Community veggie start donations a success!

Dear Gardeners,

Happy June! This month, I’d like to highlight incredible work done by some members of the 2020 class, plus include some other program updates.

Community Veggie Start Donations: Over the past few months, Ann Hackett, Carolyn Gale, Debbie Connolly, and Barbara Low (all class of 2020) have been raising vegetable starts to donate locally to their local neighborhoods and communities, utilizing greenhouses and other propagation space they had available at home, and either using their own seeds, or using seeds from the Grow This! Challenge.
Debbie and Barbara are still nurturing their herb and flower starts (as of mid-May). Carolyn and Ann both had very successful donation events from their homes (which were pre-approved by OSU and followed COVID safety guidelines). Carolyn raised several hundred starts and donated about 200 over the course of a weekend from her home to her neighborhood and local community. Ann donated 808 starts to friends, neighbors, and to Almeda fire victims at the ‘New Roots Almeda Plant Gifting’ event at the Habitat for Humanity in south Medford on May 15th. Both Ann and Carolyn developed a handout for how to care for starts, with a lot of help from Ronnie Budge and Lynn Kunstman, who helped with content. Ann provided details of what she raised, which included 12 varieties of tomatoes, 17 varieties of peppers, four varieties of eggplant, and four varieties of tomatillos. She also gave away flower seeds which she had saved from previous years.

Together, Ann and Carolyn donated over 1,000 vegetable starts to their communities, plus provided folks with high-quality information on how to care for those starts. Thank you for your amazing contributions to the community and thank you to those who helped Ann, Carolyn, Debbie, and Barbara along the way.

Program Updates: If you have not yet been tuning into the ‘Growing Oregon Gardeners: Level-Up Series’, it’s not too late! Our next talk with be on June 8, titled ‘Unique Winter Vegetables to Grow’. Registration information is here.

Currently, OSU has not yet provided additional guidance on how being vaccinated affects volunteerism, but I will keep you all posted as I hear new information.

From the Statewide Office – Your Questions Answered: Please see the latest blog post from the statewide Master Gardener Program office, where you’ll find answers to your questions about 2021 recertification and 2022 Master Gardener Program Training.

Thanks for all you do, everyone!

– Erika