Resource for all ages and all learning levels from novice to professional. Sustainable practices to manage landscapes, urban gardens, and home pests.

What is Urban Green?

• Urban Green is an education program that provides urban residents with sustainable practices to manage landscaping, urban gardening, and home pests.

Who is Urban Green for?

• Single lessons, workshops, or learning series can be reserved for school-aged children, adults, residents, Master Gardeners, and professional groups.

What are the goals of Urban Green?

• Increase the availability and consumption of local, fresh fruits and vegetables with container gardening, edible landscaping, and raised-bed gardening.
• Show the benefits of gardening in urban spaces and how to garden with limited resources.
• Promote water conservation, composting, recycling, the use of irrigation alternatives, tree planting, and other practices that lead to environmental sustainability.
• Provides risk-assessment education to homeowners to increase knowledge of household hazards like pesticides and fertilizers that adversely impact the environment.
• Offer researched-based information on modern agricultural and landscaping practices that lead to improved decision making and adoption of recommended urban green best management practices (BMPs).
• Promote the protection of pollinators and other beneficial organisms.

Urban Green is Customizable

Urban Green has different lesson components to focus on learning, from composting and vermiculture to container gardening and rainwater harvesting. The program also offers train-the-trainer and volunteer-development opportunities.

• Back 2 Basics provides basic gardening and landscaping training for individuals in limited-space urban areas.
• STEM in the Garden trains teachers on basic gardening principles and ways to align the Alabama gardening calendar with a school year calendar. It will also include solutions to common problems associated with outdoor classrooms.
• Urban Gardens & Sustainable Landscapes increases the intake of local fresh fruits and vegetables to improve nutrition, raises awareness about genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and educates communities about economical gardening in urban spaces. Extension agents are ready to work with individuals, community groups, and organizations to develop sustainable gardens that conserve water and provide sustainable food sources.
• Water Wheels is a 36-foot mobile water conservation laboratory. This mobile lab is available to travel all over Alabama and is used to educate audiences about water conservation. The lab comes complete with a rainwater collection system and 15 gaming computers.

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