Sustainability
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If August was a tough month, this summer has been one of the best in recent years. Moderate local temperatures with reasonable relative humidity, rain enough to help the garden grow, and friends meeting the challenge of growing flowers and vegetables in a changing climate, all helped us feel comfortable. July was notable for being… Read more
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The 2019 tomato harvest has begun. We have fresh tomatoes with every meal, for snacks, and with everything. We aren’t sick of them yet and work to preserve some of them is imminent. There’s a lot going on in the kitchen garden this August. Sweet corn is in. Our local farm has had a spotty… Read more
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A main feature of the vacant lot we bought in 1993 was its proximity to Lake Macbride State Park. When we need exercise, or just want to get away from the house, it’s a short walk to the trail that runs five miles from our nearby city to the main park entrance. In August the… Read more
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I took five sessions with a nutritionist and wellness professional, once individually and four times as part of a group. I email her questions and she quickly emails answers back. Based mostly on blood test results, the clinic diagnosed me with Type II diabetes in May and like many, I immediately went into denial. Listening… Read more
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It’s time to move on. Yet… I would linger in this spectacularly Iowa summer. It is a summer like those remembered from childhood. Long, warm days that stretch into a vanishing point. Cool nights to greet an early riser well before dawn. A never ending chance to find opportunity in a world which lies beyond… Read more
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Is it wrong to collect seeds from a prairie restoration project for use in a home garden or another prairie restoration project? I posed the question on social media. While the responses weren’t that many, they were a unanimous yes. Not so fast! “Stealing is stealing,” Cindy Crosby, author of The Tallgrass Prairie: An Introduction… Read more
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With late planting and heavy spring rain the garden has been a mixed bag. A highlight of every year is arrival of tomato season and planning the use of what I expect will be a good crop. The first tomatoes have ripened, and now we wait for the slicers and plums. We eat them fresh,… Read more
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There is a strong argument nothing is wrong with our food system. There is a strong argument everything is wrong with our food system. To talk about a “food system” at all presumes a lot that may or may not be true. It’s no secret large corporations increasingly control food production, distribution and marketing. Scalability… Read more
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This week I met someone who works with trees for a local municipality while working a shift at the home, farm and auto supply store. We discussed several topics, including dealing with Japanese Beetles, tree species that thrive in Iowa, and the Emerald Ash Borer. He favored the River Birch tree. The city had inventoried… Read more
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