- Articles for the October Garden Beet due by September 15th. Send articles to jcmgabeet569@gmail.com
September
- Nominations for the 2026 JCMGA Board due. Contact Linda Millus.
- JCMGA September Board Meeting will be on September 12th.
- JCMGA Board Fall Retreat will be on September 19th.
- JCMGA Fall Plant Sale will be Saturday, September 27th at the SOREC Extension.
- We are collecting produce (fruit and vegetables) donations on Wednesdays from 9-12 p.m. – which will be given to Access. Please bring your produce to the Gather Place at the SOREC Extension.
October
- Winter Dreams Summer Gardens 2025 – October 17, 18, 24, and 25. Register now at the JCMGA Website https://jacksoncountymga.org/winter-dreams-summer-gardens-symposium/
It has been a busy Summer. Working in my garden is always something that I really enjoy. It gives me time to work with my plants and try to solve any gardening problems, while also starting to make plans for next year’s garden. It is good exercise physically and mentally, and it is very relaxing at the same time. Despite the extreme summer heat, I can get lost in my thoughts while working with my plants. I hope that you all are enjoying your gardens as well.
JCMGA is a very active organization. We have many things going on at JCMGA.
- Plant a Row Project – If you have any extra produce from your garden, bring it to the Gather Place at the SOREC Extension on Wednesdays from 9am-12pm. The produce will be given to Medford Access.
- JCMGA 2026 Board of Directors –We are looking for people to serve as Assistant Treasurer, Recording Secretary, or President-Elect. Please contact Linda Millus if interested.
- Demonstration Gardens – These gardens at SOREC are looking wonderful. If you would like to volunteer in any of the Demonstration Gardens, please contact Marcie Katz.
- 2026 Practicum Mentors are needed – JCMGA has a Practicum for Master Gardener Students to gain hands on gardening experience. Please see the enclosed article.
- The JCMGA Fall Plant Sale – This will be on Saturday, September 27, and will be held at SOREC.
- OSU Plant Clinic – Located at SOREC Extension, open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 10-2 p.m. Bring in any plant or insect problems or questions.
JCMGA has many volunteers who give their time and expertise to help in a variety of ways to share our love and knowledge of gardening.
Thank you for all that you do for JCMGA.
Hello Gardeners,
You all have spent time out in the gardens learning about and maintaining the plants, but did you know that you can invite your friends and family to volunteer and learn alongside you?
The demonstration gardens have been a thriving way to gather and learn with one another. The gardens have been opened up for non-Master Gardeners to volunteer and join in on the action. Through Friends of the Garden, parents, spouses, kids, and friends of Master Gardener Volunteers have been getting their hands dirty! This is another way for us to share our knowledge and joy of gardening with the larger community of Jackson County.
How do you bring in someone to become a Friend of the Garden? It’s easy! Reach out to Grace Florjancic at grace.florjancic@oregonstate.edu to make sure a waiver is signed and your Garden Friend has an orientation of the demonstration gardens. Bringing a friend is also a great way for a Master Gardener to get back into the swing of volunteering in the gardens.
Happy gardening!
A BIG THANK YOU to those of you who have volunteered to be nominated for the 2026 JCMGA Board of Directors.
We are looking for new, and experienced, members of Master Gardeners to serve on our Jackson County Master Gardener Board of Directors for 2026. Could that be YOU, or someone you can recommend?
Please consider becoming a member of the board – the governing body of the association. The board adopts the budget, sets policy, and generally oversees the present and future direction of JCMGA. Meetings are held the second Friday of each month. Your input is important, and fresh perspectives on how we move forward are the key to our success.
We are still looking for nominees for the following positions:
- Vice-President/President-Elect
- Assistant Treasurer
- Recording Secretary
Contact Linda Millus, President-Elect, at lmillus@outlook.com if you want to nominate yourself or someone else.
Please submit any nominations by September 10th
“I love this photo of a large crab spider on a brightly colored zinnia flower, with its crown of yellow and cheerful pink petals. The dichotomy of beauty and a dangerous predator struck me. This photo also represents a paradigm shift in my garden.
At first my new raised flower beds were populated solely by cucumber beetles and a handful of honeybees. The leaves were brown, and all of my flowers were full of holes. I saw no sign of the native pollinator and predator diversity I observe in my long-established pollinator garden, existing in its own world no more than 60 feet away.
