Coordinator’s Column

 

 

Happy New Year and happy gardening! The beginning of a new year is a great time to reflect on all the accomplishments of the past year. Master Gardener volunteers have been busy beavers across the county.

We kicked off the spring with a great crew of new students to the Master Gardener class, and ended the year with a wonderful graduation dinner to celebrate all their hard work. Congratulations to our new batch of Master Gardeners!  And a big round of applause to all our volunteers for completing over 8,750 volunteer hours! Thank you for all your hard work.

We held a bustling Spring Garden Fair back at the Expo Center. Gardeners from across the county came in droves to purchase the vegetable plants grown in the Practicum classes. We nearly sold out of them on the first day! Even though a lot of prep goes into it, the Spring Garden Fair provides a great opportunity for our local gardeners to purchase supplies, plants, and garden-themed art all in one place.

We formed new community partnerships this past year that strengthen our program’s priority on local food accessibility. Rogue Retreat was a pleasure to work with on the Seed to Supper classes. In class, we got hands-on practice transplanting and direct sowing veggies in their garden plot. One of the participants told me they had a ton of tomatoes this past summer. We also tabled at Rogue Food Unites’ free produce markets, handing out gardening resources and microgreen growing kits. ACCESS reached out in fall for us to bring the fun to their pantry sites as well in 2026.

This winter has been full of planning for 2026. I have been planning educational classes and programming. I am sure you all are planning your gardens. If you are growing veggies this year, consider planting onions, garlic, peppers, tomatillos, and tomatoes, tomatoes, and more tomatoes, to donate to ACCESS.

Rest up this winter and have a great 2026!