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I come from a long line of flower lovers (and flower gardeners!). I planted my first flower garden years ago when I was in grade school. And much more recently (just yesterday, in fact), I wandered my yard with one of my own kids, passing on this legacy as we checked in on our peonies, irises, azaleas, and strawberries, all in various stages of bloom. And I thought to myself, it’s time for a flower garden road trip through West Virginia. I want to see what else is blooming across the state! From the Northern Panhandle to the southeastern mountains, here’s the Google Maps route I’m considering.

Oglebay Park Bissonnette Garden, 1330 Oglebay Dr, Wheeling, WV 26003, USA

With dozens of garden beds and hanging flower baskets plus several fountains, Bissonnette Gardens is a flower lover’s paradise. Plus, Oglebay Resort has plenty of amenities to go along with beautiful flowers: dining options, overnight accommodations, and outdoor recreation opportunities are just a few things you’ll find here in addition to gardens!

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WVU Core Arboretum Amphitheater, Ampitheater Trail, Morgantown, WV 26505, USA

Located adjacent to the West Virginia University campus along the Monongahela River in Morgantown, the WVU Core Arboretum is free and open to the public from dawn to dusk. It features a variety of native plants, including many wildflowers, and an old growth forest.

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West Virginia Botanic Garden, 1061 Tyrone Rd, Morgantown, WV 26508, USA

This free West Virginia attraction located at Tibbs Run Preserve boasts 85 acres of flower gardens, marshes, and woodlands. Come wander the 4.5 miles of trails, and be sure to keep an eye on the garden’s calendar throughout the year for various events hosted at this flower-filled park!

West Virginia Capitol Building, Charleston, WV 25305, USA

Have you ever visited the Capitol Complex while the tulips are in bloom? This area is beautiful year round, but it’s especially vibrant in the spring.

Sunshine Farm & Gardens, 696 Glicks Rd, Renick, WV 24966, USA

This 60-acre Botanic Garden and Arboretum features over 10,000 different plants. Visitors can stroll through the stunning grounds, relax beside a small pond, and purchase beautiful blooms for their own gardens while they’re here!

One spot *not* on my map is Ritter Park in Huntington, West Virginia, which features its famous rose garden. What other beautiful West Virginia gardens should I add to my flower garden road trip list to visit this spring? And of course, I’ll be packing snacks!

Source: onlyinyourstate.com

“We are now starting to fill the gaps in the fresh produce supply chain in close collaboration with retailers. If you are an investor, now is the time to get back into vertical farming,” says Endre Harnes, Chief commercial officer at Avisomo, a Norwegian vertical farming system supplier.

Over the last few weeks, Endre has been trying to feel the pulse of the agri-tech investment space by visiting the industry conferences Indoor Ag-Con, Word Agri-tech Innovation Summit and Future Food-Tech in Las Vegas and San Francisco. After the numerous promising panels and tons of talks with industry colleagues and investors alike, Endre emphasized that “vertical farming should be on top of your watch lists right now.”

Endre Harnes

“You might think I’m crazy to say so: VC investments into the agri-tech space have fallen by 60% since 2021. For vertical farming specifically the image is even more gloomy: Investments in vertical farming fell 91% from the start of 2022 to the end of 2023. At the moment, vertical farming surely is the ugly duckling of the agri-tech investment space.”

Given the very public bankruptcies and challenges seen among the early movers in the industry over the last 18 months, it’s not a big surprise that «not looking at indoor farming at the moment» seems to be a unified chorus among global VCs. However, Endre is confident that for investors looking for the next big opportunity in agri-tech, now is the time to invest in vertical farming. Just like Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures said during his panel at the World Agri-tech Innovation Summit in San Francisco a few weeks ago. ‘Big returns are made by identifying investable industries at the time no one else is investing in them.’.

So here are Endre’s top five reasons showcasing why investors should get back to investing in vertical farming before the train leaves the station:

Growth. Despite recent setbacks and early-mover bankruptcies, vertical farming is still expanding at an accelerating rate. The total global revenue from vertical farms grew by over 20% from 2022 to 2023, in a year that saw the collapse of several large players. And growth seems to accelerate further; Latest projections from Fortune business insights show a potential 26,4% CAGR throughout 2032, up from the 2022 estimates of 24,9%. (Numbers from March 2024)

Pain points.
Unprecedented challenges with sourcing fresh produce among retail store chains are opening more and more eyes to the supply security, stability, and quality of vertically farmed produce. There is an opportunity to integrate production directly into local supply chains to address both these issues and local seasonality. An example of this is what the retail store chain Coop in Norway is doing in collaboration with Avisomo.

