Here’s what’s happening in the Spring 2017 Inspire(d):

Female Mountain Bikers (Rule) • Hannah Breckbill / Farmer • Anna Bolz / Chef • Lindy Weilgart / Whale Researcher • Sum of Your Biz: Brittany Todd • Paper Project: Rad Awards! • Infographic: Empower the Girls in Your Life • Probit: Sarah Andersen + Short Profiles from YOU on Women Who Inspire YOU!

A note from Aryn:

Everything about this spring issue reminds me of why I make Inspire(d) Magazine, and why I work every day to be a strong, smart, brave woman: our tiny four-year-old daughter.

We women are an amazing gender, and while I mean no disregard for the sometimes hairier sex, we have to stick together. For many years we’ve had to prove ourselves to the world. That we’re capable, that we’re strong, that we’re smart and worth just as much as any other human being.

I feel that. Definitely as a business owner and boss. As a spouse. As a mother.

I strive to illustrate and help Roxie realize that girls can do motha-effin’ anything.

I asked her recently if there was anything she thought girls couldn’t do. She said no.

I want her to have that answer for the rest of her life.

So, to that effect, we’ve featured some kick-ass women throughout these pages. We start it off with whale expert Lindy Weilgart – she grew up in Decorah and graduated from Luther, and is now one of the leading scientists in the field of sperm whale communication.

Brittany Todd shares with us her mad life skills for the Sum of Your Business. She’s been capturing memories for folks for nearly seven years through Photography by Brittany, and gives us the low-down on home office vs. downtown office.

I had the pleasure of interviewing some super rad female mountain bikers from all around the Driftless Region – from Lake Mills to Minneapolis to La Crosse, and right here in Decorah. I am seriously inspired and can’t wait to hit the trails. For real. Plus, I learned some really cool info about high school cycling leagues and hope I can get Roxie interested some day!

The ever-talented Kristin Anderson is back again with an awesome paper project: rad awards. You can give these to the women (or men, or kids, or grandparents) in your life at any point. Congratulate them on passing a test, or for totally adulting, or being the best friend ever. Just have fun.

Kristine Jepsen writes about Hannah Breckbill and Humble Hands Farm. They overcame last year’s flood and are now planting the seeds for not only their farm, but community growth too.

And Sara Friedl-Putnam interviewed Decorah native and now New York-living pastry chef Anna Bolz. Anna works at renowned restaurant, Per Se, where she concocts desserts of amazing levels of deliciousness.

In the “empower my girl” category, I put together an infographic to offer us some ideas – from reading books by awesome female authors to just being confident in yourself.

Of course, our probituary, Sarah Andersen, is an inspiring woman too – I just loved her story. Plus, throughout the whole magazine are wonderful short stories submitted by all you lovely readers. Yep, you shared tales about inspiring women in your lives, and we got them all bundled up like little love notes. Just thinking about them makes me happy!

So enjoy, my friends. Say “Happy Women’s Day” March 8. Say “Thanks” to your mom. Say, “You’re amazing,” to your wife, partner, or best friend. Every day, let’s work to bring more light into the world, like a burgeoning spring season. After a while, you’ll realize – one day – that it’s 7 pm… and it’s still light out.

Looking forward,

Aryn Henning Nichols

Me Time: Taking care of yourself makes it easier to take care of others (gasp!)

Introduction and infographic by Aryn Henning Nichols • Originally published in the Winter 2015-16 Inspire(d)

Learning how to live generously is really important work, but before you can do that, you need to be generous with yourself. It’s that whole “secure your oxygen mask before helping others,” thing, and it should be the highest priority on your list. Because you can’t do a good job helping others if you’re tired, worn-out, scattered, or cranky.

That’s right, people, you need spend some time on YOU! Lately, I’ve been repeating the mantra, “if I’m not healthy, I can’t give.” Getting yourself healthy can mean a lot of things – eating right, exercising, stretching, meditating, getting counseling – and only you can know what it’ll take. We’d like to suggest, for starters, Me Time – i.e. Downtime, solitude, play, fun, relaxation, idle moments.

“Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets,” essayist Tim Kreider writes in a 2012 New York Times piece, The Busy Trap. “The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration – it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.”

Yes. Yes!

