ROCKPORT – The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service will begin offering Backyard Basics classes, the first of which will begin at 10 a.m. April 5 to help Coastal Bend gardeners challenged by the area’s harsh growing conditions.
The class will be held at the Fulton Community Garden, 4841 U.S. Highway 35 North in Rockport. The cost is $10. Checks should be payable to AgriLife Extension.
The series will start with lessons on composting to help residents deal with environmental factors that hinder proper plant growth, including soils that lack nutrition, a salty climate and high winds, according to Kirsten Corda, an AgriLife Extension family consumer science agent in Aransas County.
“Our main speaker for this first Backyard Basics class will be Robert Moore, a soil and plant microbiologist and composting expert who is well known in the area as ‘The Soil Guy,’” she said. “He’ll explain how homemade compost can overcome a lot of the challenges our environment poses to gardening.”
Moore said composting helps condition the area’s heavy clay soils that lack air and water percolation, as well as the fine sandy soil that doesn’t hold water or nutrients.
“Compost is organic material that has been decomposed by the aerobic microbes community, or saprophytic microbes, which provides the nutrition for plants to grow,” he said.
Compost used as mulch also helps the biggest problems of the coastal environment: a salty climate and high winds, he said.
“Homemade compost provides nutrients to strengthen plants without adding salts found in synthetic chemical fertilizers.”
Moore will be teaching class participants how to make the highest quality compost with the least effort in the shortest time, including aerated static piles that do not need turning.
“Expect this class to be outdoors and very hands on,” he said.
Each participant will learn what compost should be and how to make it from their own yard waste and kitchen scraps, Corda said.
“Everybody will take home a gallon bag of their own locally made compost, along with a native flowering or vegetable starter plant,” she said. “Because materials are limited, preregistration is highly recommended. However, the opportunity to continue learning is limitless and will be made available by Patricia Stanton, who operates the Fulton Community Garden.”
AgriLife Extension’s Backyard Basics is a statewide initiative that promotes the consumption of nutritious homegrown and homemade foods. The program, which was piloted in Bexar and surrounding counties, is now marketed across the state.
Classes are held where local farmers, ranchers and cottage-food producers can meet and teach local residents how to grow, prepare and preserve homegrown food, whether they live in subdivisions or apartments, Corda said.
“People always start thinking about growing their own vegetables this time of year,” she said. “We’re excited to offer this Backyard Basic series to help increase their chances of success along the Coastal Bend.
Corda said she is determined to raise the awareness of the availability of community sponsored agriculture in the region.
“Many residents don’t know where their community gardens are located, what a composting/gardening cooperative can do for them or where they can buy farm-fresh produce and dairy products,” she said. “This series will help people get involved in home-based projects that can improve the quality of their lives.”
For more information, contact the AgriLife Extension office for Aransas County at 361-790-0103.