Treat yourself this summer to two days of education and inspiration at this year’s Oregon Master Gardener Association Joy of Gardening Conference, July 12-13 on the OSU campus in Corvallis.
Two days packed with over twenty classes, keynote speakers, and horticulture tours led by OSU faculty, you’re sure to come away with new connections and ideas for your future gardening and gardening education. Current schedule includes:
Opening Remarks: The Master Gardener Program 2024 and Beyond with Dr. Leslie Madsen
Keynote Speakers
10 Cool Things We Learned from Garden Research with Sherry Sheng and Dr. Gail Langellotto
Oregon IPM Center: Hub of Information to Solve Pest Problems with Dr. Silvia Rondon
Tours
Oak Creek Center for Urban Horticulture with Nick Cavagnaro
Horticulture Science at OSU (Lab Tours) with Dr. Gail Langellotto
A Historical Tour of the OSU Campus Arboretum with Dan Blanchard
Classes
Soil – What It Is and How It Works with James Cassidy
Growing Your Home Lawn Sustainably with Dr. Alec Kowalewski Empowering Communities through Inclusive Leadership: Bridging Innovation, Diversity, and Well-being with Dr. Ana Lu Fonseca
The New USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map: A Look Behind the Scenes at How It Was Developed and What It Can (and Cannot) Tell You with Dr. Christopher Daly
The Bees You Must Have: Discoveries of the Oregon Bee Atlas with Dr. Andony Melathopolous
Growing Fruits and Berries in the Home Garden with Logan Bennett
New MG Training Module on Climate Change (Interactive) with Dr. Brooke Edmunds and Signe Danler
Hydrangea Highlights with Darren Morgan
Garden Trivia Live! with Nicole Sanchez
Top Picks for Low Water Use Gardens from the NW Plant Evaluation Trials with Heather Stoven
Outreach as a Master Gardener Volunteer: Activating Our Circles of Influence with LeAnn Locher
Garden Allies: An Introduction to Life in the Garden with Frederique Lavoipierre
Garden/Yard Tool Renovation: Maintenance, Sharpening, and Storage with Fred Alley
Resilient Gardens with Darren Morgan
Learn from Several Chapters Regarding Best Practices for Successful Plant Sales with Benton, Central Gorge, Yamhill, Douglas, and Tillamook Chapters
Best Practices for Growing Peppers and Tomatoes from Seed with Bruce Gravens
Junior Master Gardener Program with Jim Liskey and Kelly Noack
Heroines in the History of Botany with Lucretia Weems
Rainwater Harvesting for Landscape Use with Ann Geyer
Let’s Give Them Something to Buzz About with Dan Blanchard
Growing Onions, Leeks, and Shallots from Seed with Bruce Gravens
Safe and Sustainable Management of Pests in Gardens and Landscapes through IPM with Thomas Jima
Secrets for Growing Lilies Anywhere with Kenn Parry
Get the full schedule, learn about lodging, cost and other details, at the conference website.
The Oregon Master Gardener Statewide Trivia Tournament is happening during our “quiet gardening times” of October and November 2023, and January and February 2024. Open to OSU Extension Master Gardener volunteers throughout Oregon, these five sessions offer the opportunity to learn more about specific gardening topics, have fun, and even win prizes.
Register to play.
Join via zoom.
Connect to the trivia app (Slido) on your phone or computer.
At the start of the tournament evening, you’ll be directed to the Slido app to begin competing.
Multiple choice trivia, 50 questions per session.
Winners will be announced live during the Zoom event.
Each session counts as one Continuing Education Unit for Master Gardener volunteers.
Did we say prizes? Yes we did. For each session, you can win gift certificates to mail-order garden companies in the PNW.
1st place: $100 gift certificate
2nd place: $50 gift certificate
3rd place: $25 gift certificate
Winners will receive gift certificates approximately one week after each event.
On April 26, 2023, Master Gardeners and supporters will come together to show our belief in the Master Gardener program and Oregon State University’s Dam Proud Day. This 24-hour period is dedicated to celebrating the accomplishments of the Oregon State community, including supporting Master Gardeners, and stretching ourselves toward our aspirations.
