Center for Urban Agriculture

Labeled a food desert by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Fairmont community in Griffin, Georgia, has historically had slim options for sourcing fresh, nutritious food nearby. But this desert is becoming an oasis of fresh fruits and vegetables thanks to a group of dedicated agencies and volunteers who have worked hard for nearly 10 years to create a thriving community garden.

The Healthy Life Community Garden — which was established in 2012 — began as a partnership between the city of Griffin, the Fairmont Community, Griffin Housing Authority, the local chapter of the NAACP, Spalding County, the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension office in Spalding County, and UGA’s Center for Urban Agriculture (CUA). Funding for the project comes from a yearly grant from the Griffin Housing Authority and covers the cost of supplies for operating the garden and a garden manager.

Ellen Bauske is a boundary spanner — she’s known as a person who brings people and organizations together on national, regional and local levels.

It’s one of the many reasons she received the American Society of Horticultural Science’s 2020 Extension Educator of the Year Award, which recognizes an educator who has made an outstanding contribution to extension education in horticulture for more than 10 years.

Bauske serves as a program coordinator for the University of Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. She has helped develop innovative programming in a variety of disciplines, including integrated pest management, water, consumer horticulture, Master Gardener Extension Volunteer training, community gardens, landscape and tree care worker safety.

"Ellen Bauske is a doer,” said Dan Suiter, who is chair of the center’s faculty advisory committee. “Her formal training is in plant pathology, but she has been very adaptable in the many years she's been with the Center for Urban Agriculture. She, like no one I've known, can get people to move as a group in the direction of accomplishment. It's a rare skill."

Harald Scherm, head of the Department of Plant Pathology, agrees. “Ellen has consistently reinvented herself and her Extension programming during the past 15 years,” he said. “She has been remarkably responsive to emerging needs and opportunities.”

If you’ve ever wondered how to protect your home from termites, tune in to your local Georgia Public Broadcasting station this weekend when two University of Georgia professors will join forces to show viewers the proper steps to help keep their homes pest-free.

University of Georgia entomologist Dan Suiter, a professor on the UGA Griffin campus, and Nick Fuhrman, a professor in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) on the Athens campus — better known as “Ranger Nick” to viewers of the monthly Georgia Farm Monitor television show — will appear together on the July episode of the show with tips to stop termites.

University of Georgia Department of Entomology Professor Dan Suiter has been named the chair of the UGA Center for Urban Agriculture Faculty Advisory Committee.

Suiter’s appointment will enhance the programming aspect of the center, according to Laura Perry Johnson, associate dean for UGA Cooperative Extension in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES). Suiter will work closely with center Director Sheldon Hammond, who will continue to oversee the business and personnel administration functions of the center.

Based on the UGA Griffin campus, the Center for Urban Agriculture supports UGA Extension’s urban programs by providing county agent training programs, tools and resources; communicating the latest research-based urban agriculture advice through newsletters, articles, alerts, publications, videos and social media; organizing new initiatives; collaborating on interdisciplinary projects and research; advancing and updating current program training materials; and administering multiyear programs and projects.

“Our state continues to have population growth and most of that is in the nine largest counties in Georgia. Issues and problems associated with this urban growth come in many forms and cross many disciplines and departments,” Perry Johnson said. “Dan will work to build diverse teams around urban issues and coordinate programming efforts related to urban programs and projects.”

At 54, Becky Griffin was the oldest University of Georgia student on the Griffin campus to be awarded a degree this fall, but that fact only fueled her drive to succeed.

After putting her graduate studies on hold for 30 years, Griffin juggled a full-time job and put thousands of miles on her car to complete her master’s degree. The mother of two adult daughters, both of whom are UGA graduates, Griffin was encouraged to finish her degree by Kris Braman, a former UGA Griffin researcher who now heads the UGA Department of Entomology.

“Deciding to go back to school after 30 years was a huge decision. When I told Dr. Kris Braman why I didn’t have a master’s degree, she said, ‘Well, we need to fix that.’ She encouraged me to apply, helped me map out a plan and served as my major professor throughout this process. She was the first person on my team,” Griffin said.

A team of University of Georgia researchers is studying the use of home lawns as garden plots. If successful, suburbanites with warm-season lawns could plant fall vegetables on top of their turfgrass lawns.

“Enthusiasm for local food production and self-sufficiency has generated an increased interest in home vegetable gardens. But, many urban dwellers have small outdoor spaces and often lawns occupy the only full sun areas in the landscape,” said Ellen Bauske, a program coordinator at the Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture and leader of the project.

A happy medium

Many would-be urban gardeners love their lawns too much to replace them with a vegetable garden, according to Bauske.

