County Extension offers home gardening program

Not everyone has a large space they want to dedicate to gardening, so the Franklin County Extension Office is sharing tips on growing food in unconventional ways.

The “Down and Dirty with Home Gardening” series is a four-part series being held Tuesdays in June from noon until 1 p.m., excluding June 29.

“This keeps everyone informed of new techniques you can use to improve your home garden,” said Franklin County Extension director Katernia Cole-Coffey.

Cole-Coffey said each installment of the series will focus on a different aspect of gardening fruits and vegetables.

So far, those in attendance have learned about the basics of vegetable gardening and container gardening.

The topic for the final session June 22 will be handling pests and diseases. Lucy Edwards, Regional Extension Agent for home grounds, gardens and pests said now is the perfect time to address this topic.

“With as much rain as we have been having, people will soon start to have issues with pests in their garden,” Edwards said.

Edwards said the goal of the series is to help people consider unconventional ways to garden and incorporate food into their landscape.

“Don’t think of a garden as going out and plowing a large spot because a lot of us don’t have that much space for that or don’t want to have to maintain all of that,” Edwards said.

The series is free to attend. To register to attend or for more information, contact the Extension Office at 256-332-8880.