As a featured fund on Dam Proud Day, we have a special opportunity to raise money to support our work.
On one day, can you imagine what we could do together?
Here’s how Master Gardener volunteers, past and present, can help NOW.
1. Help us tell the Master Gardener story. Share your story by participating in our storytelling campaign. Reach out to LeAnn at leann.locher@oregonstate.edu to receive 3 questions for you to answer, and to send in a photo. We’ll be sharing these over the coming weeks to highlight all that Master Gardeners do. Your stories tell the story of the Master Gardener program!
2. Follow OSU Extension Master Gardener on social media. www.facebook.com/OSUMG and @mastergardenersOSU on instagram. Share our stories and posts about Dam Proud Day with your friends and followers.
3. Show up on April 26th and make a donation online signaling your support for the Master Gardener program. It’s all online, all on one day.
On one day, we can show up for gardening and Master Gardeners in Oregon!
Master Gardeners and their demonstration gardens are invited to participate in a “grow along” event this growing season. “Grow along” with thousands of Oregonian households who are participating in the Grow This! Gardening Challenge, an initiative of SNAP-Ed and Food Hero. (Last year 93,138 Oregonians participated!) These beginning gardeners can learn from you, see the same plants they are growing in your demonstration gardens, and discover the incredible resource they have with local Master Gardeners and the educational gardens you care for.
What you’ll do:
-Grow one or more of the following plants (preferably by seed) in your local Master Gardener demonstration garden.
Kale
Tomatoes
Herbs
Lettuce
Zinnias
-Share via email 2-3 updates a month of the progress, including photos, tips, challenges, and/or advice for growing these plants.
-Offer Grow This! participants the opportunity to drop by during your garden work days to talk with Master Gardeners, and visit your gardens.
Some examples of updates shared in 2022:
What you’ll receive:
-Your growing updates and open garden opportunities will be shared through the Grow This! Newsletter, the Food Hero social media channels, as well as the OSU Master Gardener social media channels.
-Increased recognition of the value and assets of local demonstration gardens.
-Connection to a local audience eager to learn how to grow their own food and begin gardening, many for the first time.
Other ideas:
-Some demonstration gardens may want to plan special open house events around growing these five types of plants, such as “learn how to plant your new seedlings” or “how to build your own tomato cage out of recycled materials.”
-Share a video how-to from your garden, demonstrating how your team direct sows zinnias.
-Share photos of your educational signage for growing these plants, or growing in containers.
We are excited to highlight the many demonstration gardens across the state to an eager and large audience seeking to grow healthy food on a budget.
The Grow This! Garden Challenge is a call to action to families, schools and other groups to garden together and eat what we grow. Participants receive free seeds, a monthly garden newsletter with new, simple ideas for growing; tips on harvesting, seed-starting, seed-saving and pollinators; recipes; and more. This is a project of Food Hero, whose mission is to help low-income Oregonians improve their health by increasing their consumption of fruits and vegetables, and is an initiative of Oregon Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed) program, developed by Oregon State University Extension Service and funded jointly by OSU Extension Service, Oregon Department of Human Services, and the United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service.
Hello! This is your Winter Update from your statewide Growing & Belonging committee. Four times a year we publish on the program news blog, sharing our work, findings, and resources to help keep you informed and engaged in creating a local Master Gardener program and association experience that is one of growing and belonging.
Events
Thank you to the 75 Master Gardener volunteers, faculty, and staff who gathered last month to view Dirt! The Movie on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Day of Service. Dr. Gail Langellotto shared reflections on the movie and several Master Gardeners offered their thoughts on the movie as well. I encourage you to read your fellow Master Gardeners’ words in the comments section but will share here a bit of what Donna Leveridge-Campbell wrote:
Dirt! The Movie…resonated with me in so many ways, both in my long-held beliefs and gut feelings, and that there was much synchronicity with things I have read and taken to heart. For myself, I have been considering ways I can support the dissemination of this important information and world-view in order to bring about the much-needed changes to bring health to our soils and biomes, and to our human communities.
