next couple of weeks, many of the gardeners will come together in their counties to receive their first nutrition lesson and start planning their gardens.

We at WISEWOMAN are very excited about the project this year. Of course, we are excited about it every year, but this year, Helen DeFlorio from MSU Extension will be playing an even bigger role in the WISEWOMAN Entrepreneurial Gardening Project. Helen led the pilot project in Ogemaw County in 2008 and 2009. Last year, she helped us expand the program into 6 counties by sharing her knowledge, skills, and lessons learned from her experience with the pilot.

This year, Helen will be working as the WISEWOMAN Gardening Coordinator. She will visit each of the participating counties to purchase the supplies the WISEWOMAN gardeners need to get started with their gardens. Helen will coordinate the Nutritionists and Master Gardeners in each county as well as provide support to the participants. It will be great to have someone in the field making sure the women get all of the training and supplies they need to be successful.

Helen has her work cut out for her this year. It looks like we will be adding at least three more counties and we may have as many as 75 WISEWOMAN Gardeners this year! That is a preliminary estimate. I will let you know when we get a final tally.

Another exciting addition for this year is our new WISEWOMAN Gardening Facebook page. I will be providing updates about the project throughout the summer here on the blog, but if you want to get more information between updates, go to Facebook and “like” WISEWOMAN Gardening. While you are on Facebook, be sure to “like” Michigan WISEWOMAN Program if you have not already.