Meet Dusti Johnson-Brinker

Dusti grew up in Southern New Jersey and moved to the Hampton Roads area to attend college. She liked it here so much that she never left, residing in Portsmouth for two decades but now residing in Ocean View with her husband.

Dusti is entering her 27th year with Portsmouth Public Schools. Her career began as a teacher of at-risk youth, later becoming an elementary school principal for several years. After successfully attaining state accreditation for her school, she now serves as Coordinator of School Improvement and Professional Development for the district.

While serving as a principal, she wrote and won a grant from Whole Foods to build a school garden. The Portsmouth Master Gardeners assisted her in building and maintaining the garden, and provided lessons for the students.

Dusti has been a vegetarian for more than thirty years and enjoys the freshest vegetables. She also enjoys the beauty of flowers in her back yard and is an avid environmentalist. When she moved to Norfolk she started attending the monthly Norfolk Master Gardener talks at Mary Pretlow Library. She was invited and attended an information session about becoming an NMG and since classes were offered for the first time in the evening, she was able to enroll in the Class of 2020.

To attain her fifty hours, Dusti has enjoyed working at the Weyanoke Wildlife Sanctuary, Ernie Morgan Center and the Potager Garden at Norfolk Botanical Garden, but most of her time has been dedicated to the Community Garden at the Fred Heutte Center where she has enjoyed planting and harvesting food for the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia. She also participated in the Engage Norfolk event and the Jam N’ Jamz tree giveaway.

The Class of 2020 encountered challenges unlike any other class in Norfolk Master Gardener history. Classes were suspended in mid-March due to the coronavirus and plans to resume in-person classes never transpired. Dusti appreciated the calls to each student asking their opinions, weighing the CDC advice, on how to proceed with the classes in order to complete the curriculum. She felt that our Project Coordinator did a great job of helping everyone become comfortable using Zoom so that sessions could be completed online.

When Dusti isn’t working or participating in an NMG project, she likes to travel with her husband and to visit family. They love to dance and play golf. Dusti’s personal pastimes are gardening, creating vegetarian recipes and spending time at the beach.

Please give a shout out to Dusti when you see her, and welcome her as a new Norfolk Master Gardener.