Two spectacular garden walks are coming up next weekend, June 22 and June 23, 2013, in Linn County and in Iowa City. The tours offer a great way to see lush landscaping and be inspired by gardeners who really know what they’re doing. Here is more from ISU Extension about the Linn County Master Gardener […]
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Month: June 2013
Iowa: From drought to flooding to normal...
After our drought worries earlier this spring and flooding concerns the past few weeks, could Iowa be on track for a “normal” summer? (And really, what is normal in Iowa, anyway?) Here is the most recent water summary update from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources:
Hitchcock in Mount Vernon: “lingering pa
“Farmer Dave” Miller from rural Mount Vernon has been writing some entertaining commentary for the Mount Vernon Farmers Market newsletter. He and his wife, Mickey, are vendors and are among the many reasons you should check out the Mount Vernon market, if you haven’t already. The markets are 4-6 p.m. Thursdays outside the First Street […]
Downtown Farmers Market in Cedar Rapids ...
Another Downtown Farmers Market is scheduled in Cedar Rapids for this Saturday, June 15, 2013. With more than 220 vendors, the market is one of the largest in the Midwest. I’m told the downtown market earlier this month had a crowd estimated at 18,000 people, which is amazing and wonderful for the vendors. But I’ve […]
A flood of memories: looking back at Iow...
Maybe people are tired of looking back and even I have been cringing whenever I hear the words “flood anniversary.” Still, it’s remarkable to think five years have passed since my hometown of Cedar Rapids, and much of Eastern Iowa, were inundated with unprecedented flooding. I keep a
Wet, cool weather delaying farmers; Iowa...
It was nice to see the sun today, after what has been an unusually wet and cool spring. That wet weather is keeping farmers out of their fields, as the following reports from Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey and the Iowa Crops and Weather report released by the USDA National Agricultural Statistical Service show:
Viticulture: Japanese beetles and many, ...
CEDAR RAPIDS – Between the various vineyard diseases, voracious bugs, birds and other predators, I’m amazed that any grape can survive to maturity. At our most recent viticulture class at Kirkwood Community College, we learned about fungal diseases of grapevines, such as anthracnose or
Practical Farmers of Iowa Launches 100 D...
The age of farmers in this country averages in the 60s, so finding new farmers is an important task. Practical Farmers of Iowa has made numerous efforts with mentoring and other programs to forward that goal. The group is now launching a campaign to help with those efforts. Here is more about the campaign from […]
Keys to drought, flooding and climate ch...
CEDAR RAPIDS – Ray Archuleta and David Brandt could hold the keys to solving both drought and flooding issues and even climate change. Their sessions during the June 6 soil seminar at Coe College in Cedar Rapids were nothing short of jaw-dropping. It’s probably not often that ‘soil seminar’ and ‘jaw-dropping’ are used in the […]
Parallels seen between flooding in Iowa ...
I remember interviewing Petr Kolar, the Czech Republic’s ambassador to the United States, just a few months after floods devastated Cedar Rapids and other parts of Eastern Iowa in 2008. It was remarkable, I thought, that Kolar noted that good could somehow come out of something as tragic as the epic flood that inundated 10 […]