Earthwise Posts

I’m sitting in my cozy chair, watching a normal mid-March blizzard, and catch myself wishing: “When this snow melts, I’ll start doing some yardwork.” But I know it’s much too early to be doing any kind of cleanup, lawn work, or planting, but I have the bug to do something! Here are some things you can do, and more that you shouldn’t do this early in the season. Collecting sap and making syrup is an excellent activity for gardeners at this time of year. Right now, the soil

Winter sowing is a method of plant reproduction, especially for native plants that need an extended amount of time with temperatures below freezing. These plants evolved in harsh northern climates and developed a precise method to ensure successful germination.

It's a challenge to be sustainable in a holiday season that is too often a cause for over consumption, but it can be done! In fact, there are many ways to heal the Earth’s climate while still showering friends and family with love and gifts. Go Paperless! Digital gift cards are a great way to give the gift of experiences like fun activities, e-books, massages, sustainable products, dining or music, especially if you support small local businesses. If you want to create the “u

Pollinators can be hurt if you’re overachieving with your fall lawn and yard care.

The primary danger of synthetic herbicides is how they affect the health of people, soil, food, water, air, pollinators, and birds. In fact, the entire ecosystem suffers from the repeated and prolonged use of these products.

WEEDS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM. They are the band-aid or medicine that Nature uses to heal sick, damaged soil.

Clogged gutters, hardscapes next to your foundation, a poorly graded yard, and neighboring yards are common reasons and potential for water issues around homes. Following, I'll review potential solutions for each of these problems.

Every gardener knows that you need water for healthy plants in your garden. Did you know soil needs water to be healthy, too? But it’s a complicated realtionship and there needs to be some helpers to make sure they get along. Protect Soil from Run Off Rain can be friend or foe. Rain on bare soil compacts it and forms a crust that is hard for seeds to push through. The soil that isn’t compacted will erode and wash away and it forms channels and gullies that focus runoff, creat

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere warms the planet, causing climate change. According to NASA , human activities have raised the atmosphere's carbon dioxide content by 50% in less than 200 years. But we can help reverse this trend – right in our own backyards! The easiest solution to remove these gases from the atmosphere is to store them in the soil through the roots of plants. This is called a carbon sink. Plants consist of about 90% carbon pulled from the atmosphere. The mo

Lawns to Legumes is a planting for pollinators grant program that  Blue Thumb  facilitates with the  Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources . Any Minnesotan can apply to receive reimbursement for native planting projects and support at-risk pollinators like the monarch butterfly and rusty patched bumble bee. Each spring and fall, a new cohort of participants gets selected to take part in the program. The Lawns to Legumes individual grant program for Fall 2025 closed on M