Jim Chamberlin
- Sep 13
- 4 min
Farmer-to-farmer Learning Makes Meaningful Change
Sustainable agriculture gives me hope. What gives me hope is the knowledge that much of what ails us and the planet we are part of can be...
Jim Chamberlin
- Aug 30
- 4 min
Clean Water Strategies Paying Off, Continued Effort Needed
Learn how conservation efforts to curb nutrients in the Mississippi River in Minnesota are going.
HDT Team
- Aug 9
- 3 min
Purple Reigns in New Varieties Grown in HDT Gardens
The Happy Dancing Turtle garden team planted several different purple vegetables in the garden this season. You may be accustomed to...
Jim Chamberlin
- Jul 26
- 4 min
Farming with Trees
I believe nature is abundant, and too often we overlook the forest for the trees. Farmers for centuries have cleared land of trees to...
Jenny Hill
- Jul 11
- 4 min
You Are What You Eat (and How You Eat)
Book review: How to Be a Conscious Eater: Making Food Choices That Are Good for You, Others, and the Planet by Sophie Egan, 2020, Workman...
Jim Chamberlin
- May 23
- 3 min
Let's Go Nuts: A New Opportunity in Agriculture
Happy Dancing Turtle is looking for landowners interested in planting a new and exciting crop – hybrid hazelnuts. They will be seeking...
Jenny Hill
- May 9
- 4 min
Raised Beds Elevate Garden Options
Raised bed gardening is more than just a trend. It has some real advantages in terms of space, ergonomics, and logistics. It is easier to...
Jim Chamberlin
- Apr 12
- 4 min
Doing Better for Soil Is Better for All
I entered college in my early thirties, looking for a career change from the foodservice industry. My parents owned a bakery when I was...
Jenny Hill
- Mar 28
- 4 min
Grow with Community Gardens & Seed Libraries
The latest snow/rainstorm may have sent you back indoors to try to plan your garden. Maybe you are an experienced gardener and you have...
Jim Chamberlin
- Mar 22
- 5 min
Pools of Energy Key Frame to Soil Health
I was at the Minnesota Organic Conference many years ago, sitting in a session on testing soil biology. The presenter was showing a...
Jenny Hill
- Mar 13
- 4 min
Healthier Eating for All, Healthier Eating for You
Maybe you’ve noticed the rising cost of groceries. Some rising costs are easier to absorb than others and food and healthy eating is...
Jenny Hill
- Jan 29
- 4 min
Engage & Take Action at B2B
For the 18th Annual Back to Basics, there are more than 45 workshops on a wide variety of topics. From Zero Waste to Gardening to Clean...
Jim Chamberlin
- Dec 8, 2023
- 3 min
Meat that Meets the Cut
Plant based diets are all the rage, and for good reason. Livestock is responsible for much of the environmental damage caused by...
Quinn Swanson
- Nov 3, 2023
- 3 min
Plastics and Recycling
For decades we’ve been hearing and answering the siren call of recycling. Simply seeing the “chasing arrows” symbol triggers an ingrained...
Jim Chamberlin
- Sep 26, 2023
- 3 min
Long Game of Soil Health Reduces Drought Impact
Well into the drought this summer, I drove by a corn field east of Brainerd and was surprised how healthy the corn looked. Just a mile or...
Jim Chamberlin
- Aug 7, 2023
- 2 min
Digging Into the Lives of Dung Beetles
Dung beetles came late in my soil health journey. More than three decades after becoming an “organic” farming advocate, the dung beetle...
Jim Chamberlin
- Jul 26, 2023
- 3 min
Grassland 2.0 Update
Grassland 2.0 is a social project involving grass, water, cows, and people. On a recent Saturday, a group of around 30 people gathered at...
Jenny Hill
- Jul 3, 2023
- 3 min
Adventures in Sustainability: Food Waste and Some Great Alternatives
The numbers are sobering: According to the Environmental Defense Fund, 160 billion pounds of food goes uneaten every year in the United...
HDT Team
- Jun 15, 2023
- 3 min
Garden Tips: Recipes with Nettles and Chive Blossoms
“Use what you've got" is a phrase that is a building block for sustainable living. In this post we share two recent examples of seasonal...
HDT Team
- Jun 2, 2023
- 4 min
Watersheds 101
Minnesota sits atop a triple, continental-scale water divide. As one of the exhibit pieces in We Are Water MN describes it: “This means...