Good People: Growing Gardens

Growing Gardens gets at the root of hunger right here in Portland, Oregon. The Portland Home Garden Project began in 1996. The organization's original focus was installing home gardens for low income households in Portland. The organization expanded its mission to build gardens in partnership with other organizations with the involvement of hundreds of community volunteers. The organization was renamed Growing Gardens in 1998. 

In 1999, Growing Gardens began offering workshops on topics such as basic gardening, composting, cooking and food preservation. An education and service-learning program for youth, called Youth Grow, began in 2000.

Organizing hundreds of volunteers, Growing Gardens builds organic, raised bed vegetable gardens in backyards, front yards, side yards and even on balconies. Supporting low income households for three years with seeds, plants, classes, mentors and more.  They offer Youth Grow after school garden clubs growing the next generation of veggie eaters and growers.  Through Learn & Grow workshops and work parties, they are teaching gardeners about growing, preparing and preserving healthful food while respecting the health of the environment.

Growing Gardens plants seeds for good food and healthy people by making sure low income people have the resources  they need to grow organic vegetables at home.  Through this work, community members meet over the backyard garden, through volunteering, by attending classes, and through sharing extra produce.

Portland Chickens!

A group of volunteers who seek to promote the joy of chickens and freedom to design and build small structures without permit requirements. The passion about Urban Chickens is for many reasons, here are a few: They bring us closer to the chain of life, they make great pets, fresh eggs, fertilizer for the garden, and they are Voracious Insect Eaters.

The Urban Chickens group has found a perfect match with non-profit Growing Gardens. Sign up for the Growing Gardens newsletter to receive information on Upcoming Portland Chicken Events.

For more info on Growing Gardens visit HERE.

Images copyright Growing Gardens & Jim Golden, 2009.

Etsy PDX: Daogreer Earth Works

Tell me a bit about yourself name, location, affiliations, personal stuff.
My business name is Daogreer Earth Works - Works of art made exclusively on this planet. Yep, that's right. I don't make 'em anywhere else. Buy domestic. Shop on Earth. I guess you can include Earth among my affiliations. My specific location on Earth is latitude 45.523875, longitude -122.670399 - or Portland, Oregon. I love Portland. By many standards, it is the "greenest" city in the U.S. (go ahead, google "greenest city in US"). Having lived several other places, I'm pretty sure Portland is the place I will always come back to. Besides its greenitude, I love that it's big enough to have all of the amenities of a big city, but small enough to know people you pass on the street. In a couple of hours, I can be at the coast, in the mountains, in the desert, rafting down a river, exploring a cave, climbing a volcano or playing in the snow.


all the lonely purple - screenprint ACEO $5

Apart from creating art, what do you do?
I spend much of my time in the temperate rain forests in the area, teaching middle school students about their natural world, right there where the natural world exists. They learn how all things are connected, develop a sense of community and a sense of place, and get some authentic science practice in, to boot. Part of what makes Portland a green city might be that every 6th grader in Portland has been participating in this program for 40+ years. Otherwise, "creating art" seems to encapsulate nearly everything else that I do.


strung out - fine art photograph, 8x10 $25

What first made you want to become an artist?
I never wanted to "become an artist," nor would I describe myself as an artist first when introducing myself to people. All of my siblings and I have a pretty finely honed aesthetic sense, and we all apply it in different ways. My brother, Colin, is whom I always think of when I think "artist." He is a professional illustrator and has always wanted to be an artist. Check out his stuff here. Almost everything on that site was commissioned for something specific, like the cover of SF Weekly. So, my friends always tell me how artistic/creative I am, but in my head I'll never consider myself the "artist" in the family.


secrets from the past - hollow book $18

Please describe your creative process how, when, materials, etc.
My art is completely random - I'm like a gnat in my creative process. I'll do something for a while and then I'll get distracted by the next shiny object and suddenly I'm into a new type of art. My materials include nearly anything that catches my interest. One type of art I consistently come back to is photography. I really like macro photography and unusual angles of familiar objects.


emperor's raw - fine art photograph, 4x6 $3

What artists have influenced you and inspire you to create?
I don't know if I would consider these my influences, but some artist whose stuff I like include Leonardo DaVinci, Bev Doolittle, Andy Goldsworthy, Jan Vermeer, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Frédéric Bartholdi, and many more.


sparkle id wallets (solo in apple) $5 each

Where else can people find your work?
Daogreerearthworks on Etsy,at 1000 markets, artcardswanted.com, my Facebook page, and I'm on Twitter.


tiny ceramic bowls - set of 3 $36

This is my first post in the ETSY PDX series to featuring Etsy artists and crafters local to my area--Portland, Oregon, and the Pacific Northwest.

All images are by and copyright of Daogreer Earth Works 2009.