The PCC Learning Garden - and what we do at our Team Meetings
Salma Preppernau
Hello, Confluence Blog! It’s been a while since we updated. With spring turning into summer, our members have been finishing their year out strong, and it’s been hectic in and out of the office.
That said, we had a wonderful opportunity to stop and smell the roses (or, in this case, lavender and oregano) last Thursday during our July team meeting! Confluence headed out to Portland Community College – Sylvania, where our member Steve serves, to learn about the garden, sustainable agricultural practices, and food security. It’s one of our most beautiful service sites, and it was awesome to get to see all the work Steve’s been doing along the way!
We spent the morning getting oriented in the learning garden, where Steve and co-facilitator Sara led us in a scavenger hunt. The next hour and a half involved sharing knowledge about the plants in the garden while Steve led us in a tour, and I have to say – the cohort was super, super knowledgeable about gardening and there was still plenty to teach. We saw vegetables none of us had ever encountered before – lovage, for example, which is related to celery and has a delightful herby taste – and learned more about those that we knew well. It turns out that the seeds of radishes are edible, and delicious!
The part we’re all the most proud of, though, took place after lunch, when we weeded, organized the shed, and were able to put up two trellises at the bottom of the garden. As the day got hotter, people were able to cool off in a little willow house that’s inside the garden and work on some crafts (with non-plastic components to avoid microplastic leaching) that we hung around the garden before leaving.
The peaceful tranquility of the garden was the perfect setting for the last team meeting of the year, and we were able to leave the place a little fancier than we found it. What, you might ask, is going to be growing on those trellises? Who knows, at this point – that’ll be up to the next AmeriCorps member who serves at PCC!
…(Yeah, that’s right, by the way– that could be you! Get your application in soon to be considered for an AmeriCorps position in one of the most awesome community gardens in Portland with an amazing supervisor and years of groundwork done by AmeriCorps members before you!)