Then everything changed. The spiders and ambush bugs came! Bumblebees, hummingbirds, butterflies, docile solitary wasps, and native bees! The diabrotica slowly vanished as the ecosystem righted itself. The flowers outgrew their insect damage without any intervention from me. That almost magical change happened at the very time I took this photograph.”
Growing and Harvesting a Crop
No matter how pretty those tomato flowers are, pinch them off when you transplant your tomatoes! I continue to pinch any new buds until my plants have gotten significantly bigger, so the plant can focus on root and foliage growth. This is one of the most useful tips I learned from the Master Gardener class! — Nicole Smith, Class of 2023
Shear plant tips off above your larger green tomatoes in mid-September. This preserves energy for ripening them, rather than wasting it on smaller tomatoes that won’t have time to mature before the frost hits them. – Jordan and the Two JRT’s
Keep tomatoes uniformly moist, but not wet. 
Mulch heavily with straw to keep the roots cool.
Tie up vines to avoid losing branches due to a heavy load.
Don’t prune off too many of the leaves. They protect the fruit from getting sun scald.
Tomatoes are ripe when the “hinge” at the top of the stem breaks easily. — Susan Koenig
My most important advice when planting tomatoes is to add calcium to the soil in the form of dolomite lime (calcium magnesium carbonate) to avoid blossom end rot. This would go in along with your bone meal and organic tomato fertilizer. — Tom Capsey
At the very first sign of a calcium deficiency (brown/black spots at the bottom of the growing tomatoes) apply calcium as a foliar spray, rather than applying it to the roots. The calcium will be available faster and more efficiently to the fruit through the leaf stomata. Blossom end rot can’t be cured or reversed; however, the incoming tomato fruits will have a better chance of maturing nicely! — Emma H
Water well. It’s better to soak the roots thoroughly once every several days than it is to water lightly every day, as soaking will encourage deeper root growth. One good rule of thumb is to water when the top one inch of soil has dried. This often averages to about one gallon of water a week in the heat of summer.
Watering early in the day is considered a best practice. The water won’t evaporate too quickly, and any splash on the plants will have a chance to dry off as the day warms.
If your plants are looking slightly wilted late in the heat of the day, that’s not necessarily a sign that water is needed. Check the soil first. On the other hand, if they are wilted in the morning and they don’t have any disease, they are in need of water. — Advice Jane learned from the Practicum
“Growing Knowledge” logo designed by Diann Abbott. Thank you Diann!
Tomato photos courtesy of Susan Koenig
Nicole Smith and I are the leaders of the JCMGA Practicum, and we are excited about being a part of the upcoming JCMGA 2026 Practicum. We need new mentors! New mentors will be paired with an experienced mentor, and training will be provided for each Practicum lesson. We are here to support all of our mentors and Master Gardener students.
We are among the very few Master Gardener programs in Oregon that offer a Practicum. The Practicum gives a unique opportunity to have enough hours of practice for students to feel confident that they deserve to be called a Master Gardener when they graduate from the Master Gardener and Practicum programs. The Practicum is focused on home gardening and includes a variety of lessons which are designed to help students become more effective gardeners.
What is the time commitment?
- September 17: kickoff meeting for Practicum 2026
- October TBA: Practicum Teams begin meeting once a month. The four teams are Seed, Greenhouse Maintenance, Native Plants, and Curriculum. You choose the team you want to be a part of!
- December TBA: 2-3 afternoons to clean and prepare the greenhouses for the upcoming Practicum.
- January 7: 2026 Practicum Training Meeting
- January 28-Mid-May: Weekly Wednesday Mentor meetings are held to review the upcoming week’s Practicum lesson and provide any necessary updates.
- January 29-Mid-May: Practicum for students begins.
o You would be working with one group of Practicum students once a week
I have found this to be a very meaningful and wonderful experience. We look forward to expanding our team of knowledgeable, caring, and supportive individuals
Jackson County Master Gardener™ Practicum (MGP)
Mentor Expectations
- Attitudes
- Willingness to share gardening knowledge in a pleasant and friendly way
- Understanding that there is always more than one way to accomplish a task, with a recognition that consistency is needed between MGP sessions
- Respect for students as educated adults who often know more about gardening than we do
- Ability to treat students with kindness, dignity, and respect at all times
- Willingness to have open-minded discussions of practices and procedures during mentor meetings without making personal attacks or taking the discussions personally
- Willingness to check email daily and respond promptly when needed
- Requirements
- Graduated of the Master Gardener Program
- Completed the optional Practicum
- Certified or re-certified Master Gardener
- Member of JCMGA (membership renewed and annual dues paid)
- Meetings/ Work Days
- Attending meetings, training, and workdays September-January (may be canceled if necessary)
- Attending Wednesday meetings when MGP is in session to review the lesson for the week and discuss any issues that have come up during the week (~2 hrs each week)
- Helping with Wednesday care of plants and any other needed tasks that arise (time required is dependent upon the number of plants and the weather)
- Helping on additional workdays as needed (time required dependent upon task)
- Working with Students ~4 hrs/wk
- Working with co-mentors to facilitate weekly meetings with students ~3.5 hrs/wk
- Sharing responsibilities with co-mentors for teaching, supervising student activities, maintaining records, cleanup, etc.
