Mary Ellen Tiffin, left, and Sandra Jeffries look at Larry Coen’s garden during the Spring Garden Tour hosted by the Madera County Master Gardeners
in 2012. (Elsa Mejia)
By Diana Giraldo
As the woman who runs the Master Gardeners program in Madera and Fresno counties, Janet Cangemi touches the lives of thousands of people with her love for growing things.
Cangemi traces her own love of gardening back to her days when she and her siblings helped her father in their small farm in Raisin City.
“On summer mornings we knew we had to weed a row of cotton, so we would grab a hoe and get to work,” Cangemi recalled. “It was hot and not very fun, but we knew that by 10:30 we would be done and we would start doing kid stuff.”
As Cangemi grew into an adult she left the countryside and moved into the city, but she never left behind gardening...