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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

Turtle Talks Podcast – Episode 5: Minimize Soil Disturbances

Apr 13, 2018
1 min

Turtle Talks Podcast – Episode 5: Minimize Soil Disturbances

New episode is live! Jim, Allison, and I talk about the importance of keeping your roots in your soil, and how key it is for proper soil health. While I liked to call it “no-till”, Jim & Allison were quick to let me know that it is, rather, called “Minimizing Soil Disturbances”. We also hear from Dave in this week’s Garden Update as the crew tries to mitigate the weirdness of this spring. He tells us how the wild temperature fluctuations and freezing cold has changed how the

Turtle Talks Podcast; Episode 4: Soil Diversity

Mar 27, 2018
1 min

Turtle Talks Podcast; Episode 4: Soil Diversity

The latest episode of Turtle Talks with the Garden Crew. We talk about the importance of having diversity in your garden. Instead of growing row after row of tomato plants, it helps to alternate your plant selection. This helps grow healthy soil and happy ecosystems, above and below ground. PLUS, we introduce our “Garden Update” to give you an idea of what we’re doing on campus. Stay tuned for future episodes twice a month! #podcast #soil #turtletalks

Birds, Bugs, Water & Agriculture

Feb 9, 2017
5 min

Birds, Bugs, Water & Agriculture

How can we have more birds, cleaner water, better food, and a healthier planet? That seems to be the questions a lot of people are asking now days. You can watch one documentary after another about all the environmental problems we face, many because of or food system. What’s harder to find is examples and stories on how agriculture can provide the food we need, for some nine billion people, and protect the natural world we so enjoy and need. The good news in agriculture is o