Demonstration gardens
Polk County Master Gardeners maintain several gardens throughout Polk County to serve as inspiration to local gardeners and provide a location for outreach and education programs. All are open to the public to tour.
Polk County Inspiration Garden
The Inspiration Garden is a demonstration garden created by the OSU Polk County Master Gardener Assoc in order to promote sustainable gardening practices and to provide educational outreach programs to the Polk County community. The Inspiration Garden is located at 790 F St in Independence, as part of Mt Fir Park.
Polk County Inspiration Garden
Brunk House
See our demo vegetable garden at this historic house on Highway 22.
Brunk House
Hunter Arboretum Botanic Garden
Polk County Master Gardeners help maintain this collection of native plants at the Dallas City Park.
Dallas Youth Garden
The Dallas Youth Garden got going in 2013. It is a job program for high school age students from the Dallas School District attendance area. In order to be considered for a paid intern position, applications need to be submitted and each applicant has a personal interview. If hired, each intern is expected to show up to work at the garden for 1 hour each Tuesday and Thursday afternoon and 2 hours each Saturday morning from May until the 2nd week in September.
While our interns are all very enthusiastic about getting started, their gardening knowledge is varied and limited. The 2nd order of business after tarp removal is garden planning, so there will be some inside time reading and plotting and drawing up their plans. The vegetables, herbs and flowers they grow are determined by request of the Willamette Valley Food Assistance project since all the produce and herbs will be delivered to them for distribution every Wednesday throughout the growing season. Each intern is responsible for a 25 x 50 foot market garden, so there is a good amount of planting, mulching, weeding and watering to do throughout the summer. The learning curve is pretty interesting to observe as we aid these High School kids in learning sustainable garden practices.
DYG is an optional part of the payback program for new trainees and qualifies for recertification as well. If you think you would like to help a group of teens learn to be vegetable gardeners, this is a good project for you to get involved with. We welcome all helpers, no matter when you are available during May, June, July, August or September.
The DYG is located behind the Trinity Lutheran Church in Dallas. If you are not sure about times, you can call Eileen Shaffer. Since we are affiliated with 4-H, there is some paperwork required that you need to ask about at the Extension office. We hope to see you out there!
For more information and photos you can find us at: www.dallasyouthgarden.org
