I was excited to sign up for the class, even though I couldn't really
afford the 6hr commitment once a week, or the $250.

Ended up dropping out - just didn't show up to drop off the take-home
final.

It was a very poorly run class - sixty people watching PowerPoints for
four hours every Monday evening for three months. No interaction. A
lot of interest in pesticides and lawn care and ornamental shrubs. In
the one class that dealt with vegetable gardening the instructer
focused on her work with commercial growers. Interesting - I would
have watched this on PBS, but it ain't helping my tomatoes. Community
gardening was never mentioned.

The volunteer work choices - mostly planting flowers around government
builings, or working the phone hot line for suburbanites with yellow
patches on their lawns - those of us most untrained giving advice to
the public as Master Gardener Trainees under the aegis of university
extension service. Complete BS.

The nice, semi-retired ladies running the classes seem to mean well.
The thick loose-leaf textbook (repetitive and self-condtradicory as it
is sometimes) may be good for a reference, if I ever get back into the
garden.

Having seen it from the inside, the title Certified Master Gardener
means less than nothing to me.

B