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Four-Season Farming With Sunseed Farm
Tomm and Trilby Becker, owners of Sunseed Farm, present this family-friendly presentation on four-season farming.
Sunseed is a family-owned vegetable farm growing over sixty kinds of vegetables for families, restaurants, and wholesale customers. Since 2009, Sunseed Farm has grown on eighteen acres of land in Ann Arbor, five miles northwest of downtown. Close to one of those acres are the farm's passively-heated hoop houses. Thanks to this simple technology, they are able to extend their growing season right through the winter.
Find out why winter-grown vegetables are so much more delicious, peek under the covers of their snowy farm to see thousands of happy green plants, discover the secrets to growing a bounty of vegetables and flowers without chemicals on a small parcel of land, and find out what is happening on their busy little farm in spring!
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National Library Week Event: Rain Gardens and How to Create Them
Learn how to begin and sustain your own rain garden, including design ideas, the best plants to use, and care and keeping of the garden. Rain gardens prevent rainwater from causing erosion and reaching the sewer system to become wastewater and instead capture it to be kept within the ecosystem.
Jesse Tack, of Abundant Michigan, Permaculture Ypsilanti and Whole Culture Repair, is a co-founder of a permaculture group in Ypsilanti that combines members’ efforts to create more sustainable yards, gardens and farms in the area.
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Establishing A Rain Garden: Clean up the Huron River, One Garden at a Time
Planting a rain garden is a fun way for people to make a difference in the quality of the water in our rivers, lakes, and streams, starting in our own backyards. You don’t need any special equipment – just some space, a spade, compost, and a few plants. This talk covers the benefits of Rain Gardens and how to build and plant one.
Susan Bryan is the Rain Garden Coordinator for the Washtenaw County Water Resources Commissioner’s Office, working with plants and people to protect the water quality in the Huron River. She has designed many residential gardens, rain gardens, and bio-infiltration areas. She is a past president of Wild Ones, has a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the University of Michigan, and is an Advanced Master Gardener in Washtenaw County.
Roger Moon is a Master Rain Gardener, trained in the Washtenaw County program, and a Traverwood neighborhood resident with four rain gardens on his property. He has given numerous talks on rain gardens, media appearances, and designed six rain gardens himself. Roger has adopted rain gardens in Huron Hills and Gallup parks, and takes care of them throughout the year. Roger received the Washtenaw County Rain Garden Leadership Award in Education in 2015.
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Nerd Nite #31 - The Great Pleasure (and Long History) of Creating New Kinds of Plants
Basically as soon as agriculture began, humans started messing with plants, controlling their sex lives in order to transform the weeds around them into the grains and vegetables we depend on today. And while the crazy origin stories of things like corn and broccoli are in the distant past, I still use the exact same traditional methods to indulge my inner mad scientist and create new varieties of plants in my garden. The results are fun (and sometimes delicious) and will make you see the produce section of the grocery store in an entirely new way.
About Joseph Tychonievich: A life long gardener and lover of plants, Joseph has been a repeated guest on public radio’s food show The Splendid Table, wrote a book, Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener (Timber Press, 2013), spent two years working at the famed rare plants nursery Arrowhead Alpines and was named by Organic Gardening Magazine as one of “…six young horticulturists who are helping to shape how America gardens.” Joseph lives and gardens with his husband and an adorable black cat in Ypsilanti. You can find him on Twitter at @gsgardens, read his blog posts at gardenprofessors.com or http://www.facebook.com/TheGardenProfessors/
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It's Easy Being Green 2015: Plants, Pollinators, and Why They Matter with Joseph Tychonievich, Greensparrow Gardens
Joseph Tychonievich, author of Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener, explains the interesting ways plants have evolved to attract their preferred pollinators. Along with a tour of nature's most creative (and sometimes disgusting) methods of connecting pollinators and plants, Joseph discusses ways to foster biodiversity in your own garden and shows examples of managing garden pests by letting other insects do the dirty work.
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Fleeting Beauty, Enduring Value: the Peony Garden at the Nichols Arboretum
The U-M Nichols Arboretum Peony Garden presents a stunning spring display, with over 270 historic cultivated varieties (cultivars) from the nineteenth and early twentieth century representing the best American, Canadian, and European peonies of the era. These fragrant spring beauties are arranged in 27 beds with each full bed containing 30 peonies. When filled to capacity the garden holds nearly 800 peonies and up to 10,000 flowers at peak bloom.
Dr. David C. Michener, Associate Curator at the University of Michigan Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum, will discuss the beautiful Nichols Arboretum Peony Garden and give an update on the current work in the Garden in preparation for its centennial in 2022.
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Bee Awareness: Protecting our Pollinators With Dr. Meghan Milbrath Of Sand Hill Apiaries
What is going on with bees? Honey bees have been all over the media lately with talks of colony collapse and the doom of our food system.
Dr. Meghan Milbrath gives a brief history of bees and beekeeping in the United States, and talks about their current role in Agriculture. She will untangle what we know are the root causes for their decline, and discuss ways that you can become involved to help their plight.
Dr. Meghan Milbrath owns and manages Sand Hill Apiaries, a small beekeeping and queen rearing operation in Munith, MI. She began working with bees with her father over 20 years ago, and has been hooked on bees since. She most recently worked as a postdoctoral research associate in the Entomology Department at Michigan State University, studying honey bee disease with renowned bee researcher, Zachary Huang.
This event was cosponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Ann Arbor Area (LWV-AAA).
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City of Ann Arbor 2014 Sustainable Ann Arbor Forum: Local Food
Come join the conversation about sustainability in Ann Arbor! The City and the Ann Arbor District Library host the third annual Sustainable Ann Arbor series. The series includes four events (held monthly and ending in April) with each focusing on a different element of sustainability from Ann Arbor’s sustainability framework.
This final event in the series centers on Local Food, including highlights from the Ann Arbor farmers market, our local food economy, and tips on how to support and participate in Ann Arbor's local food system. Panelists include Jenna Bacolor, Executive Director, Community Education & Recreation Ann Arbor Public Schools; Hillary Bisnett, Healthy Food in Healthcare Project Director, Ecology Center; Sarah DeWitt, Farmers Market Manager, City of Ann Arbor; Robert Grese, Director, Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum; Professor, UM School of Natural Resources and Environment; and Yousef Rabhi, Chair, Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners;
Each program will include a series of short presentations followed by a question and answer session. The forums offer an opportunity to learn more about sustainability in the community and tips for actions that residents can take to live more sustainably. Details of this series, and information and videos from current and past Sustainable Ann Arbor Forums, are posted on the City's website.