President’s Corner

This is the time of year when gardeners are busy planning their next gardens: evaluating what went well last year, buying and planting seeds, as well as pruning and fertilizing.

As a gardener, I am constantly monitoring what works well and making changes as needed. In wanting to improve my gardening skills, I read books, ask an expert whom I trust, and attend classes (either online or in person.) We are very fortunate to have access to many great gardening books and educational classes on gardening.

Have you heard of the “10-Minute University” online videos?  They are created by the Clackamas Master Gardeners Association. These are great, research-based educational videos on a variety of gardening topics. You can access them at  https://clackamascountymastergardeners.org/10-minute-university/ . These are free to view. Some of the videos available are:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzZ_XsWj_84 Home Orchards
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AMD5EuJatw Growing and Caring for Blueberries
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnMfVqCY6J4 Fruit Tree Pruning

Another great resource for getting information is the OSU Level Up Series  https://extension.oregonstate.edu/mg/growing-oregon-gardeners-level-series. This site contains a variety of gardening topics from the past four years, all free!

Grace Florjancic, our Master Gardener Coordinator, schedules some wonderful speakers during the year for Community Education. I encourage you to investigate them.

While you are planning your garden for this year, please consider planting an extra row of produce for our Plant a Row project. The donated produce which we collect from late July through September is given to the Medford Access to help those families who are struggling with obtaining nutritional food. Last year, JCMGA donated a whopping 1,000 pounds of produce from our JCMGA Vegetable Demonstration Garden and members’ home gardens! Thank you to those of you who donated.

Enjoy Your Gardening!