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Forced to downsize, Sweet Tooth Farm focuses on self-care: ‘We can come back stronger’

In the summer of 2021, Monika Owczarski was informed by the City of Des Moines that the land she was leasing for her urban farm, Sweet Tooth Farm, would no longer be rented to her. Owczarski was devastated. On these […]

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Take a walk among the dinosaurs in ‘that one Des Moines garden’ this July

After a four-year hiatus, the Polk County Master Gardeners’ Garden Tour is back, highlighting 11 exceptional gardeners and garden enthusiasts across the county, including Urbandale, Clive, Des Moines and Ankeny. The tour is part of Iowa State University Extension and […]

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Refugee-led nonprofit Tapestry Farms fights Quad Cities food deserts with gardens

Half of Iowa’s grocery stores closed in the last quarter of the 20th century, according to the Iowa Department of Public Health. Today, roughly 40 percent of Iowans live a half mile or more from the nearest source of fresh […]

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Garden so good it deserves an audience? Sign up for Project GREEN’s newly expanded Open Gardens Weekend

Like the gardens it highlights, Project GREEN’s Open Gardens Weekend has gone through cycles of getting established, lying fallow and then growing. The first Open Gardens Weekend in 2019 was a success with more than 600 people visiting 30-plus gardens […]

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Gaia’s Peace Garden blooms while preparing to be sold

Just south of Interstate 80 and past the burgeoning home construction, a whimsical garden flourishes in the middle of suburbia. Here at 2066 Bristol Drive grows Gaia’s Peace Garden, a botanical sanctuary recognized by the United Plant Savers and wildlife habitat certified by the National Wildlife Federation. […]

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