A quote from Robin Wall Kimmerer in her phenomenal book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, that kind of sums up where I am at in my life these days is, “The most important thing each of us can know is our unique gift and how to use it in the world.” Another quote I love from this book is, “I taught my daughters to garden so that they would always have a mother to love them, long after I am gone.”
Do you or someone you know garden to connect to your culture? We would love to share your story. The Culture of Gardening storytelling site, a project of the Growing & Belonging committee, is a beautiful collection of photos and stories told in the gardener’s own words, of gardening to connect us to our heritage and foods specific to our own cooking. Please consider sharing your story or nominating a fellow gardener to be interviewed and featured. Our stories are powerful, healing, and insightful. Please email LeAnn LeAnn.Locher@OregonState.edu to be connected to the project: we promise to make it an easy and fun experience!
Webinar series: Culturally Inclusive Teaching in the Garden. A six-part series from February – June exploring ways to celebrate and center culture through garden-based learning. “Garden education is increasingly recognized as an interdisciplinary approach that integrates academic goals, health and wellness, place-based education, and community connections and relationships. However, a discussion of culture is often missing in garden-based education. To validate and celebrate the interests and experiencesof our students, we will delve deep into the significance of culture as it relates to food and gardens and also as it relates to the diverse populations with whom we work.”
A wonderful resource for all garden educators, and that certainly includes Master Gardeners!
Exhibit at the High Desert Museum in Bend: Creations of Spirit. Six Plateau artists created works recognizing and containing the spirit of their maker and will have ongoing relationships with contemporary communities. These six pieces are meant to be borrowed and used by the community. Learn more about this innovative and thoughtful project.
“A lot of times it’s hard because baskets are cherished and put behind glass and they’re never out. That’s what I really liked about this project. The basket is going to be out there and useful. It’ll wear, it’ll get dirty, and it’ll have marks of age that define its history.” – Joe Feddersen, member of the Confederated Tribes of Colville Reservation
Podcast Black Food: Liberation, Food Justice and Stewardship. Listen to this important conversation between Karen Washington and Bryant Terry on how Black Food culture is weaving the threads of a rich African agricultural heritage with the liberation of economics from an extractive corporate food oligarchy. The results can be health, conviviality, community wealth, and the power of self-determination.
Call to Action for Master Gardener Associations: Here is a wonderful book to pre-order for your Master Gardener resource library. A new children’s book by Warm Springs Elder Linda Meanus, is set to be published by Confluence and OSU Press in June 2023. Learn more about Native American history through a first-hand account, “My Name is LaMoosh” is also a reminder that Indigenous people continue to maintain a cultural connection to the land and river that gave them their identity. Preorder here.
We encourage Master Gardener volunteers to share the information and resources in this winter update with others, including your fellow volunteers. Read and together discuss these resources, consider organizing a listening session of the podcast or a group trip to an exhibit, or purchasing these publications for your Master Gardener resource library. Thank you for contributing to a growing and belonging environment in your Master Gardener program.
As part of OSU’s 41st Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration 2023, the OSU Extension Master Gardener program is proud to host an online movie screening of Dirt! The Movie.
We’ll be screening the movie online with an opportunity to chat with other attendees throughout the movie. No registration required. Free.
About Dirt! The Movie Made from the same elements as the stars, plants and animals, and us, “dirt is very much alive.” Though, in modern industrial pursuits and clamor for both profit and natural resources, our human connection to and respect for soil has been disrupted. “Drought, climate change, even war are all directly related to the way we are treating dirt.” DIRT! the Movie—directed and produced by Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow and narrated by Jaime Lee Curtis—brings to life the environmental, economic, social and political impact that the soil has. It shares the stories of experts from all over the world who study and are able to harness the beauty and power of a respectful and mutually beneficial relationship with soil. DIRT! the Movie is simply a movie about dirt. The real change lies in our notion of what dirt is. The movie teaches us: “When humans arrived 2 million years ago, everything changed for dirt. And from that moment on, the fate of dirt and humans has been intimately linked.” But more than the film and the lessons that it teaches, DIRT the Movie is a call to action.
