(Radio Iowa) – Some Iowans are itching to forget about winter and instead think ahead to springtime and planning out their gardens. The Iowa State University Extension is offering a series of free home gardening webinars starting next week. Alicia Herzog, I-S-U’s Master Gardener Program coordinator, says the course is designed to educate and inspire. “We have ten of these webinar sessions. They’re about an hour each,” Herzog says. “We planned for them to go from 6 to 7 PM Central Time. If they wanted to go through the whole series, it would start January 9th and it goes through March 12th, so ten weeks, every single Tuesday from 6 to 7 PM.” People can sign up for the webinars as late as the day of the event, and they can take any one — or all — of the online classes.

“This is just an educational webinar series that we offer as continuing education for our master gardeners,” Herzog says, “and also just as a free resource to the public, to anyone who’s interested in gardening and wanting to become a better gardener this year.” Attendees can register to join through Zoom or Facebook Live. The ten courses will offer a wide range of gardening topics, with the January classes focused primarily on edibles.

“We’ll talk about tomatoes and dealing with disorders and diseases of those, grape pruning and canopy management, which is one that has been requested many times,” Herzog says. “Also a common one for any gardener is identifying and managing fruit and vegetable insect pests in your garden, and then seed saving for the home gardener.” Other topics will include soil health, cover crops, climate extremes and composting, as well as tips on designing your home garden. The first of the ten classes will be held next Tuesday night.

Register here: https://go.iastate.edu/UOOQEJ