Like most Master Gardeners, Tyler Hemrock of Villa Rica enjoys talking about his vegetable garden and the problems caused by this year’s rainy growing season. He can also answer questions about soils, fertilizers and insects.
But unlike the other 125 or so Carroll County Master Gardeners, Hemrock is only 14 years old, the youngest in the club and probably the youngest Master Gardener in Georgia. That distinction cannot be verified since each club keeps its own records.
“Tyler is a very unique individual,” said Paula Burke, the county’s Extension coordinator, who oversees the Master Gardener program. “Being home-schooled allowed him to attend the morning training sessions. He was already involved as a team leader in the Junior Master Gardeners. If you enjoy helping others and want to volunteer, that’s what Master Gardeners is about.”
While there’s no age limit on being a Master Gardener, Burke said, not many young people have the level of interest or the available time for the 27 weeks of training and 50 hours of volunteer service during the first year’s membership.
“The purpose of the Master Gardener program is to train volunteers to complement, enhance and support the educational efforts of the local UGA Cooperative Extension office,” Burke said. “The training is like a mini-college course.”
Some Master Gardeners do volunteer work at the Extension office, but that work has a minimum age requirement of 18 years. Hemrock has been doing his volunteer work in the community garden and Heritage Day projects.
“As long as I can remember, I’ve always liked gardening, watching things grow,” said Hemrock, who will celebrate his 15th birthday next Sunday. “I’ve read a lot of books on gardening and have a whole shelf of gardening books in my room. My parents have always had a home garden and I’ve taken that over.”
He picked up an interest early from watching his mother, Diane, raise flowers and his father, Michael, work in a vegetable garden. He joined the Junior Master Gardeners, an auxiliary program run by the Master Gardeners, at the age of 9.
“After awhile, I just wanted to know everything they knew,” he said.
The road to becoming a Master Gardener involved filling out applications, an interview and then attending 27 weeks of classes, from January through April. He then had to pass two written tests. After completing the training, he performed his volunteer work and received his Master Gardener certification on June 5.
In addition to his gardening interests, he has been a Boy Scout since age 11 and also likes camping, hunting, fishing and beekeeping. His favorite school subjects are chemistry and literature.
Despite his early interest in gardening, Hemrock said he has no plans to enter agriculture as a profession.
“I’d rather keep it as a hobby,” he said.
His career plans are in dentistry. He plans to take pre-dentistry courses at University of West Georgia and study dentistry at Georgia Regents University College of Dental Medicine, specializing in orthodontics.
As for Hemrock’s garden preferences, he said he likes growing vegetables best because “you can get something to use from them.” His personal home garden includes tomatoes, peppers, okra, peas, zucchini, cucumbers and sweet potatoes.
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