- Meeting weekly with co-mentors to plan & assign week’s activities ~30 min/wk
- Working with co-mentors to assure that all tasks are accomplished each week ~30 min/wk
- Reviewing all documents and videos on the website and/or handouts in class (time varies each week)
- Coming to your weekly session prepared to teach (time varies each week)
- Sharing the Load
- Joining one or more Practicum teams (Curriculum Team, Seed Team, Greenhouse Maintenance Team, Native Plants Nursery Team) to work on items that are needed for the Practicum to run.
- Sharing one-time and on-going tasks required to keep the MGP running smoothly
- Participating in the Spring Garden Fair and/or the MGP After Sale
- Sharing the joys of being a mentor
- The Mentor Attitude
- Camaraderie with other mentors
- Continued learning
- Opportunity to give back to the community
- Sense of satisfaction
- FUN!
We hope that you will seriously consider joining our team!
Contact me at barbarlow@msn.com if you have any questions and if you would be interested
in joining our Practicum Mentor Team.
Unfortunately, Robert Coffan will not be able to be one of our presenters. We are very pleased that Tom Landis will be able to be one of our presenters!
Title of Talk: Monarchs and Milkweeds: Creating Habitat to Attract Monarch Butterflies and Other Pollinators
Brief Biography for Tom Landis:
Tom is a forester who retired after 30 years of working as a nursery specialist for the US Forest Service, and has spent the last 15 years creating pollinator habitat in southern Oregon. He is a co-founder of the Southern
Oregon Monarch Advocates, and on the Board of Directors for the Western Monarch Advocates.
Habitat for pollinators means native milkweeds, the only host plant for monarch butterflies, and nectar plants which monarchs and other pollinators use for food. Using his nursery experience, Tom has been growing our 2 native milkweeds as well as an increasing number of nectar plants. Due to a continuing interest in monarch restoration, Tom has given around 120 monarchs and milkweeds workshops in the Northwestern US but as far away as a Society of Ecological Restoration meeting in Manchester, England.
To encourage the use of local native milkweeds and other pollinator plants, Tom helped write a booklet Native Pollinator Plants for Southern Oregon. He also co-authored an article which was published in the Spring 2018 issue of the Native Plants Journal entitled “Using native plants to create pollinator habitat in southwest Oregon: lessons learned”.
Presentation Summary:
My talk will begin by discussing the current status of the western monarch butterfly, and what we can do to help rebuild populations after their recent crash. Monarchs are charismatic emblems of good environmental stewardship, and our recovery efforts have received tremendous popular support.
The main focus of this workshop will be a discussion on how to establish monarch waystations – specialized pollinator gardens that include milkweed. Since milkweed is the only plant that monarch caterpillars can eat, we’ll talk about the importance of using native milkweed species. Nectar from flowers is the only food source for butterflies, including monarchs, so we’ll discuss the best native nectar species that flower in the early season, mid-season, and especially late season. Late blooming nectar plants are critical to fuel migrating monarchs and help them build-up fat reserves to sustain them overwinter.
The Winter Dreams Summer Gardens Symposium is growing nearer by the day. I know you have been waiting patiently since last month to see the final five presentations which have been expertly crafted and brought to you by the JCMGA Winter Dreams Summer Gardens Working Group. The wait is over, here they are!
Registration is open. Have you reserved your virtual spot? Join us October 17, 18, 24, and 25 from the comfort of your home via Zoom and dream your summer garden into being.
Oregon Butterflies and the Native Plants That Host Them 
Presented by Lynn Kunstman
North American insects have evolved to feed on native plants. If we want to increase the number and variety (abundance and diversity) of butterflies in our yards and gardens, we need to nurture those plants on which their larvae feed. Each family of plants hosts a specific suite of butterflies with whom they share evolutionary relationships. In some cases, a single Genus of plant hosts a specialized lepidoptera species – as with milkweed (Asclepias) and the monarch butterfly. This presentation will show you Oregon’s beautiful native butterflies and the plants that support them. Get ready to add some winged color to your yard by choosing native plants!
