Turning Parking Lots into Farms in Minneapolis and Vertical Gardening

Photo by Chris Bohnhoff Used with permission. Stefan Meyer of Growing Lots, turns vacant Minneapolis parking lots into urban farms – a welcome addition to my little neighborhood. The last time I came back from Iowa for work, I was riding the Hiawatha light rail from the Mall of America where I was dropped off. While sitting on the train, I was reflecting on how great Minneapolis is after...

Greening Twin Cities Ditches Black Leaf Bags

LEAVES, LEAVES, EVERYWHERE!!! Star Tribune reports today that Twin Cities law trades traditional black plastic lawn bags for compostible ones. Although, I would prefer people to compost their leaves than throw them out, even I have too many leaves for this to be reasonable. Either way, I think this is a good idea for both the environment and a streamlining of the utilities. The claim is that it...

The Latest Plant Jive in My Yard

I’m pretty sure looking the below foliage in my yard makes Arika randy. I’m impressed with the results so far since this is my first year gardening. My mom claims I have a green thumb. Meh. Main garden has cucumbers, cranberry beans, green onions, peas, spinach, and carrots. Beds surrounding the house contain big boy and cherry tomatoes, green peppers, purple and regular basil. The...

First Jenna Von Oy of the Year … You Know Blossom … cough

A week and a half ago on Easter Jon, Arika, and I cleaned out all the leaves and mulch out of the front flower bed. At that time, very few plants were poking up through the dirt. In spite of this, it sure was exciting finding them. It was like the easter bunny visiting last fall and we only finding the eggs now… however, they luckily were not rotton and nasty. Ha. Anywho, they have been...

Sprouties! – Green Thumb Adventures pt 2

The adventures in gardening continue. A few weeks ago, Arika and I planted a bunch of seeds. Since then, we planted a few more. With the awesome sunny warm weather in the last week, the plants popped up like they had somewhere to be. We have tomatoes, poppys, asparagus, basil, mint, green peppers, fennel, oregano, and Arika planted a few seeds from some apples i bought. The next step is to...