Tropical Leaves

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World Environment Day – Teaching Our Children

Jun 5, 2020
2 min

World Environment Day – Teaching Our Children

It should never be understated the importance of raising awareness amongst future generations, our children, of sustainable practices. It is essential that future generations see our planet in a different way than we do, i.e. that they don’t see it as a source from which to extract any needed material to satisfy any slight desire. Today, Friday, June 5 is World Environment Day. It’s a day that was created to bring political and social awareness to the environment on a global

Get a Head Start on the Growing Season with Soil Blocks

Feb 28, 2020
4 min

Get a Head Start on the Growing Season with Soil Blocks

Don’t look now (and I would hate to jinx it), but it seems that winter is loosing its grasp over central Minnesota. The ravages of winter snow storms and below zero temperatures are being replaced with sun showers and melting snow. However, that doesn’t mean you can just start planting into the (frozen) ground. Your little seedlings wouldn’t stand much of a chance and you’d break your tools digging a hole. What we do around here is create our very own soil blocks to help the

It’s Garlic Plantin’ Season

Sep 20, 2019
2 min

It’s Garlic Plantin’ Season

Cash and Dave showing off their garlic bounty, harvested in mid August. A quick internet search of “garlic benefits” gave in 303,000,000 results. Need I say more? One of my go-to remedies for just about anything that ails me is raw vinegar and garlic shooters. In theory the raw vinegar balances stomach pH and rejuvenates the gut microbiome, while the garlic provides beneficial nutrients and compounds that support health. It seems to work, but it could just be the psychology

The Buzz on Citizen Science Bee Programs

Aug 30, 2019
3 min

The Buzz on Citizen Science Bee Programs

Pollinators have been all the buzz in recent years as research has shown steady declines in populations. We’ve heard a lot about how pollinators are losing habitat and we need to plant more native species; or how pesticides like neonicotinoids are decimating bee populations across the country; or how our tendency for monocropping destroys the diversity of the ecosystem and the pollinators that depend on it. Overall, research regarding bees and other pollinators has come a LON

Conserving Water in Your Garden

Mar 4, 2019
2 min

Conserving Water in Your Garden

One of the most difficult problems that gardeners face is proper use of water. They either use too much or too little. The ones that use too much will set a sprinkler on and forget about it during the day (wasting way too much water) and the ones that use too little simply forget to set the sprinkler out (for those keeping track, I’m one of ’em!) So, what do you do if you are either of these bad examples? Do you simply wait for the rain? No! You prepare your garden with a dri

Turtle Talks Podcast – Episode 16 : Q&A with Seed Saver Barb Kaufman

Dec 21, 2018
1 min

Turtle Talks Podcast – Episode 16 : Q&A with Seed Saver Barb Kaufman

A few episodes back, we were fortunate to be able to interview U of M researcher, Lois Braun. We had such a good time and loved to bring in a person with such a breadth of knowledge on a topic we were interested in, we decided to try again. This week, we were able to coax local seed saver enthusiast and Pine River Seed Library manager Barb Kaufman to join us at behind our microphones. Barb was eager to share her knowledge on how to start saving seeds, what methods she uses fo

Turtle Talks Podcast – Episode 14: Appetizer 6

Nov 5, 2018
1 min

Turtle Talks Podcast – Episode 14: Appetizer 6

The growing season is coming to an end. Our garden is finally put to bed. In our 14th episode, we discuss what we did to put our garden to bed. We also do a season-end review, bringing all the numbers and pounds of food produced. In the third segment, we talk about a hugelkultur project added to the south field. Music used in this episode: Intro – What to Expect by Jake Bradford 1) I Believe in You by Polaris Rose (Album – The Waves Within) 2) Toasting All my Life by Duce