April Gardening Tip—from GARDENING IN IOWA AND SURROUNDING AREAS

"To contain plants that spread quickly and can become invasive (such as mint and lily-of-the-valley), plant them in a piece of sewer pipe or a bucket or plastic pot with the bottom cut or knocked out."
—Lucille Keeling, Federated Flower Art Club, Cedar Falls

Gardening in Iowa and Surrounding Areas, by Veronica Lorson Fowler with the Federated Garden Clubs of Iowa

Plant of the Week: kitten tails

Kittentails

Besseya bullii (Eat.) Rydb., also called Wulfenia bullii (Eat.) Barnh.

other common names: 
Bull’s synthesis

Besseya: named for Bessey, a well-known botanist

Bullii: named for its discoverer, George Bull

Snapdragon family: Scrophulariaceae

Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition, by Sylvan Runkel and Dean M. Roosa, photographs by Thomas Rosburg

Plant of the Week: water hemlock

Water hemlock

Cicuta maculata L.

other common names: beaver poison, cowbane, musquash root, spotted cowbane, spotted hemlock

Cicuta: the ancient Latin name for poison hemlock

Maculata: from Latin, meaning “spotted” or “mottled”

Parsley family: Apiaceae (Umbelliferae)

Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest, Second Edition, by Sylvan Runkel and Dean M. Roosa, photographs by Thomas Rosburg

Gardening in November

Friday, November 24

...it's probably time to harvest most of the greens and put a period to things before another Arctic storm comes along and makes its own conclusion. I'm not looking to set any outdoor records, just to keep eating our homegrown stuff as long as we can.

Carl H. Klaus, My Vegetable Love: A Journal of a Growing Season

Midwest Nature Quote of the Week

True prairie was not a matter of location, but of composition. The lie of the land had nothing to do with whether it was prairie or not; if it was tallgrass prairie it included the tallgrass communities. Some prairie was flat, but much of it was rolling, and some was broken and rocky. But it needed tallgrasses if it was to qualify as true prairie—the most easterly of the great American grassland societies that sprawled between the Rockies and the eastern forests.

John Madson, Out Home

Iowa Nature Calendar: July 17

July heat triggers the hatching of millions of short-lived mayflies along the Mississippi; their remains often have to be shoveled from streets and sidewalks in Dubuque and other river towns.

The Iowa Nature Calendar by Jean Prior & James Sandrock

Midwest Nature Quote of the Week

In some of the quiet places, where leaf mold is heavy and old logs decay on the forest floor, lives the world's most savage mammal. It's a ravening little beast seldom seen by man; an irascible, twittering phantom that kills incessantly. Even the weasels and great cats can't match its talent for bloodletting, for each day it must devour its own weight in food or starve.

But the same nature that grants a genius for death always stops short of fatal perfection. This terrible hunter--the shrew--may weigh no more than a dime.

John Madon, Stories from Under the Sky

Interview with Brandi Janssen

(Interview continued...)

Catherine: What’s going on with Farm to School in Iowa, and in Iowa City specifically?

Brandi: In Iowa, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and the Iowa Department of Education partner to coordinate statewide Farm to School efforts. In 2007, state funding was granted to Farm to School to support local efforts around the state. These funds have been distributed as start-up funds for new Farm to School chapters in Iowa and as grants for various projects at the local level.

The Iowa City Community School District (ICCSD) Farm to School Chapter started in 2010 as a project of Field to Family. (This organization is a nonprofit working to promote local foods; I am on the board of directors.) Now the ICCSD Farm to School Chapter works closely with both Field to Family and the ICCSD Food Service staff on a variety of projects. For example, ICCSD Farm to School organizes “Farmer Fairs” twice each year in area elementary schools. These in-school field trips bring growers and nutrition educators into schools to give presentations, lead hands-on activities like seed planting, and have students taste-test local foods. Additionally, the ICCSD Farm to School chapter has offered support for school gardens around the district. There are currently fifteen active school gardens spread throughout the district’s twenty-five schools, and at least one provides produce directly to a school kitchen. Finally, Farm to School has helped facilitate purchasing local food for use in school lunches. Products include local apples, watermelon, lettuce, and sweet potatoes.

Catherine: Where can people learn more?

Brandi: There are lots of great Farm to School resources out there; here are a few:

The US Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/f2s/

The National Farm to School Network, at http://www.farmtoschool.org/

The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship’s Farm to School Program, at http://www.iowaagriculture.gov/AgDiversification/farmToSchoolProgram.asp

Field to Family, at http://www.fieldtofamily.org/programs/farm-to-school/

Interview with Brandi Janssen

University of Iowa Press acquisitions editor Catherine Cocks is helping the press build a new list of publications on a topic everyone’s interested in these days: food. Recently, she asked Brandi Janssen, an anthropology PhD student at the University of Iowa who’s writing her dissertation on local food production, some questions about the rapidly growing “Farm to School” or F2S movement.

Catherine: What is “Farm to School” and what are the reasons for it?

