Growing Oregon Gardeners: Level Up Series

About the presenter:

Nicole Sanchez is Assistant Professor in Horticulture with Oregon State University Extension Service. She is based in Klamath County and additionally serves Lake and Harney County. She coordinates the Klamath County Master Gardener program and is a member of the Small Farms team.

Learn how to design living fences.

We see them at the edges of farm fields or along roads: rows of trees, shrubs, flowers and grasses known as hedgerows. They are living fences with the ability to grow food, shelter wildlife, save water, manage weeds and look beautiful all year round. In this session, we will explore how to design and utilize these multi-functional plantings as a way to achieve multiple land management goals. Learn more and register here.

About the presenter:

Pami Monnette serves as the Home Horticulture, Small Farms and Forestry faculty with Lincoln County OSU Extension. She coordinates the Master Gardener volunteer program and works with the farming and forestry community to serve Lincoln County’s vibrant natural resource industries. She has been with OSU Extension since 2010 and earned her Masters in Public Policy from OSU focusing on agricultural and rural issues. She is dedicated to working collaboratively with partners in order to support a thriving local natural resource economy and a healthy community food system.

Persistent herbicides sometimes make their way into the regional composting system. Unsuspecting gardeners then purchase herbicide contaminated compost and soil mix leading to plant damage. Learn how to recognize the damage, what to do about it, and how to avoid the problem. Also learn how to use compost in your vegetable garden, landscape, and lawn. Avoid problems from over applying compost. Learn more and register here.

About the presenter:

Weston Miller is a community and urban horticulturalist for OSU Extension Service. He manages the OSU Master Gardener program in the Portland metro area and works with Metro to reduce residential pesticide use. He also manages the Beginning Urban Farmer Apprenticeship Program in cooperation with Multnomah County.

Come learn all about growing delicious dahlias! In this class we'll cover choosing varieties that do well in your site, how to prep your site and how to plant, care and tend your dahlias throughout the season. Learn what to watch out for and how to plan and treat common pests and diseases. Dahlias need a little love and support, but in the end you're rewarded with a gorgeous flower garden and beautiful cut flowers. More information and registration to come. 

About the presenter:

Julie Huynh lives in Otis, Oregon, on the central Oregon Coast. She owns Julie’s Dahlias where she's been growing dahlias for over seven years. Julie is a member and a judge of the Portland Dahlia Society and also helps judge dahlia shows in the Pacific Northwest. She is a OSU Extension Master Gardener volunteer and prior to growing dahlias, she grew and showed roses.

Get the scoop on water-wise gardening: a style of gardening that uses little or no supplemental water in a landscape resulting in saved money, time, and natural resources. We’ll look at some of the basic principles of water-wise gardening and have some examples of these types of gardens. You will leave inspired to incorporate more water-wise gardening into your own home landscape!  More information and registration to come.

About the presenter:  

Erika Szonntag joined OSU Extension in 2018 as the Master Gardener program coordinator at the Southern Oregon Research and Extension Center.  Her interests include water-wise gardening, native plants, pollinator health, urban forestry, and gardening to support local ecosystems. She holds a Master's degree in Agriculture from Colorado State University with and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Paraguay with Agriculture Extension (2014-2016). Erika has worked on urban forest health and post-fire conifer regeneration studies, has led habitat restoration and tree planting projects, and has worked as a professional gardener.  

Take a deep dive into some of the more underappreciated winter vegetables! We'll cover garlic, radicchio (a form of leaf chicory) celeriac, or celery root, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, winter squash and purple sprouting broccoli, to name a few. Basic winter gardening techniques to add these delectable veggies to your plates in winter will also be covered. More information and registration to come. 

About the presenter:

Lane Selman is Professor of Practice at Oregon State University and the founder of the Culinary Breeding Network. She has worked with organic farmers, plant breeders and chefs for over 15 years. Lane’s work has been featured in the media including Food & Wine, The Wall Street Journal, Civil Eats, Food Tank, The New York Times and Eating Well magazine. Lane has been the recipient of many awards, including the Award of Excellence for Organic Advocate by the Oregon Organic Coalition in 2016. Lane grew up on a citrus farm her Sicilian great-grandparents planted in 1919 on Florida's space coast. She has a Bachelors in Agronomy and a Masters in Entomology, both from University of Florida. In 2000, she moved to Oregon and since 2005 has been managing collaborative research projects and outreach events at Oregon State University with organic vegetable and grains farmers. In 2012, Lane created the Culinary Breeding Network to build communities of plant breeders, seed growers, farmers, produce buyers, chefs and other stakeholders to improve quality in vegetables and grains. She currently serves on the Portland Farmers Market and the Portland Bologna Sister City Association boards. Lane lives in Portland, Oregon.

