April is National Garden Month
Janet Hackert, Nutrition and Health Education Specialist, Harrison County, University of Missouri Extension
Spring has finally arrived. Now is the time to take advantage of the wealth of resources University of Missouri Extension has to offer to help with gardening and preserving your garden’s harvest.
MU Extension provides direction on getting the garden started. A soil sample can be brought to any MU Extension center and will be sent off for testing to determine if the soil is ready for the vegetables or fruits that are planned for it. There is an MU Extension publication on how to take the soil sample to best represent the whole garden. Another publication, the Vegetable Planting Calendar, describes what and when to plant, how to space it and how much to plant, depending on whether the produce will be eaten fresh or preserved.
MU Extension also offers information on growing vegetables and fruits, managing common problems like what diseases and insect infestations to watch for, and maintenance like pruning fruit trees and thinning carrot seedlings…
Once the produce is ripening, MU Extension has information and specialists who can help understand how and when to harvest, store, use and preserve it…
Whether in paper form, online, as an app, or from a specialist, MU Extension has answers to your questions on gardening, growing and preserving produce. See the full version of this article for all of the helpful information and links to resources: http://missourifamilies.org/features/nutritionarticles/nut452.htm