Lynn Kunstman began gardening with her parents in Lafayette, California as a young child. She has a degree in Wildlife Management from Humboldt State University and, after moving to Ashland in 1986, obtained a Master of Science in Education from SOU. After teaching middle school special ed and science for 22 years, she retired to Medford, where she grew a huge vegetable garden; harvesting and preserving food crops year-round. She became a Master Gardener in 2012, and a Master Food Preserver in 2013. Most recently her focus has been on gardening for wildlife and pollinators. Lynn is the Master Gardener Speaker on the monthly gardening show Garden for Life on Jefferson Public Radio. Her quarter acre lot in Medford is certified as a Monarch Way Station, a Pollinator Garden, and a Wildlife Habitat. In 2023 she was named Oregon State Master Gardener of the Year. She established and runs the native plants nursery at Jackson County Extension Campus. She also rears, tags and releases monarch butterflies as part of a citizen science effort through University of Washington.
What’s Your Garden Future? Talking Climate Change with Oregon’s Gardeners
Presented by LeAnn Locher
Across Oregon, gardeners are noticing the impacts of climate change and adapting their practices in creative and meaningful ways. In this session, we’ll share what we’ve heard from hundreds of gardeners—what they’re seeing, what they’re doing, and what support they need most. We’ll also introduce the Garden Future campaign, a statewide effort to support climate-resilient gardening with practical tools, resources, and community connections. Join us to explore how your garden can grow a more resilient future.
LeAnn Locher is an award-winning communications strategist with more than 20 years of experience spanning national agencies, nonprofit consulting, and higher education. At Oregon State University Extension, she serves as the lead communication strategist for the Master Gardener program, where her work has earned national recognition for public engagement and outreach. LeAnn is the strategist behind Garden Future, a statewide initiative that explores how Oregon gardeners are experiencing and responding to climate change. Her work focuses on co-creating a climate-resilient gardening culture grounded in science, community values, and practical action. She is the Statewide Outreach Coordinator for the OSU Extension Master Gardener program.
From Soil to Soul: Regenerative Veggie Gardening 
Presented by Rhianna Simes, M.S. Ed.
Grow Regeneratively: Healthy Soil, Healthy Food, Healthy You. We will cover how to incorporate veggies into a beautiful garden and landscape that feeds your family, tips on what grows well, seed selection, and ideas for season extension. If you are what you eat, you want to grow something really good! Come learn how!
Rhianna Simes (wry-anna sims) recently retired from 10 years as an instructor at the Oregon State University Extension Service, where she developed the Land Steward program, and coordinated the Master Gardener program for several years. Rhianna earned a Master of Science in Education and Botany from Southern Oregon University in Ashland, as well as a certificate in Plant Pathology from OSU. Rhianna lives with her husband and two young children outside Phoenix, OR. They operate their own certified organic farm called Verdant Phoenix Farm & Nursery (verdantphoenix.com), which specializes in organic plant starts, willow basketry, perennial food, healthy soil and natural farming. Rhianna is also a nonprofit consultant and grant writer with Growing Assets for Nonprofit Excellence.
The Basics of Limnology: Water Cycle, Nitrogen Cycle, and Wellness Benefits from Water Features 
Presented by Zach Wooldridge
In my presentation I will discuss the positive effects of water and being near water, and the wellness that the sound of water can bring. I’ll also discuss how water gardens and hydroponics improve upon and bolster our traditional gardens.
Zach Wooldridge is the owner of Neptune’s Ponds and Water Gardens. He has over 20 years of construction experience, getting his start in excavation and large-scale farm ponds. He currently designs and builds custom water features including Koi ponds, swim ponds, waterfalls and backyard oases. He’s not just a builder – he’s an artist at heart and is known for creating peaceful, nature-inspired beautiful spaces. In his free time he enjoys playing pickleball and spending time with his wife and 3 kids.
Lawn Alternatives
Presented by Lucretia Weems
Are you curious about changing some or all your landscape to something beyond the traditional grass lawn? Join us in exploring several sustainable and attractive options and learn more about the growing Unlawning Movement.
Classically trained in the UCLA Landscape Architecture program, Lucretia Weems has been gardening and designing landscapes in the Rogue Valley for over 20 years. She has been taking out lawn in her own homes for even longer!
Oregon State University Extension