Brandi: Broadly, Farm to School includes programs that link locally produced foods to K-12 schools. These efforts include, but are certainly not limited to, adding locally produced foods to school lunches and classroom snacks, providing nutrition and agricultural education, and developing school gardens. Farm to School programs generally aim to improve the quality of food served in schools and increase student knowledge of agriculture and food production, both in the classroom and through hands-on gardening activities and farm field trips. In addition, Farm to School programs develop and expand markets available to local farmers by increasing institutional purchasing of local food.

Catherine: When did these efforts start, and how widespread are they?

Brandi: It’s difficult to pinpoint an exact start date, as Farm to School efforts have been developing independently across the United States over the past ten to fifteen years. In 2004, however, the National Farm to School Program was officially authorized in the Farm Bill. [This is the omnibus act on agriculture and food policy that Congress enacts every five years.] While no funds for Farm to School were appropriated in that bill, the federal recognition was significant. In 2010 the Farm Bill included over $5 million in funding for Farm to School projects. Currently [in 2013], the National Farm to School Network reports that there are over 2,500 individual Farm to School programs serving over 10,000 schools, spread throughout all 50 states.

Butterfly of the Week: Peck's Skipper

Peck's Skipper

Polites peckius (Kirby 1837)
Status: Common breeding resident

Flight: Two distinct broods in Iowa. Adults are most commonly seen from late April to October. A single early October collection suggests that a partial third brood may fly in some years.

Distinguishing features: This small skipper has a distinctive patchwork of light yellow on the underside of the hind wing, unlike any other skipper in the state. Wingspan: 2.5 cm. (males), 2.7 cm. (females).

Distribution and habitat: Map 180. One of Iowa's most abundant skippers, found in a wide variety of human-altered and natural open habitats across the state. It is often seen along creeks and in permanent pastures.

Natural history: Peck's Skipper exhibits some degree of phenotypic variability in its markings. For instance, the hind-wing undersurfaces on some specimens do not have clear-cut spots but instead form a large yellow patch reminiscent of the Whirlabout (Polites vibex [Geyer 1832]). In fact, the few records of the Whirlabout from the state likely represent this form. While Peck's Skipper has been reared on a number of different grasses in the laboratory, it apparently commonly feeds on rice cut-grass and panic grass in nature.

Questions: What food plants are utilized by the larvae in Iowa? Is the variability in wing appearance (spot pattern, size, etc.) more controlled by genetic or by environmental factors? Are adults preferentially attracted to particular flower colors or shapes?

The Butterflies of Iowa, by Dennis W. Schlicht, John C. Downey, and Jeffrey C. Nekola

Butterfly of the Week: Dun Skipper

Dun Skipper

Euphyes vestris (Boisduval 1852)

Status: Common breeding resident.

Flight: Adults observed in flight from late May through late September, with most encounters occurring in the first half of July. While this species likely has multiple broods, collection records do not clearly indicate when these might occur. Perhaps there is only a single brood, which emerges over an extended period in the summer.

Distinguishing features: This is a uniformly dark brown skipper. Males have a black stigma, and females have few white spots on the upper fore wing. Females often have a faint crescent of light brown spots on the mid hind wing below. It differs from the Little Glassywing and Northern Broken dash by having reduced light markings (if any) on the upper fore wing. Wingspan: 3 cm.

Distribution and habitat: Map 219. Common throughout the state in a wide variety of open habitats.

Natural history: The larval hosts are unreported but are believed to be various members of the sedge family.

Questions: What are the larval hosts for this species in Iowa? How does it overwinter? What factors have allowed it to become the most abundant member of its genus in the state? 

The Butterflies of Iowa, by Dennis W. Schlicht, John C. Downey, and Jeffrey C. Nekola

Interview with Jenny Barker Devine: Part 2

Jenny Barker Devine, author of On Behalf of the Family Farm: Iowa Farm Women’s Activism since 1945, is an assistant professor of history at Illinois College.

4. Do you think women in farming today work in different circumstances than their mothers and grandmothers, or are there important continuities?

The most notable differences are in the technology and work options available to women. But even with all of these changes, women’s intense commitments to their families and to their land have remained the same. Over the decades, women’s primary concerns have been about building successful operations that can be handed down through the generations. In the past, policymakers have written this off as sentiment, but what women are really demanding is sustainability. One wonders what our current agricultural economy would look like if policymakers had listened to women decades ago.

5. Of all the individual stories you tell about women activists in the book, which one is your favorite?

All of the individual stories have some personal significance for me, but my favorites come from the oral histories by members of the National Farm Organization (NFO). Those women laid bare the triumphs and struggles of their lives and I am so grateful for their honesty. I often think of Luella Zmolek talking about how “it was a very sad day when the last cows went out of the yard.” All of her hopes and dreams were placed in those cows, and she gave them up for the NFO. It not only shows the depth of her commitment and the strength she possessed to see her ideals through, but I think we can all relate to those moments when life just isn’t what we thought it might be.