Andy Brugger found the perfect calling when he retired. The former physician and clinical researcher from Libertyville wanted to learn more about science, spend more time gardening and volunteer.
So he became a master gardener — and for the past few years, he’s been teaching children in Waukegan about planting and caring for vegetables. He’s also been guiding adults who work at a mobile food pantry — aka, a garden — at The Chapel in Libertyville, where produce is delivered to the church’s food pantry in Grayslake.
“Their expertise is such that now that can train others,” Brugger said of those working at the food pantry garden.
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For example, volunteer Christie Mille of Fox Lake has learned to get rid of Japanese beetles by dousing them with soapy water.
Brugger’s story is one Kim Isaacson likes to hear — it’s about pebbles creating ripples in the water.
Isaacson is the horticulture program coordinator at the University of Illinois Extension/Lake County in Grayslake, which is taking applications until Sept. 15 for those who want to become master gardeners.
Isaacson said she’s especially looking for people who want to learn about growing vegetables. That way, they can teach others as part of the volunteer hours master gardeners are required to serve after completing a series of courses.
“With the influx of interest in vegetable gardening for homes and schools, community gardens and food pantry gardens, we’re looking for people who would like to help train vegetable gardeners,” Isaacson said.
The program offers core courses on soils, botany, diseases and pests, annuals, perennials, vegetables and other topics. The courses are based on scientific knowledge from the University of Illinois, she said.
“Everybody comes out at the same level, and then they’re able to use resources to learn more and then they volunteer to train others,” she said.
Brugger, who said gardening has always been his passion, grows tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, and his personal favorite, parsnips, in four areas of his backyard.
When he retired from doing clinical research, Brugger said he searched for something that would mesh his interest in biology and desire to volunteer.
“It was a great experience,” he said of taking the master gardener courses. “I just like learning new information. (They) talked about plant identification, how to tell the difference between evergreens, how you identify pests and diseases and how to address pests in the garden responsibly.”
He also learned that frost can improve the taste of a few vegetables, including Brussels sprouts and parsnips.
“My family loves that I can go out in January and dig through the ground and get some fresh parsnips,” he said.
When he’s not tending his garden, he’s out at the mobile food pantry teaching volunteers there how to grow a better vegetable.
“I’ll suggest certain practices for weed control, based on information I’ve learned from master gardener courses,” Brugger said. He’s told them that “if you roto-till through certain weeds, it just creates more weeds.” That’s true for Canada thistle, a non-native, invasive plant — Brugger said that “every little piece you chop up will re-sprout.”
“The volunteers are just terrific,” he said. “This year, we are trying three methods mulching weeds to control them.”
In addition, the gardeners have asked him to teach them ways to stake tomatoes. He introduced them to three systems. “Then they have a tangible example of each and can see what works best,” he said.
The season’s wet weather flooded the tomatoes and stunted their growth, Brugger added, but they are coming back now and with a warm, dry end of summer, he’s hoping for a small harvest.
While harvesting crops on a sunny August morning, Christie Mill said she enjoys learning from Brugger.
“He helps me learn how to identify things like Japanese beetles,” she said. “Today they were in the green beans.”
Mill and Brugger harvested 34.5 pounds of squash, 1.5 pounds of cilantro, 3 pounds of green beans and 4 pounds of leaf lettuce in about two hours.
Mill said, “That cilantro smells so good. I’d like to just sit in the middle of it.”
She added that she enjoys volunteering in the food pantry garden because “it’s so peaceful,” and she marvels at the way seeds grow into plants that can help local residents who need food.
Brugger taught Mill about trap plants this year.
“There’s a cucumber beetle that favors certain varieties of squash,” he said. So they planted the beetle’s favorite, Hubbard squash, in a separate area away from the other squashes in hopes the beetles wouldn’t venture away from that planting.
Near the vegetable garden is a pollinator garden with native plants such as butterflyweed, milkweed, coneflower and lobelia, all of which attract bees that will then pollinate the flowers on the vegetables.
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All that knowledge gets carried over to other vegetable gardens in the region as volunteers learn when to plant certain crops and how to start seedlings indoors, for example, he said.
At the Roberti Community House in Waukegan, Brugger helps with the junior youth program, working with preschoolers who learn basic vegetable gardening skills.
Brugger also works along with other master gardeners and volunteers at the Holy Family Parish food pantry garden across the street from the Roberti Community House.
“It’s fun to see the enthusiasm of the preschoolers,” Brugger said, adding he’s learning new skills by working with youngsters.
“As the summer goes on, you can see that they can identify more plants and know what a weed is,” he said. Brugger, along with other volunteers, also is helping them harvest the food they’ve grown.
Those interested in becoming a master gardener can visit http://web.extension.illinois.edu/lm/lakemg/. A fee is charged to complete the program, which runs Fridays Jan. 19 through April 13. After that, the master gardener donates volunteer hours helping with various projects in the county.
Sheryl DeVore is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.