November
JCMGA Chapter Directory Photo Contest
A Busy MonthThis month we have had a lot going on in JCMGA!
Our Board and working groups are busy leading and supporting our organization and keeping us moving forward. I have the honor and pleasure of working with a great group of people at JCMGA!
On Friday, October 4, we held our JCMGA Fall Board Retreat. We reviewed and revised our JCMGA 2024 Strategic Plan. This plan helps us to keep focused on our goals and what we are doing to reach those goals. Part of the Strategic Plan shows how the different working groups work together to reach our goals. During our retreat, we had some productive discussions and brainstorming. We were also able to start a draft of our JCMGA 3-year and 5-year plans.
There are exciting things happening in JCMGA!
On top of all that is going on with JCMGA, the Creepy Old House is being demolished.
If you would like to become more involved in any way, please reach out to the working group’s chairs or me, Barbara Low. We would love to have you join us!
Hello Gardeners,
As we wrap up the Master Gardener Volunteer year, we have many accomplishments to look back on. We have a great group of students moving on to graduate this month, a plentiful second year of our Plant a Row Campaign produce donations to ACCESS food pantries, and a successful kick off of the Cultivating Companions program.
Our MG class of 2024 were wonderful students to work with. Many students have carved out their niche spaces of where they like to fit into the organization. This year’s students have been seen around the Demonstration Gardens, Plant Clinic, across the county in tabling events, and out teaching in the libraries this past year. Congrats on all your hard work and we can’t wait to see what you all get up to next year.
Our second year of the Plant a Row Campaign to collect produce donations was a ringing success. We collected 812 pounds of produce this summer at our Wednesday collections! We had additional donations to food pantries outside of our campaign, bringing our total number of produce donated to 952 pounds. This produce has been greatly appreciated by ACCESS and our community members that receive fresh produce from them. Much of our Wednesday collections left the ACCESS warehouse on Thursday to be delivered to ACCESS housing locations around Medford. This partnership has been a huge success that we will continue to foster in the upcoming years.
The Cultivating Companions program was piloted this year in rural libraries around the county. We found it fun for both the instructors and the participants. People ended up befriending neighbors they didn’t know, learning skills about growing plants, and laughing with each other. The libraries have been amazing hosts for these group classes, assisting with scheduling and technology. Our extra supplies from our generous grant means that next year’s program activities are already set to go.
Thank you everyone for a great year of volunteering, educating, and community building! I am looking forward to working with you all in 2025!
Each month, as you sit back and enjoy reading your Garden Beet, do you frequently marvel at how free of errors all of the articles are? Perhaps you have considered submitting articles yourself but are intimidated by the flawless written beauty that appears so effortless to other Beet authors. How could your work measure up when, in your attempts, writing errors have been inevitable and ubiquitous?
Actually, errors in writing are common to us all. The brain becomes so involved with the story being related in writing, it fails to see each individual letter. Thus, it beocemes psoibble to raed snetecnces croretcly taht are lodaed wtih splleing msitaeks.
Recognizing this common human foible, the Garden Beet utilizes a team of MG volunteers who proofread monthly submissions for possible errors. Each article is first approved by the JCMGA president and then it passes through a first and a second reading by the editors, before being returned for publishing.
For the past four years, Lisa Brill has expertly held the reigns as the Coordinating Editor. Using her considerable organizational skills, she has smoothly moved the articles from one person in the five-person chain to the next. Considering some months have as many as ten articles, this is no small feat; however, Lisa has handled the task with aplomb.
Now that Lisa has become president of her biking club, she is stepping away from the coordinating position. Fortunately, she will continue to provide us with her skilled editing service. Thank you Lisa!
We invite you to confidently submit articles to The Beet and share your gardening knowledge and experience with your MG family. Just email them to barbaralow@msn.com. You can rest assured that the editors will be here to correct your typos, undangle your participles, convince your subjects and verbs to agree, and wrangle your run-ons. Write on!
It’s that time of year when we open our Membership Renewal process. We are asking each renewing member to complete the 2025 Membership form. This can be done online or via paper form.
This form serves two vital purposes. First, it assures the Membership Secretary has your most current information regarding your address, phone number, email and year you completed your education. The second purpose is for you to identify where you want to share your knowledge, skills and abilities in 2025. There are so many opportunities for you to assist the organization with projects and/or committees. A project leader will know to contact you when your area of interest is meeting or working on a project.
We have added a box that allows you to limit how much of your contact information is listed in the directory, but we do need some contact information – preferably emails. If you choose not to have your street address listed you will have to pick up your directory at the Extension office because it will not be mailed out.
The yearly renewal fee is still $25.00 and a real bargain. We ask that all renewal forms be returned by January 31st to be included in the directory which will come out in the Spring of 2025. Thank you for supporting the process and we look forward to seeing you renew your membership.
You can renew your membership at https://jacksoncountymga.org/membership-renewal/
The Marketing and Technology Working Group is looking for a few good new members!
Would you like to help plan and promote Master Gardener events? If any Master Gardener Working Group needs help with advertising and promoting an event we are at their service. If you have experience with media groups, PSA’s or just getting the word out, then we are the group for you!