As the Western United States population continues to grow, more and more homes are creeping into forest and rangeland areas called the wildland urban interface. The number of wildfires in combination with this urban sprawl can potentially increase the number of fire-prone landscapes. Learn more about creating a fire-wise landscape. In this class you will learn about fire behavior basics, ways to reduce the fuel load, ways to design your landscape in the home ignition zone, characteristics of fire-resistant plants, and plant selection for your fire-wise design. Registration information to come. 

About the presenter:

Amy Jo Detweiler, Professor and Extension Horticulturist, is responsible for teaching and outreach in community and commercial horticulture in the high desert environment of Central Oregon working with homeowners and green industry professionals. She specializes in sustainable landscape practices including water-wise gardening, fire-wise landscaping, and backyard food production. She is also responsible for training and managing an active group of master gardener volunteers for the tri-county region.

Season extension is a bundle of techniques used to provide an earlier and/or later harvest in the garden. In this webinar we will examine a variety of season extension tactics available to home gardeners and compare how they may be used differently to match regional needs. This class is just in time for fall planting! Registration information to come. 

About the presenters:

Nicole Sanchez is Assistant Professor in Horticulture with Oregon State University Extension Service. She is based in Klamath County and additionally serves Lake and Harney County. She coordinates the county Master Gardener program and is a member of the Small Farms team. Co-Instructor Heather Stoven is an Assistant Professor of Practice based in Yamhill County. She coordinates the Master Gardener and Small farms programs within her county.

Native plant gardening has been ranked as one of the top three landscape and garden trends over the past few years, in part because of the benefits that they offer to pollinators. However, native plants are not widely planted by home gardeners, and only limited selections can be found at many retail nurseries. This talk will share research conducted by the OSU Garden Ecology Lab for the past four years, and will address questions such as:

• Which Willamette Valley native plants are most attractive to pollinators?
• Why aren't native plants more broadly available for purchase?
• What native plants are most attractive (according to Oregon gardeners), and which native plant traits gave gardeners concern?
• Are native cultivars a good approach to some of the problems associated with the production and sale of native plants?
• Do pollinators visit native cultivars as much as they do native plants?

Finally, we will end with our recommendations for native plants that western Oregon gardeners should plant, if they want to support Oregon's pollinators.

Registration information to come. 

About the presenter:

Gail Langellotto, Ph.D. is a Professor of Horticulture and the statewide coordinator of Oregon's Extension Master Gardener program. Together with her lab group, the Garden Ecology Lab, she studies the plants, insects, animals, people, decisions, and management practices that either improve or degrade a garden's ability to promote environmental and human health.

Northwest gardeners and landscapers are accustomed to our Mediterranean climate with mild, wet winters and warm, dry summers. With climate change, we can expect more variability in our weather with more frequent and intense weather events. How will these extreme events affect your plants? Learn strategies to adapt your garden and landscape to these new conditions.

Registration information to come. 

About the presenter:

Weston Miller is a community and urban horticulturalist for OSU Extension Service. He manages the OSU Master Gardener program in the Portland metro area and works with Metro to reduce residential pesticide use. He also manages the Beginning Urban Farmer Apprenticeship Program in cooperation with Multnomah County.

How often do you think about the environmental impact of the products and practices that you use in your garden. Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is an approach that is used to estimate the environmental impact of the production, distribution, and disposal of manufactured products. Recently, researchers have modified LCA to assess the sustainability and environmental impacts of different farming systems. In this talk, we will walk through the component parts of LCA in agricultural systems and consider how they apply to our own gardening products and practices.

Registration information to come. 

About the presenter:

Gail Langellotto, Ph.D. is a Professor of Horticulture and the statewide coordinator of Oregon's Extension Master Gardener program. Together with her lab group, the Garden Ecology Lab, she studies the plants, insects, animals, people, decisions, and management practices that either improve or degrade a garden's ability to promote environmental and human health.