County Fair Garden

The Sonoma County Fair provides Sonoma County Master Gardeners a plot in which to plant an environmentally-friendly garden demonstrating sustainable, water-wise gardening and natural pest control techniques. For the 2011 fair, the garden theme is "Gardening in Small Spaces." Many Sonoma gardeners are trying to do a lot of gardening in small spaces...or want to garden in a small space but feel overwhelmed with the choices and the problems. This year's garden emphasizes sustainability, water reduction, intensive gardening on small plots, and the integration of vegetables into the ornamental garden. It shows that it is possible both to grow food and have a beautiful garden at the same time by interspersing flowering plants that attract beneficial insects among the food crops. Vegetables are integrated with ornamental plants throughout the garden, and are even planted vertically!

As always, the Master Gardener demo garden is a teaching garden, and features clear labels of ALL the plant varieties (the only garden at the fair to do so) as well as informational handouts about all aspects of the garden. Master Gardener docents are in the garden at all fair-open times to answer questions, and the Master Gardener information table is located in the garden to provide answers to general gardening questions. The Master Gardener fair demonstration garden is intended to be beautiful, informative, and achievable by home gardeners. We think it is a garden that many people would like to have for their own--this year's garden succeeds again on all fronts!

2011 Fair Garden Handouts

One of the missions of the Master Gardeners is to educate the public on the protection of Sonoma County's water quality and environment by reducing the overall use of pesticides. We provide practical, non-toxic pest management strategies that home gardeners can adopt in their own landscapes.

Master Gardeners Mary Barclay, Phyllis Turrill, Linda King, Jon Diedrich, Penny Martin & Anne Lowings oversaw the design and installation of the garden, to which many Master Gardeners devoted hundreds of hours.

Click Here to go to the UC Integrated Pest Management Site

The Master Gardeners would like to acknowledge the support for the Pesticide Use Reduction program from the Sonoma County Waste Management Agency.

Information Desks:
Santa Rosa: (707) 565-2608
M-F 9-11 1-4
Sonoma: (707) 938-0127 MWF 1-3
email: mgsonoma@ucdavis.edu
or bring plant problems in for analysis
Locations/REQUIREMENTS

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