Category: 50th Anniversary

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Growing together for 50 years: Meet Sue Ryburn, Washington County Master Gardener volunteer

For 50 years, OSU Extension Master Gardener volunteers have grown more than gardens. They’ve grown partnerships, learning opportunities and community across Oregon.

Sue Ryburn became an OSU Extension Services Master Gardener volunteer in 2012. The seed was planted years earlier — when her sister handed her a brochure from the Master Gardener volunteer booth at the Beaverton Farmer’s Market.

In her own words, Sue shares her journey.

Sue in the garden, wearing sunglasses and gardening gloves, ready to garden.

A seed planted years before

I became an OSU Extension Service Master Gardener volunteer in 2012. Years earlier, knowing my love of gardening, my sister had given me a Master Gardener brochure she picked up from the Master Gardener booth at the Beaverton Farmer’s Market. I had not heard of Master Gardeners before, though the information caught my interest. I tucked the idea away and would need to wait five years until I retired to have time to pursue the Master Gardener program.

Early in the training I found that several principles of the program aligned with my values — relying on research-based information, promotion of sustainable gardening, service to the community and life-long learning.

The best part of being a Master Gardener volunteer has been learning about sustainable gardening, which is a very large tent, and then sharing information in a variety of venues. And, most importantly, to do this with a group of dedicated Master Gardeners with support from the staff at OSU Extension Service.

Building places for learning

Among the things I feel most proud of as a Master Gardener volunteer is helping to establish our two Washington County Master Gardener Association gardens — the Learning Garden at Jenkins Estate and the Education Garden at PCC Rock Creek, where I spend much of my volunteer time.

Our gardens provide hands-on and didactic learning opportunities on a broad range of sustainable gardening experiences. We have partnered with several organizations with similar missions to share information and help expand our outreach options. This partnering extends to other OSU Extension programs such as the Oregon Bee Atlas, the Oregon Naturalist program and Food Hero, where some Master Gardeners also participate. It just seems to make sense to collaborate with other groups who are all rowing in the same direction.

Our relationship with Portland Community College (PCC), and in particular the Landscape Technology Department (LAT), is invaluable. The LAT Department is located on the Rock Creek (RC) campus near the site of the Education Garden. We use LAT classroom, greenhouse, hoophouse and pole barn space for our educational outreach, plant propagation and big Gardenfest Plant Sale activities.

We enjoy opportunities to work with students and faculty at PCC and schools in our community. The work that we do to care for both our gardens creates an outdoor classroom for many of our educational outreach activities.

Working as a team

As MG Program volunteers we know that we work in teams — really none of us can accomplish what we do alone. Each week there is something that happens to remind me of the generosity of time, knowledge, goodwill and camaraderie of Master Gardeners.

Gardening is a great way to help put things into perspective and to have an impact on the environment in a world when sometimes it seems there is so much happening that might seem beyond the influence of just one person.

Health, hope and perspective

We don’t have to look far to find evidence that gardening is good for our mental and physical health. There is something enriching about placing a plant in the soil, caring for it and admiring how incredible the natural world functions.

It is rewarding to introduce children to the world of mason bees and explain their important role in pollination. There is a sense of satisfaction seeing the tree that you planted mature over the years. And there are helpful lessons learned, even when sometimes things just don’t quite work out.

Collective impact

I value being part of an organization that promotes programs such as Seed to Supper, Garden Future, Grow 1 Give 1 (a WCMGA program), and, like our Learning Garden, the many demonstration gardens across the state donating to food banks the food grown in our gardens.

One of the things I most value about being a Master Gardener is being part of something that collectively has a positive impact across the state because of the generosity of so many volunteers and dedicated staff.

As we celebrate 50 years of the OSU Extension Master Gardener Program, we are honoring the volunteers who have shaped this program through their knowledge, generosity and partnership. Stories like Sue’s remind us that our impact grows when we grow together. If you are a Master Gardener volunteer, we invite you to share your story. And if you know someone whose journey, leadership or dedication deserves to be recognized, please nominate them.

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Growing together: a neighborhood garden story

At the heart of the OSU Extension Master Gardener volunteer program is something powerful: the idea that when we grow plants, we grow connections. This guest post, written by Master Gardener volunteer Sarah W. in Portland, is a shining example of that spirit in action.

While taking the Master Gardener training, Sarah began to apply what she was learning and applied it in the most generous way—by organizing her entire neighborhood block to garden together. Inspired by community-supported agriculture and grounded in the knowledge she gained from the program, she helped coordinate a shared vision: plant together, harvest together, and build deeper community ties through the act of growing food.

Sarah’s story is a clear reflection of the ripple effect the program can have—on individuals, families, and neighborhoods. It’s a reminder that when someone gains skills and confidence through the Master Gardener Program, they take those gifts into the world and plant seeds of change far beyond the classroom.

We’re honored to share Sarah’s story with you.

woman wearing plaid shirt and jeans, holding a large head of lettuce, just harvested from the garden she's standing in, along with two small children.

Why master gardening?

It’s a question I tried to answer repeatedly during the spring of 2024, as I attended Zoom class during kid soccer practice, puzzled out the calendar for every farmer’s market in the Portland Metro area, and marveled at the poised, knowledgeable, and involved perennial Master Gardeners I met at every turn. What was I trying to prove, and did I belong?

Indeed, the moment a few weeks ago before I pressed send on a spreadsheet garden planner covering my entire neighborhood, I wondered – is this why? Am I too much, or not enough?

My whole life, I’ve been what people indulgently call “a do-er”. I love a good idea, but more than that, I love plotting a good idea into being. I have also been called persistent – not to say stubborn – by those who love me. And my kids know that when I say, “five minutes until we go”, they can happily play for 15 while I chat up a new group of parents and lose track of time.

This is all to say that when my neighbor pitched the idea of a block-wide project where we crossed community-supported agriculture with a community garden spread across multiple yards, my husband correctly predicted I’d be in deep. He knows me.

The idea was simple. What if we each planted something different, and then brought together the harvest to share? Having just read about an inspired project in Los Angeles, it was an easy sell. The project formed quickly, based on the training fresh in my mind.

If any neighborhood was set up for this challenge, it was my little block, which hosted weekly line dances through COVID lockdowns and painted our street to commemorate the connection during those years. We’re a neighborhood where repeated gestures of kindness have created runners, and underground network that shoots up random acts of support you never thought to ask for.

Yet at its core, this project was about pooling individual effort for the collective – an ideal but challenging in the details. Nonetheless, we set off. At a potluck, we mapped individual plots into a single farm. On the south side of the street, better sun but smaller beds. On the north side, shade, but retirees who had time to build beds or move container tomatoes to track the sun. We calendared workdays, I ordered seeds, and we mixed fertilizer and pressed seeds into four-inch pots together. And yes, I emailed a beautifully color-coded spreadsheet where my eight-year-old and I mapped space, time, crop, and affection into a sharable format. So many things about this project are imperfect. But it’s an answer to the persistent question about why I became a Master Gardener. What kind of community is possible in this fast-paced and fragmented world? This week, it’s pak choi and kale thinnings. It doesn’t matter if we pool our plots for different reasons. When we arrive curious, open-hearted, offering care and whatever we have on hand – the connection follows.

Are you building community and connections through gardening? 2026 will mark the 50th anniversary of the Master Gardener volunteer program in Oregon: we would love to share your stories of community and connection. Please email leann.locher@oregonstate.edu if you’d like to share your story.