Master Gardener Class



 I attended my first Georgia Master Gardener class a few days ago. The entire course consists of ten weekly classes of six hours each. There is even a mid-term and a final examination. If I pass the tests I will be a certified Master Gardener. I bet you’re impressed.

 

I was apprehensive about the class in the weeks leading up to it because I was not sure what to expect. 

 

It could have been one of those bullshit classes where ten minutes of hard information is stretched into two hours of blah, blah, blah, kind of like the infant care class that Meredith and I took when she was pregnant. I was expecting a lot of good information about how to care for your newborn, but after sitting there for an hour and half I learned only two things: hold your kid’s head up, and don’t drop your kid on the floor. The class was a waste of time. They could have put the important information on a fortune cookie slip and saved me the trouble. 

 

The other possibility was that the Master Gardner course would be really tough. I had a genuine concern that there would be an overwhelming amount of information to learn. I have not been in a true classroom setting since law school, and that was a long time ago. Back then I was a lean, mean learning machine able to cram reams of information into my head and retain it. Now I have trouble remembering my zip code, and I have to write notes to myself to remember what I’m going to do today. To be successful in school, you have to learn how to learn. I was worried that I had forgotten how to learn massive quantities of information.

 

I was also concerned that the information would be way over my head. I figured the course would be heavy on biology, botany, and horticulture. I stopped taking science courses after I flunked chemistry my first year in college. I was a political science major, took journalism courses, and attended law school. That’s not exactly a great foundation for a course heavy in science. 

 

This is a true story. As a young attorney, I read in a woman’s medical records that she had undergone a hysterectomy. I had no idea what a hysterectomy was, but I knew that an appendectomy was when they removed a person’s appendix. I spent the next two years trying to discover what a woman’s hyster was and where it was located. Now you will understand why I was apprehensive about the Master Gardener course.

 

My fears were heightened when I received the text book during class check-in. It is over 600 pages long. The first six chapters had titles like The Soil Ecosystem, Basic Botany, Plant Physiology, Plant Propagation, Basic Entomology, and Basic Plant Pathology. I figured I was screwed. I didn’t know what physiology meant, and I thought entomology was the study of the derivation of words. Flipping through the pages of the text book, I saw elaborate diagrams of plant parts, a bunch of Latin names, and organic chemistry formulas—not exactly light reading. I knew I was way out of my element. 

 

When we were all seated, I looked around the room at my classmates, all 43 of them. That calmed me down. None of them are spring chickens. My guess is that they are all retirees. I base this conclusion on three observations: (a) they all looked like old farts, (b) all the women laughed knowingly when the instructor made a hot flash joke, and (c) four of the six men in the class could not make it through an hour session without getting up to pee. 

 

I figure they are in the same boat as me when it comes to their last classroom experience. They probably spent their adult lives pursuing careers that had nothing to do with pathology, physiology or entomology. It will be just my luck that half of them are retired biology professors or horticulturalists.

 

So right then the competitive juices started flowing. I’ll be damned if a bunch of women with hot flashes and men with enlarged prostates are going to get the better of me. So now I’m aiming for class valedictorian. I want the big photo in the yearbook. I’ve given some thought to the title of my graduation speech. I’ve discarded “Master Gardeners: Breeding the Master Race” for obvious reasons. “Promoting Truth, Justice, and the American Way of Life through Master Gardening” sounds too pretentious. My current working title is “From Aphids to Zygotes: Master Gardeners at Work.”

 

There is an elderly lady who is in charge of the class, though she’s not a teacher. She started off with about a half an hour of introductory remarks. It was clear right away that she is a retired school teacher and grade school principal. I felt like I was in eighth grade home room. No, Ms. Cairns, I have not forgotten something to write with. Yes, Ms. Cairns, I brought a notebook. I was tempted to raise my hand with two fingers up to signify that I had to go number two just to see what would happen. I bet I would have gotten a hall pass.

 

They laid a lot of information on us that day about botany, plant physiology, and plant pathology. It was mostly interesting, but a little overwhelming. Did you know any of the following:

•  Eggplants and tomatoes are berries;  
• The three types of simple fruits are the berry, drupe and pome;
• Almonds, coconuts, olives, and peaches are drupes;
• Apples and pears are pomes; or
• A pepo is a berry fruit with a hard rind (cucumber, pumpkin, and squash), while a hesperidum is a berry fruit with a leathery skin (citrus fruits)?

I didn’t. I’m not sure how this information will be helpful to me, though from now on I’m going to ask for a slice of pepo pie to top off my Thanksgiving dinner. One thing’s for sure, I’m going to wow them if “berries” is ever a category on Jeopardy.

 

There is some stuff I learned that I really didn’t want to know. Was it necessary to tell us that when you eat a fruit, you’re eating a plant’s ovary? I don’t think I’ll be able to look at an apple or pear from now on without a disturbing vision coming into my head .

 

It will not be easy for me to be the valedictorian. I have a unique learning disability. My mind plays tricks on me. It always goes for the joke. For instance, when the instructor first used the term “gymnosperm”, the first thing that flashed in my head was that gymnosperm is part of the nasty residue left on a high school wrestling mat. I will need to overcome this problem if I want to graduate summa cum laude.

 

Anyway, I made it through the first class successfully. That only means that I did not make a fool of myself or get kicked out of class. Now I’m studying my ass off so that one day I can bear the proud title of Master Gardener.