“A Year in a Permaculture Garden.” Sounds like a topic for a high school thesis paper or something, right?
Then you can imagine how amazing it was to have a second-grader give a presentation on the subject in front of a large crowd of Rotarians last Wednesday.
Jude Arreola, probably our youngest presenter ever.
And not just any second-grader, either. President-elect Todd Engle‘s grandson, Jude Arreola, joined us to talk about a philosophy of agriculture and design that involves working with, rather than against, nature. Jude’s hobbies include gardening, insects and birds, and it was obvious that he has already studied and learned a lot. His program featured many pollinators, plants, pests and predators. For example, he helped us identify types of vital pollinators like bees, flies, beetles and butterflies. And he identified plants that help to attract and support them, such as milkweed, amaranth, and unusual fruit trees like persimmon that we might want to consider for our own gardens.
President-elect Todd with Jude and his family.
Jude, who is 7 and is home-schooled, was accompanied by his mom, Emily; brother Ollie and sister, Stella. His parents own the White Rabbit Bakery in Aurora, and the family lives in Woodburn.
Jude started out by sharing some of the principals of permaculture. He said this type of garden uses as little lawn as possible, as a lawn takes and gives little in return. He said rain water is collected and dispersed to the plants. “And you want to have things that produce more than once,” he said. He walked us through a month-by-month program of what one should do to have a successful permaculture garden. “March,” he said, “is a good month for planting potatoes.” And when it comes to November, ” you may be able to harvest persimmons. When they are ripe, you should totally eat them right off the tree.”
When asked if the pictures he showed were of his own garden, Jude pointed at his Grandpa and said, “No, it’s HIS garden.” So NOW we know what Todd does in his spare time!
President Leah presents Jude with a library book dedicated in his name to thank him for his talk.
Visiting Rotarian last week: Britt Dudek, apple and cherry grower from Wenatchee, WA joined us for a second time.
Guest: Linda Cohen, author and professional speaker, was a guest of Mike Caruso. Linda has been hired by the Jubitz Foundation to coordinate the Peace Pole Project, an effort to “plant” 100 peace poles around the Portland area in honor of Earth Day next year (April 21, 2017). Newberg has one at Memorial Park and one at Francis Square, and a number are located at the North Valley Friends church site. President Leah is considering placing one at the library, and Fred Gregory is looking into the possibility of locating one at George Fox. If you might have a location and are interested, please contact Linda at [email protected] or call her at 503-730-8750.
Auggie unveils a surprise under his purple shirt.
Had to include this photo of University of Washington grad Auggie Gonzales, who was probably in an extremely good mood after his team’s 70-21 drubbing of the Oregon Ducks last Saturday. Auggie predicted the win at our meeting, and I suspect we have not heard the end of it.
REMINDER: We’re meeting at 5pm this Wednesday–not noon– for Social Hour at Chehalem Brewery.
If you have not RSVP’d yet, please do so!
