Home gardens help cut food budgets

Green Valley and the surrounding communities have no trouble going green with resources like Pima County Cooperative Extension in the neighborhood.

An outreach arm of the University of Arizona College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in Tucson, the Cooperative Extension at 1100 E. Whitehouse Canyon Road boasts new demonstration gardens overseen by some of the area’s top master gardeners, including Debra Milton, a Tubac resident and master gardener with nearly 30 years of working in the soil to her credit.

The demonstration gardens are organic and there are dozens of other garden enthusiasts who donate their time and expertise to maintain the plants and vegetables.

Milton and fellow master gardener Reg Kahrimanis were on hand Friday while members of the Rancho Sahuarita MOMS Club were visiting with their toddlers to learn about the local gardens.

With the unstable economy, there has been an explosion in home gardening as folks seek cost-cutting ways to lower their food budgets.

“People want good nutrition, but what they really want is food that tastes good,” Milton says. “There’s nothing like the taste of vegetables that have been home-grown and nurtured by your own hands.”

Milton and the other master gardeners at the Cooperative Extension are available to answer questions and make suggestions about how to achieve a bountiful garden. Master gardeners are usually available to answer questions on Fridays from about 8 a.m. until noon, although a phone call ahead of time at 648-0808 will confirm.

According to the experts at Arizona Cooperative Extension, gardening with vegetables can be fun and provide delicious and highly nutritious fresh food regardless of the size of your garden. The path to a successful vegetable garden is not difficult or long.

Gardening success can be greatly influenced by the varieties you use. Master gardeners can advise you about what vegetables do well, when to plant and how to maintain them.

rford@gvnews.com

More help

Besides master gardeners, the Cooperative Extension also offers:

Master Consumer Advisors; anything to do with under your (home) roof.

4-H

Arizona Saves

Walk Across Arizona

Grandparents Raising Grandchildren

Bone Builders

Kinship & Adoption Resources Education (K.A.R.E.)

25 Steps to Health & Wealth

Arizona Nutrition Network

Extension Food & Nutritional Food Program

Smartscape — Landscape Water Conservation & Education Program

Pima County Cooperative Extension and the gardens at 1100 E. White House Canyon Rd. at the Old Continental School House are open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to noon. Phone Cassie Burruel at 648-0808 for more info.