The second annual Master Gardeners’ Vegetable Workshop series is almost as popular as last year’s, which had more than 300 people attend one of the two sessions. This year, enrollment was capped at 100, and there is a waiting list of 42 for the beginners session.

The workshop begins Today at the Carroll County Agricultural Center in Carrollton.

“We started doing this last year in response to the downturn in the economy,” said Ian Davis, the county Extension Service secretary. “We knew that a lot of people would be trying gardening for the first time. So, we decided to do a series of public workshops to teach people what they need to know.”

Unfortunately, last year was a bad growing year. The extremely wet spring and fall created the perfect growing conditions for plant diseases, and gardeners saw a resurgence in diseases the county hadn’t seen for quite a while.

This year, however, is a new year and a new growing season. People shouldn’t give up if they had a tough time last year, Davis said.

“Even the veteran Master Gardeners had trouble last year,” he said.

The workshops can help the novice gardener by offering advice based on years of experience garnered by the local Master Gardeners, which include residents of both Carroll and Haralson Counties. Bryan Hager will be leading the workshop Saturday, one of two of the scheduled sessions. The next workshop in late June will build on this session.

Hager manages Crager-Hager Farms with his wife, Wendy Crager, and has been raising vegetables to sell for seven years. But he’s been gardening nearly his whole life.

“I’ve had a garden since I was 10 years old,” Hager said.

While he has learned a lot over the years, he says that gardening is a continual education. Gardeners have to be willing to experiment and to enjoy playing with the plants, the soil and the surroundings.

“Each place you build a garden is unique, the soil, the microclimate that you have,” Hager said. “So you have to be willing to adapt growing techniques to your particular place. That might mean if you’ve got a little bit of shade you’re going to try two or three different plants, different lettuces for instance, to see which grows best for you there.”

The workshops can be helpful for people who have moved here from other areas, because growing conditions can vary so much. Every area has its own best practices and the local gardeners can give great tips. The workshop offers hands-on education as well as a question and answer session for people who have specific questions about their garden.

“This is for somebody who’s getting into it, who has maybe started a garden recently or is just thinking about starting a garden and they want to know how to get going right,” Hager said. “We intend to have fun with it.”

The Carroll County Master Gardeners is funding the workshop as part of their mission to educate the public, said Lynn Holt, education committee chair.

“After this workshop, we would have educated almost 500 people in vegetable gardening,” Holt said. “I think that is indicative of our economic situation. More and more people are interested in vegetable gardening, more or less like victory gardening after World War II.”