Three questions for attendees to reflect upon prior to the movie:
Dirt! The Movie demonstrates some of the unjust systems surrounding agriculture and how our most impoverished communities are most greatly impacted. How is this seen in your region of Oregon? Who are some of these communities being impacted?
The King Center’s 2023 observance is titled “It starts with me.” Master Gardener volunteers are community educators: what responsibility do we have, as individuals and as a collective, to ensure our work strives to remove the inequities of Oregon’s different communities.
The relationship between dirt and conflict is centered in the movie. Martin Luther King Jr. used the power of words and acts of nonviolent resistance to achieve seemingly-impossible goals. What can gardeners be inspired by knowing this?
About OSU’s 41st Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration 2023
Open to Master Gardeners throughout Oregon this fall and winter, join us once a month for an evening of multiple choice trivia, all online. With 50 questions per session, learn about timely gardening topics, have fun, and earn valuable prizes.
Each session is good for one Continuing Education Credit in the Master Gardener program.
How it works
Register below for each night you plan to play. Then the night of the event, join via Zoom, and play along via the trivia app “Slido” on your phone or computer. Instructions will be sent upon registration.
There are prizes
Valuable prizes each session!
1st place: $100 gift certificate*
2nd place: $50 gift certificate*
3rd place $25 gift certificate
*Gift certificates to mail-order garden companies in the PNW such as Territorial Seed Company, Conifer Kingdom, Heirloom Roses, Noname Nursery, etc. Winners will receive gift certificates approximately one week after each event.
The whole schedule (separate registration for each):
For the Latinx and immigrant community in Lane county, gardening in community means connecting in the 7 community gardens and growing organic produce together. At an upcoming webinar by the Lane County Master Gardener Association, learn how Centro Latino Americano (formerly Huerto de la Familia) provides services and support for this great initiative, and how gardeners are teaching new gardeners in the garden. Leaders from the organization will share insight into community building through gardening, lessons learned, and examples of community engagement.
Come learn how the Lane County Master Gardener Association has fostered this important community relationship and helped to take a behind-the-scenes role in supporting Centro Latino Americano’s work.
Tuesday, September 20th, 6:30-7:30 pm. Online webinar.
In cohort I of the Master Gardener Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion task force, the curriculum subcommittee was tasked with “growing the breadth of the Master Gardener curriculum to incorporate cultural practices and multicultural competencies within the program.” This was a huge endeavor and one that will obviously take more time and resources to fully address than was available to the small group of ~15 people that were part of the curriculum workgroup. Nonetheless, this small but mighty group made amazing process across their year of work and study.
The accomplishments of the curriculum subgroup can be broken down into four categories:
Suggestions related to the redesign of specific classes that are part of the Master Gardener curriculum to include a focus on equity, inclusion, and cultural appreciation.
Assembling a list of educators who might be invited guest speakers for Master Gardener classes, conferences, or seminar series.
Assembling a library of resources that can inform culturally-specific gardening instruction and education.
Developing a community agreement that enables us to do our best work, achieve our common vision, and serve our community well.
Currently, the resources that the curriculum subgroup developed and assembled are not publically accessible. As we are starting to think about where cohort II of this task force will spend time and energy, one opportunity might be to format and annotate these curricular resources, and posting them on a publicly accessible website, with instructions or suggestions for how to best adopt, adapt, and integrate these resources into Master Gardener classes. In the meantime, we can provide a glimpse into the type of work that the curriculum subgroup completed, across each of the four categories.
Suggestions related to the redesign of specific classes that are part of the Master Gardener curriculum, to include a focus on equity, inclusion and cultural appreciation.
Group members selected a Master Gardener class topic that they remember, from their own time as a Master Gardener trainee. They made suggestions about different ways that a multi-cultural perspective could be incorporated into the class, and also offered ideas for relevant hands-on activities or field trips.