Don’t you just love technology? If so, come and join us! We welcome all ideas regarding technology and how it can be used to make our lives easier and better.
Some tasks include
We would be happy to train you and support you through the process.
If you’re interested in working with Marketing and Technology WG, please email Barbara Low at barbaralow@msn.com.
We had so much fun this summer having snacks each Wednesday with the GEMS and students who worked so hard beautifying our extension grounds! Thanks to everyone who added their snacks to share. (Extra thanks to my spouse Ron for helping me with snack transportation).
Our ‘Gathering spot’ was a wonderful place to come together, rest from the morning’s work, and visit as we nibbled away on veggies, cookies, brownies, sausage rolls, and so much more. Luna (Marcie’s dog) was always the first to respond to the break bell and see if someone would share their snack with her. Our picture doesn’t include the many students who didn’t happen to be there on the last day.
We posed in front of one of the artistic creations on the pod wall that also grew along with our plants this summer. We would arrive to find updates by our Master Gardener artists; new bees and a beehive, flowers, birds, clouds. It is worth a visit to the gardens to see their wonderful addition to our gathering place.
There were other additions to our Master Gardener family as well. We welcomed Sweet Baby Jane (daughter of Nichole and Brian Smith & granddaughter of volunteer Marie Carbone) whom we so enjoyed meeting on several Wednesdays. (Actually, we’ve had a baby born each of the last two years so I’m wondering who will be next to bring us a new little one in 2025??) Growing our master gardener community made this a wonderful summer to remember.
Editor’s note: Pam, on behalf of all of us who so greatly enjoyed your weekly spread of delectables, I say thank you to you and Ron. You treated us well!
The Jackson County Master Gardener Association is very fortunate to offer a wonderful educational opportunity to its members and people in our community. The Winter Dreams/ Summer Gardens Symposium (WDSG) is an educational opportunity for people to learn more about a variety of gardening topics. We have gone from providing this as a strictly in-person educational event, to providing it as a virtual event. We can now record the presentations and make them available to those who register for WDSG. People are able to view the presentation(s) more than once from their home until the end of December.
This year we had 16 wonderful presentations on a wide range of topics. Presenters hailed from California and across the state of Oregon. We had several of our own JCMGA members as presenters as well – Regina Boykins, Bonni Engelhardt, Grace Florjancic, Marcie Katz, Susan Koenig, Lynn Kunstman, Barbara Low, and Marsha Waite. A BIG THANK YOU TO OUR PRESENTERS!!
In 2022 we started asking Winter Dreams/ Summer Gardens participants to complete an evaluation survey. Our working group uses the information gained from the survey to plan for the next event. For those of you who participated in Winter Dreams/ Summer Gardens 2024, please complete and submit the evaluation survey which you will receive via email. We rely upon your suggestions to improve and expand this event so it meets the needs of gardeners.
I want to thank this year’s Winter Dreams/ Summer Gardens Working Group for all their hard work. Members include Colet Allen, Blake Elliott, Teresa Jarratt, Susan Koenig, and me. They have spent hours brainstorming and planning the details for this event. They even spent an afternoon preparing flyers to mail to landscapers. We have expanded our audience to include landscapers in Oregon so they can earn continuing education hours to recertify their landscaper’s licenses.
I also want to give a special shout out to:
A big “Thank You” to all who were presenters and/or hosts, and to those who attended the sessions.
The Creepy Old House (COH) had been home to many Master Gardener students over the years. We fondly remember its heyday for the
friends we made and lessons we learned there. But now the building will fade into our history, as Phase 1 of demolition started the week of October 21, 2024.
When I entered the demo gardens this morning (10/23/24) I was so surprised to see work commencing on the COH. This first phase is asbestos remediation. Balfor is a local contractor and expert in this field. One of their folks, Ben, took time to explain the many precautions they must take while working with asbestos, since no particles of asbestos can be released into the air.
They create something like a plastic balloon with separate enclosures for dirty and clean inside the COH. Their technicians wear full hazard suits. When the air is finally released into the atmosphere it is represented to be cleaner than the native air. It’s quite an impressive process!
Of course, there are several more phases to come. But as exciting as the new classroom project is, I admit I felt a pang of nostalgia as I took the ol’ girl’s photos. 
I am continuing this series of articles and hope that you find them helpful and inspiring. In November, there is quite a bit to do in the garden
depending on what you want to grow. Time to make sure that we are ready for winter. By caring for our gardens, we are also caring for ourselves – physically, mentally, and emotionally.
The Jackson County Master Gardener Association has a great resource for gardeners to use. It is the Garden Guide for the Rogue Valley – Year-Round & Month by Month. This great reference book for gardeners is mainly about growing vegetables, berries, and melons.
November is the time to:
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Garden Guide for the Rogue Valley – Year-Round & Month by Month. This book contains a wealth of gardening information. You can purchase it at our local Grange Co-op or at the OSU Extension office for $21.00. It can also be purchased on-line at https://jacksoncountymga.org/shop/. Note that a shipping fee will be applied.
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Happy Gardening
Garden For Life
Oregon State University Extension
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