“They enjoy spending their summers on the lawn, watching the kids play while admiring their well-manicured lawn,” she said. “Tearing up the lawn and putting in a traditional garden may not be the best option. Gardens are a lot more work to maintain than lawns and have an unconventional look. Your neighbors may not be pleased to see a working garden in your front lawn.”

At UGA, Bauske’s goal is to find a happy medium—a way to successfully grow vegetables without destroying turfgrass. She, along with horticulturist Sheri Dorn and turfgrass specialist Clint Waltz, all with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, are recording the effects of planting fall vegetable crops into warm-season hybrid bermudagrass.

Whether you're a homeowner, new landscape company owner or a veteran golf course superintendent, you'll find the latest research-based information on growing and maintaining turfgrass at the University of Georgia Turfgrass Research Field Day.

Registration starts at 8 a.m. on Aug. 4 and tours begin at 9:15 a.m. and conclude at 2:30 p.m. The daylong event will be held rain or shine on the turfgrass research plots at the UGA campus in Griffin, Ga.

Residential and commercial lawn topics

UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences researchers and Extension specialists will present the latest information on how to care for residential lawns, commercial golf courses, athletic fields and any other space covered with turfgrass. Field day topics will include how to control weeds, insects and diseases, managing seed heads, heat and drought tolerance and an update on the UGA turfgrass breeding programs.

Guided tours will be offered in Spanish for Spanish-speaking attendees.

The field day is certified for private and commercial pesticide recertification credits in Georgia and neighboring states. A license number is required to receive the field day credits.

A catered BBQ lunch will be followed by displays and demonstrations of the latest turfgrass industry equipment. The self-guided portion of the research tour begins at 1:15 p.m.

Planting gardens at schools is not a new concept. The school garden movement first took off in 1917 when the U.S. School Garden Army was created with the motto, “A garden for every child, every child in a garden.”

As of late, school gardens have experienced resurgence. A growing number of teachers are embracing school gardens to teach students much more than how to put a seed in the ground, care for it, watch it grow and enjoy the harvest provided by the plant.

Becky Griffin, community and school garden coordinator for University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, says school gardens are gaining momentum for several reasons, including science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education requirements.

“Schools can get a feather in their cap for using their school garden to meet the STEM certification,” Griffin said. “Teachers use their gardens to teach history by growing beans that (Meriwether) Lewis and (William) Clark brought back from their expedition, and they plant colonial gardens filled with crops from the time of George Washington. They also use school gardens to teach math. You use lots of division and recording to plant a garden. Some teachers have the students grow their crops in geometric shapes.”

English teachers use school gardens by reading a book, then planting crops or flowers that were mentioned in the book, Griffin said.

With National Gardening Week coming up on June 5-11 and National Gardening Day falling on June 6, the University of Georgia has horticulture experts ready with fresh-from-the-garden advice.

The horticulture faculty members work daily with growers ranging from home gardeners to commercial nurseries to small organic farm owners and everyone in between. The "green industry," as they call it, of flowers, shrubs, trees and vegetables is big business, especially with spring in full swing. We've compiled what the faculty have to say about the importance of gardening.

Paul Thomas, professor of horticulture, on how children learn through gardening:
"When you have a young person involved in gardening, they start learning about insects; they start learning about weather; they start learning about how people interact with plant materials and with other things that are living in the garden. And I just think it broadens all kinds of horizons and opens up a lot of doors to other lines of inquiry.

"Gardening activities really help young people look at the world, see how things grow, give them the feeling of the fact that they can grow something and make something flower or perhaps make a tomato have a fruit, for example."

Georgia registered landscape architect Greg Huber has joined the staff of the University of Georgia Griffin Campus as the training coordinator for the Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture.

Huber comes to UGA after spending the past 10 years as program coordinator, lead instructor and adviser for the horticulture program at Southern Crescent Technical College in Griffin, Georgia. Many of his former students are employed in Georgia’s green industry — which encompasses landscaping, lawn maintenance and horticulture — and will likely attend the Georgia Certified Landscape Professional (GCLP) and Georgia Certified Plant Professional programs he now leads.  

“I am thrilled to welcome Greg as our newest member of the Center for Urban Agriculture team. Our programs and clientele will certainly benefit from his unique areas of expertise, experience and the energy he brings to every initiative,” said Kris Braman, director of the center and entomologist with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

A native of Suwanee, Georgia, Huber’s first experience working in the green industry was at a Christmas tree farm. “While in high school, I spent summer and winter breaks at the tree farm,” he said. “I planted, pruned and fertilized during summers and assisted customers with harvesting, shaking and loading trees during the holidays. I discovered that I really enjoyed working outside.”