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2 months ago | 
sun-sentinel.com | Hilary Flower |Ruscena Wiederholt
Fellow Floridians, we owe the American flamingo a lot. Let us count the ways. First, and most obviously, we have been using it as our pink mascot for decades. We slap it onto just about everything to give it a Florida flair. I dare you to count how many flamingos you encounter in images and business names today. God forbid you walk past a tourist display — you’ll be stuck counting for days. Flamingo lawn ornaments anywhere in the country are a nod to Florida, albeit with a side of shade at times.
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2 months ago | 
m.farms.com | Ruscena Wiederholt
By Ruscena Wiederholt“In the fall, we don’t mow like the beautiful archetypical farm that you see on postcards where everything is tidy and everything’s neat ” says Brett Grohsgal, co-owner of Even’ Star Farm, an organic vegetable, fruit and flower farm in Maryland. “If you want to have a farm that doesn’t have pollinator habitat, make it look like the postcard.
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Dec 8, 2024 | 
planetizen.com | Ruscena Wiederholt
Malls, once a bustling hub of commerce and Cinnabons, are now a shadow of their former selves. Over the last two decades, over a fifth of U.S. malls were shuttered, while another 25 percent are estimated to close by 2025. Exploring dead malls has even become a popular spectator sport on YouTube. Yet, this retail demise comes with a cost — fueling job losses, negatively impacting , and reducing cities’ .
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Dec 6, 2024 | 
covercropstrategies.com | Ruscena Wiederholt
Dirt, muck, mud — soil is easy to disregard, but it’s invaluable. Soil is home to a quarter of the world’s terrestrial species, just one gram holds 10 billion organisms. And a staggering 95 percent of our food production relies on healthy soil. Yet that vital resource is limited. Soil forms at a snail’s pace, and more of it is disappearing every year. Since the 1980s, soil erosion has shrunk the area of American farmland by about the size of Ohio.
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May 30, 2024 | 
organicconsumers.org | Organic Bytes |Alexis Baden-Mayer |Gabby Romero |Ruscena Wiederholt
There’s nothing like a locally grown organic strawberry, but you can’t get them at most grocery stores. On the East Coast right now, Mom’s Organic Market is selling organic strawberries from the Lancaster Farm Fresh Co-op, an organic co-op of over 100 small farms. But, even now, at the height of strawberry season, most organic grocery store strawberries are coming from massive industrial farms in California or Mexico.
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May 7, 2024 | 
civileats.bluelena.io | Mary-Rose Abraham |Christina Cooke |Ruscena Wiederholt |Virginia Gewin
When I was a child in the 1980s, my family traveled nearly every summer from our home in Los Angeles to the other side of the world. We spent monsoon-drenched weeks on my grandparents’ farm in southern India’s Kerala state. On the last day of one of our trips, there was one final item to be packed. A housekeeper knelt under a towering 20-foot curry leaf tree and dug up one of the dozens of saplings at its base. She wrapped it in a wet towel and secured it in a plastic bag.
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May 5, 2024 | 
civileats.com | Ruscena Wiederholt
Tom Farquhar planted several large plots of beneficial flowers around his vegetable farm in Montgomery County, Maryland. Once a conventional corn and soybean farm, the idea was to control pests at the Certified Naturally Grown operation by increasing the number of beneficial predator insects and spiders. And the method worked: “We don’t have too many big insect problems,” he said. But the crop-free plantings have had another effect, Farquhar explained.
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Apr 17, 2024 | 
modernfarmer.com | Ruscena Wiederholt
Bats are a captivating bunch, flying hundreds of miles, pinpointing prey with sonar and leading complex social lives. They’re also voracious predators of insects wreaking havoc on crops such as cotton, cocoa and rice. By literally wiping out tons of pests every night, bats save US farmers an estimated $3.7 billion annually. Besides the bug carnage, bats also crops such as coconuts, agave, guava and bananas, disperse seeds and create fertilizer.
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Apr 8, 2024 | 
accesswire.com | Ruscena Wiederholt
By Ruscena WiederholtOriginally published by TriplePunditNORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / April 8, 2024 / Avocados are having their day in the sun. From breakfast to dinnertime, this creamy delicacy is enjoyed in tacos, guacamole, smoothies, desserts and more. Not only are avocados tasty, but they're also renowned for their health benefits, providing a good source of potassium, fiber and other nutrients.
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Feb 9, 2024 | 
tbnweekly.com | Ruscena Wiederholt |Steven M. Whitfield
It’s that time of year again — the race is on for Florida’s state bird. The battle to dethrone the current northern mockingbird with the Florida scrub jay has been going on for decades, but this time a rosy new candidate is in the ring: flamingos. American flamingos, largely sidelined in this match, are an official candidate as of early December. The timing couldn’t be better as dozens of flamingos now crisscross the state — adding a splash of color to mudflats, inland lakes and lagoons.