Maturity.
Vertical farming technology, business models, and the industry in general are transcending their early-stage phases. Cheaper systems and automation, cheaper and more efficient LEDs, and cheaper renewable energy production are a triple whammy pointing toward the industry’s inflection point. Is that a hockey stick I see on the horizon?

Public-private projects.
Large-scale, government supported projects like the +$100M ReFarm project in Dubai featuring 200 IGS towers is just the first of many sizable efforts to support food security all over the planet. Note that this project is estimated to replace no more than 1% of Dubai’s imported produce. Still room for more of those.

The Avisomo Growth Stations, with a produce trolley being autonomously moved by a Lowpad robot

Collaboration and transparency.
Gone are the days of lofty promises and expansive secrecy. Following the many ups and downs in the industry, more people have become more outspoken about what they’ve struggled with, creating a sense of unity. Now more and more companies are collaborating, specializing, and sharing information to drive the development of better grow systems, on-premise Co2 production, innovative substrates. And an incredible amount of different ways to promote and accelerate plant growth – from electrical stimulation via generative AI to various biological compounds.

Each one effort combined, chipping away at the industry’s golden benchmark: Unit economics.

“Bottom line? There currently is a clear discrepancy between popular opinions on vertical farming and the development we see from inside the industry. We now seem to be on the path to finally delivering on the promise that vertical farming made. We would love to have the global investor community along for the ride towards implementing vertical farming into mainstream food production,” Endre affirms.

For more information:
Avisomo
Endre Harnes, Chief commercial officer
endre@avisomo.com
https://avisomo.com

Source: verticalfarmdaily.com

This morning, I went for a beautiful chilly spring walk. I led my dog on the two-mile loop we often take on Sundays, up to an adorable coffee shop where we ate a delicious English muffin with ham on it, drank a little cappuccino, relished in the joy of small mornings, and then began our journey back home. The walk home is idyllic: brick sidewalks, old streets, houses with shutters painted to match their doors. There are many things I love about living in a city, but overlapping my routine with that of strangers is one of my favorites. We passed the bars with people out at brunch, hooting and hollering; the fans in their jerseys on their way to the game; the children bailing out of their strollers to sprint toward the park. At the end of the walk, we walk through the farmer’s market, and pick up a bouquet of tulips, yellow like good butter.

This week, the first of the starter plants arrived. These are little sprouts, in tiny plastic cups, made to be taken home and planted in your garden. They are less than a foot tall, tiny guys. I bought them once, two springs ago, when I planted my very first garden. And I will never buy them again. I do not need them now. I will never need them. Chaos sows my garden each year now. And in chaos I reap treasures beyond my wildest dreams.

My first year as a gardener, I made a Pinterest board where I pinned tons of images about companion planting, and how to map out individual square feet and plant things within them. I made a little map in my journal of where I planted each of my starter plants. I was trying so hard. I was so nervous! Dumbass!

I should have known that level of devotion could never continue! Like many depressed people, my ambitions were great for my first garden and my execution mediocre. After very careful planning, I kept forgetting my garden. Plants died in their beds. I went on vacation and a bunch of cherry tomatoes fell into the bed and rotted there. Oh well! Like all naive resolutions, I vowed to be different next spring. I would not be a trash chaotic gardener. I would be planned and resolute.

But then, something funny happened. Turns out, you don’t actually have to be very good at gardening to have a garden. After I left all my plants to rot in their beds, last spring, I noticed something. What was that? It was a little plant in my bed! It was a little tomato plant!! I did not need to buy the starter plant because my bad garden hygiene is planting stuff. The garden will build itself. From the corpses of my neglect, I gained seven (7!!!!) tomato plants last year. Were they all cherry tomatoes? Yeah! What of it? Cherry tomatoes rule!

And because I worry about my memory, about forgetting the plants, I have taken all the big bottles (the red vermouth bottles in particular, but also some wine bottles) and I fill them with water and I shove them into the dirt. They will keep the plants alive for me if I forget.

