In this edition

  • New website!
  • Gearing up for new students
  • We have a code orange!
  • It's the Great Pumpkin, Master Gardeners!
  • Washoe County: 2025 Garden Tour Recap
  • Cultivating Healthy Plants Webinar Series
  • Zoom Event: Creepy Crawlers
  • Master Gardener Events

New Website for Master Gardener Volunteers

from the desk of Katelyn Brinkerhoff

Hello, friends! I'm excited to share a new website for Master Gardener volunteers that houses helpful resources. The name of the website is Extension Master Gardener Volunteer Resources.

The site is still a work in progress, but already provides some great links to helpful publications, websites, and outreach materials.

You'll also find a placeholder for our all new Search for Excellence Awards website. This new recognition program reflects the national Search for Excellence (SFE) awards, so our state winners can automatically be submitted to national! I will provide more information about the SFE awards in the next few newsletters.

Have recommendations on helpful resources for the page? Let me know!

Email: ExtensionMasterGardener@unr.edu

Gearing up for Master Gardener students!

We are now accepting applications from our 2025 Home Horticulture Certificate Program students to become Master Gardeners! As of August 27th, we already have 46 applicants!

You may see some of the students at interviews, different events, assisting with in-person sessions, or monthly meetings, so be sure to welcome them to the program. You can share about the learning, projects, and friendships that come with being a Master Gardener volunteer. Consider becoming a mentor to new volunteers to provide guidance on navigating the program (some of our counties have a lot going on! It can be overwhelming.) and keeping them engaged.

We are so excited to be welcoming the 2025 class soon!!

Learn more about panels
Clark County Master Gardeners touring gardens

Extension, Clark County Master Gardener volunteers touring the Bellagio gardens

We have a code orange!

Hands holding pumpkin guts

It is officially the start of spooky season! Holidays can be a fun time for us to experiment with different topics to present to the community.

Here are some fun ideas of programs that you can explore presenting this season:

  • Spooky Plants - Highlight plants with creepy names, odd textures, or unusual adaptations.
  • Creepy Crawlers - So many bugs and insects that can be discussed
    Trick or Trees - Teach all about the trees in your area!
  • Composting with Creepy Crawlers - All about vermicomposting with a fun name.
  • Eerie Evenings in the Garden - Schedule a nighttime tour of the garden!
  • Gothic Gardens - Landscape design full of moody, dark aesthetic.
  • Nocturnal Pollinators - An evening program or garden tour focusing on moths, bats, and other night pollinators.

Youth-focused ideas:

  • Growing the Great Pumpkin - Teach about the lifecycle of a pumpkin!
  • Creating a "Monster Plant" - This can be silly or spooky!
  • Fear Factor - Have youth play with pumpkin "guts", inspect the wiggly worms, and other funky, sticky, stinky things from the garden!

Feeling inspired? Connect with your local coordinator to build out a program!

It's the Great Pumpkin, Master Gardeners!

Southern Nye County Master Gardeners are promoting community family fun! If you grew the free "Big Max" pumpkin seeds, or planted your own, remember to enter Giant pumpkins into the Pahrump Fall Fair at Bob Ruud Center, intake days September 23rd and 24th, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Past years' winning pumpkin weighed in at 70lbs! For details about the Pahrump Fall Fair, go to pahrumpnv.gov/302.

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Large pumpkin

A giant pumpkin!

Washoe County: 2025 Garden Tour Recap

Written by Rachel McClure, Washoe County Master Gardener Coordinator

Master Gardeners and garden tour participants posing in front of gardens

The end of August can only mean one thing for Northern Nevada, Garden Tour! We just completed our annual Master Gardener Garden Tour, hosted by Rail City Garden Center to benefit the Washoe County Master Gardener program.

It was great fun and a huge success! We had 14 gardens on the tour that were a lovely mix of private gardens, vineyards and community gardens.  The tour takes place over two days and covers the greater Reno area.

For the 2025 tour we did something new. We offered a Pre-Tour to Garden Hosts and Master Gardener Volunteers who would be actively volunteering and or showing garden spaces during the tour. This was a private, progressive event with refreshments at each location and a private group tour of each location. It was so much fun and so great to allow these amazing volunteers a chance to see some gardens!

Thank you to the volunteers and Garden Hosts who helped make this event so amazing!

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Cultivating Healthy Plants Webinar Series

A collaborative Extension IPM webinar series with: University of Idaho, Montana State University, University of Nevada, Reno, and Utah State University

Building Soil Health with Sustainable and Effective Amendments

Date:  
Thursday, September 18, 11 a.m. (Pacific Time)

Description:
Managing healthy soils is important for plant growth and yield, the environment, and our pocketbooks. This presentation includes three parts. The first links soil behavior based on texture (sandy to loamy to clayey) to nutrient management. The second part covers fertilizer use and rates, while the third is all about organic matter.

Speaker: Dr. Melanie Stock, Utah State University

Soil test example
 

Dr. Melanie Stock is an Associate Professor / Extension Urban & Small Farms Specialist at Utah State University and leads the USU Small Farms Lab (@usu_smallfarms on IG). With students and farmers, she focuses on water and nutrient resource management, season extension, urban soil contamination, and optimizing production of cut flowers as high-value crops in the Intermountain West. She is also an avid urban homesteader.

Registration: Free, but required; click here to register. 

Pesticide Applicator Credits: 1 USE credit for live viewing only (may only be available for certain states).

UPCOMING WEBINARS (more info will be sent each month)
  • Thursday, October 2 – Getting to Know the Bees in Your Backyard, Dr. Joe Wilson, USU
  • Thursday, November 20 – Houseplant Diagnostics, Megan Andrews, University of Nevada, Reno
  • Thursday, December 11 – Emerald Ash Borer, Montana State University
Registration

Zoom Event: Creepy Crawlers

spider

Mark your calendars for a creepy Zoom event on October 29th! Megan Andrews will be presenting Creepy Crawlers.

Registration information will be released in our October newsletter!

Helpful Links

for Master Gardeners

Extension Online
Master Gardener Handbook
Master Gardener Events
Brinkerhoff, K. 2025, Nevada Master Gardener Statewide Newsletter - September 2025, Extension, University of Nevada, Reno, Newsletter

Learn more about the author(s)

Katelyn Brinkerhoff
Katelyn Brinkerhoff