For example, one task force member suggested that Climate Change should be an integral part of Master Gardener training and that this class could include information that grows an appreciation for how land and resources were managed, before activities of a more populous civilization contributed to global warming. Another opportunity for incorporating concepts of equity into a climate change class would be to include information on the disproportionate impacts that climate change has on marginalized communities, and the role that landscaping plays in reducing risk and harm.
Another task force member suggested re-envisioning the Master Gardener ‘container gardening’ class to instead focus on Gardening in Small Spaces. The class would specifically address the broader group of people who may not think of themselves as gardeners, but nonetheless appreciate and engage with plants. This course would also dispel the myth about needing land to garden.
A third task force member suggested we incorporate excerpts from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ into a class on Native Plants. Field trips or work parties could focus on native plant conservation and an understanding of the importance of native plants that are gathered during seasonal rounds, to the Northern Paiute people that are now part of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. Other ideas included broadening the Vegetable Gardening class to include instruction on cultural growing practices that may be outside of the peer-reviewed literature.
How Cohort II Could Continue This Work: One potential task for Cohort II task force members would be to select one or two of these ideas, and formulate them into a lesson plan, that could be adopted and adapted by local counties.
Assembling a list of educators, who might be invited guest speakers for Master Gardener classes, conferences, or seminar series.
Task force members created a list of speakers that are recognized experts in their field, who could broaden our understanding of indigenous seed and food sovereignty, issues and challenges faced by black farmers and naturalists, and the history of plant biology and horticulture through a socio-cultural lens. This is part of an overall effort to diversify the voices and perspectives that we learn from, and that can inform sustainable gardening practices. This effort has been taken up by members of the 2022 Growing Oregon Gardeners: Level Up Webinar Series. For example, Todd Anderson will be part of the series later this year, and will be teaching us about specialty and culturally relevant vegetables, fruits, and herbs, and how to grow them in Oregon.
How Cohort II Could Continue This Work: Cohort II task force members might continue to grow this list of potential speakers. Also needed are specific guidelines and recommendations related to fair compensation for speakers’ time, knowledge, and talents.
Assembling a library of resources to inform culturally-specific gardening instruction and education.
How Cohort II Could Continue This Work: Cohort II task force members might continue to grow and annotate this list of resources, with an eye on how to make them publically accessible to the other Master Gardener coordinators and volunteers.
Developing a community agreement that enables us to do our best work, achieve our common vision, and serve our community well.
Finally, the curriculum subcommittee developed a community agreement that was an important first step in moving forward with their work. A community agreement is what every person in a group needs from each other and commits to each other in order to feel safe, supported, open, productive and trusting, so that all can do their best work, achieve a common vision, and serve the community well. When thinking about a community agreement, it is important to contrast agreements with the norms and rules that also influence our work.
Agreements are an aspiration, or collective vision, for how we want to be in relationship with one another. They are explicitly developed and enforced by the group, not by an external authority, and as such must represent a consensus.
Norms are the ways in which we behave and are currently in relationship to each other, whether consciously and explicitly or not.
Rules are mandated and enforced by an authority, and do not necessarily reflect the will or buy-in of the group.
Here are the community agreements developed by a working group of the DEI Taskforce in cohort 1. They suggest that we adopt these agreements for our work in cohort 2 of the taskforce. By participating in this work group, all members agree to the following:
I speak for myself: use “I” statements, and do not assume others in the group ascribe to your identity or experience.
Intent vs impact: before sharing, consider how what you say will affect others in the group.
One speaker at a time: when one person talks, everyone listens. Let people know when you are finished talking.
Community wisdom: nobody knows everything, but together we know a lot.
Take space and give space: be mindful of how much you’re participating. If you have been quiet, speak up. If you have dominated the conversation, make space for others to participate.
Confidentiality: details shared in this space stay here, but what’s learned goes with you.
Active participation: it’s better to be open and imperfect than to not participate.
Embrace discomfort and expect non-closure. Learning and growth are stressful: hold space for those feelings.
How Cohort II Could Continue This Work: Cohort II task force members have an opportunity to officially consider and adopt the community agreement crafted by our colleagues.