This was a lesson from the universe. I did not have to be so precise. I could be an idiot. That was fine! The garden would grow anyway as long as I watered it. So last year, I gave up on annuals. Who needs them. I bought a bunch of perennial seeds for big flowers: marigolds and zinnias mostly. This morning, after returning from my walk, I mixed the four bags of seeds in the palm of my hand. I poked holes in the dirt and dropped some mystery seeds in there. I know no gods or masters! The garden will do as it pleases! I am neither its mother nor its keeper, but its comrade!

Already it is growing oregano in the plant bed and herbs on the shelf. The honeysuckle plants are thriving, growing up toward the sun. The flowers I planted this morning may bloom. They may not. Nature is on her own now. Who am I to try and control her? I cannot! I will not! There are native plants (weeds?) growing up between the bricks of the patio. Aren’t they beautiful? They make my home look green. I allow them to live.

The two native scarlet honeysuckle plants I bought “needed to be cut back” over the winter. I didn’t cut them back. I was sad! It was cold! And guess what? It does not fucking matter. They have returned with a vigor and a lust for life. They are growing all over the place!

A lesson the garden taught me last year is that I don’t have to do everything perfectly. I can have a garden and not be the best gardener of all time. I can have a garden really without even trying very hard. The plants live on their own without me. I am but their steward. The garden is chaos, but it is mine.

Source: defector.com

At first glance, straw bale gardening might seem like a novelty or even a too-good-to-be-true scheme, but the method has been around for decades, and gardeners say it works. Joel Karsten, who wrote the book on straw bale gardening, Straw Bale Gardening Complete (or rather, books—he actually wrote four of them), came up with the idea for gardening in straw bales when he was living on a property that didn’t have enough topsoil to grow produce.

Having grown up on a farm, Karsten had seen how plants would naturally sprout out of a bale as it began to decompose, and wondered if he could plant right inside a straw bale. After more than fifteen years refining his method, Karsten wrote a self-published pamphlet on the topic, and eventually a publisher came calling in 2013. Since then Karsten has been the face of this unusual method, although he does not claim to be its sole inventor.

We called on Kartsten and Gail Pothour, a UCCE Sacramento County Master Gardener, with more than a decade of experience gardening in straw bales to find out more about this unusual way of growing vegetables. Here are their tips for starting a straw bale garden.

What is Straw Bale Gardening?

Straw bale gardening is a method of gardening that uses a straw bale as the medium to grow plants. It is an easy, low-cost, and impermanent way to create vegetable beds. Straw bale gardening is especially useful in situations where you cannot grow in the ground either because the soil is contaminated or because there are inhospitable growing conditions. 

Karsten says that he’s had readers send him pictures of their straw bale gardens from all over the globe. “People are straw bale gardening in places where you don’t even dream of gardening: Abu Dhabi and Egypt, Israel and New Zealand, north of the Arctic Circle,” he says. Out in Northern California, Pothour says the head gardener at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center, where she gardens, heard Kartsen on the radio after his book came out and decided to try using straw bales to raise crops. They’ve raised a portion of their vegetables in straw bales ever since.

How Do You Start a Straw Bale Garden?

You’ll need more than just a straw bale to start a straw bale garden. First, you need a site with full sun exposure. Pothour advises that you plan your placement with aesthetics in mind too. “[Eventually] they can look kind of unsightly. I’m not sure I’d put this in my front yard because they look pretty bad by the end of the season.”

In addition to the bale itself, you’ll need fertilizers to “condition” the bale, sterile potting soil, and seeds and/or seedlings for your vegetables. 

Both Karsten and Pothour suggest that it’s worthwhile to set up an automatic irrigation system for the garden–even if it’s a one-summer experiment. You can use a soaker hose or a more complex drip system paired with an automatic timer. Otherwise, you’ll need to water by hand daily and twice per day in the peak of summer.

Be sure to buy a straw bale—not a hay bale, which will have many unwanted seeds within (and will “sprout like a Chia Pet” according to Karsten). The bales should be positioned cut side up with the strings around the sides of the bales. If you end up with a bale with the strings running on the cut side, you should still position the bale so the strings are around the sides: You’ll just have to work harder to get your seeds or seedlings into the bale, cutting through the straw crosswise. 

How Do You Condition the Straw Bales?

In his books, Karsten lays out two methods–organic and conventional–for conditioning the bales, which is basically a process of partially composting the bales before you plant. (The moisture and nitrogen from the fertilizer speed up the natural decomposition process.) Pothour notes that the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center uses the organic method because they have a commitment to organic produce, but homeowners might find the smells associated with the organic fertilizers unappealing.

“If you go the organic route, just bear in mind it’s going to take longer to condition, it is more expensive, and it does smell,” she says. “So don’t put it anywhere next to your patio or your kitchen door where that odor could be very offensive.”

For the conventional method, Karsten recommends 1 lb. of lawn fertilizer that contains no pesticides or herbicides and a bag of 10-10-10 organic fertilizer for every bale you plan to plant. For the organic method, you’ll need a lot more: 5 lbs. of blood or feather meal and an organic source of Phosphorus and Potassium, as well.  

Conditioning via the conventional method takes 10-12 days depending on the air temperature. Using Karsten’s method you’ll alternate sprinkling on ½ cup of fertilizer on Day One and watering with warm water on the next day for a total of six days, then on Days 7, 8, and 9 you’ll cut back on the amount of fertilizer to ¼ cup and water it in, and finally you’ll add the 10-10-10 on Day 10. You can find the complete instructions in his book Straw Bale Gardening Complete. 

What Can You Plant in a Straw Bale Garden?

You can grow a huge variety of plants in your straw bales, but there are a couple crops to avoid. Karsten says that sweet corn is one to skip because your yield will be tiny and there’s a danger of the bales tipping over.

Pothour also cautions against plants that will grow very tall like some varieties of tomatoes. However, most tomatoes work great in straw bales—just choose dwarf varieties. Karten hasn’t had much success with onions in Minnesota, but says gardeners in more southern climates could have success.

Avoid planting perennial crops, like asparagus, artichoke and rhubarb, because they regrow year after year and your bales will not last more than two seasons, and skip rosemary which prefers an alkaline environment.

Kartsen says, “Tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers do really well, and the whole squash family and the whole cabbage family just loves it,” noting that the bale method prevents some of the challenges of growing squash and cabbage, like cabbage worms, which lay their eggs in the soil. Pothour has had great success with sweet potatoes, which she says end up much less scratched up than those grown in a traditional garden bed. 

How Do You Plant in a Straw Bale Garden?

Once your bail has been conditioned, it’s time to plant. To transplant seedlings (aka starts), you’ll need a hand trowel and sterile potting soil to create a cozy home for your baby plants (Karsten estimates about a ½ cubic foot of potting mix per bale). 

Use your trowel to dig a hole in the bale, spacing the plants according to their recommended spacing. Place the seedling into the hole, water it in, and then backfill with your potting mix. To plant seeds, you’ll create a thin 1-2-inch layer of planting mix on top of the bale to set the seeds into. Follow the directions on the seed packet for spacing. 

How Do You Care for a Straw Bale Garden?

Your straw bale garden will need to stay moist, so watering is essential. However, Karsten cautions, “The number one mistake people make is to overwater their straw bale gardens. It’s really easy to do.” Once your bale is moistened it will only take a gallon or two a day to keep it from drying out (possibly more in very hot weather). “Hose-end timers that you program like an alarm clock are a lifesaver,” says Karsten, who typically sets his to run for three minutes every 12 hours. “During the heat, the real hot part of summer, you can increase the frequency,” he adds.

You’ll also want to start fertilizing your straw bale garden once the seedlings have their third leaf pairs. Spray on a liquid or soluble fertilizer every few weeks to keep the plants nourished. Organic gardeners will use a foliar fertilizer such as fish emulsion, which Karten notes, “smells bad but works great.”

Troubleshooting Common Issues

The biggest problem most gardeners run into is that their bales start to slump and look sloppy as the season progresses. “As the straw bale starts to decompose, it shrinks. So you’ve got to keep those strings tight,” says Pothour. She and the other gardeners at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center developed a method they call the “tourniquet method” which uses a stick to twist the baling twine tighter.

Both Karsten and Pothour also recommend using a physical barrier like a small fence or board to help prevent them from slumping too much. Another issue that Karsten says occasionally comes up is ants, which won’t bother your crops: They’re after the straw. His advice? “Ignore them.”

Source: realsimple.com

Source: post-gazette.com