And remember that Me Time is different for everyone – some folks might feel like an hour at the gym is an escape, while others feel it’s totally torture. Respect what your self is saying. If you’ve always wanted to learn how to meditate, get some classes on the schedule. If you need to unwind with an hour of Property Brothers every day, then make it so. Afternoon naps make you feel like the shining sun? Do it! Don’t feel guilty – know that by taking care of you, you’ll better be able to take care of others. And you will. Because that’s the kind of place in which we live.

Check out this fun infographic for Me Time ideas and tips!

 

 

Seed Starting: Get your plants growing like a pro
By Kristine Jepsen • Photos courtesy River Root Farm

It begins mid-winter, when the seed catalogs start landing in your mailbox. Any gardener knows all that green abundance is as riveting as, well, garden porn on those cold nights of frost.

But for all their seeming perfection, the strength of those lovely fruits or flowers was determined months ago through the successful germination and early care of the young plants, says professional grower Katie Prochaska.

Katie – alongside her husband, Mike Bollinger – starts thousands of microgreens and vegetable and flower varieties every year at River Root Farm in Decorah.

“There are about six things you really have to address,” says Katie. “Soil, type of container, light and warmth, watering, and, well, human error – or, just paying attention.”

Katie, a Luther College grad who first dug into gardening as a sustainable farming volunteer in the Peace Corps in Mali, West Africa, has had plenty of opportunity to dial in those basics. She and Mike put in time with the Seed Savers Exchange garden crew, managed the one-acre sustenance garden at the Good Life Center, founded by Helen and Scott Nearing in rural Maine, and later the four-acre market garden of Four Season Farm, the Maine showplace of organic innovators Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch. Before moving to Decorah to start their own farm, which features moveable greenhouses pioneered by Coleman and engineered by a sister business, Four Season Tools, Katie and Mike managed gardens and programming for the Chicago Botanic Garden.

“Don’t think I was born with green thumbs, though,” Katie jokes. “In our first garden – in the yard of the house we rented on Broadway Street in Decorah in 2004 – we planted our broccoli in deep shade and failed to realize you have to separate onion starts from the clump they come in to get actual onions. And, we dug up a telephone line just tilling up our little plot. Our only success that year was one – ONE – Mexican Midget tomato plant.”

Here’s how to master the six keys to seedling success:

SOIL

By nature, seeds contain everything they need to sprout, so they don’t require nutrient-dense, bulky soil for germination. Choosing a potting medium that’s light and fluffy makes it easy for roots to find traction and sprouts to push up into the light of day. “Sterile” mixes are best to prevent mold or disease, Katie says. “A lot of times, people might use soil from outside, or compost from their garden, but these are too dense – literally overkill.”

Once emerged, plan to “pot up,” or transplant, seedlings into a combination of sterile potting soil and homemade or purchased compost, or a purchased soil with fertilizer mixed in. The goal is to give your starts easily accessible nutrients – baby food – for 4-6 weeks, prior to planting in the garden, Mike says.

TYPE OF CONTAINER

“Use any old container – just make sure it has holes in the bottom for drainage,” Katie says. Plants won’t need more than 3-4 inches in height or width before they’re planted outdoors, so keep containers small. Individual yogurt cups work well, in addition to biodegradable peat or coconut containers that can be planted directly in the ground. When setting up your seed starting area, it’s a good idea to put all containers in a shallow tray because you’ll want to bottom-water them once the seedlings send out roots,” Katie suggests. (More on that later.)

In planting the actual seeds, use the size of seed as a rule of thumb, she says. “I often see people ‘burying’ seed, when most need to be only as deep as they are long – hardly covered with dirt, in most cases.”

Another key tip: moisten soil before planting. “It should be uniformly damp but not soggy or dripping,” Katie says, “more like a rag that’s been wrung out.”

WARMTH & LIGHT

“Warmth and light are the biggies, and they go hand-in-hand,” Katie says, nodding solemnly to make her point. For most seeds, germination doesn’t require any light at all, but gentle heat is necessary to keep things at a constant 70 to 80 degrees until the seedlings emerge. “You can put them on top of the refrigerator, above a radiator, on top of your dryer. Or, you can buy an electric heat mat designed for starts.”

The trick, she says, is to keep the soil uniformly moist and warm until seeds “pop,” which is why many seed-starting kits include a plastic dome that fits on top. You can create this ‘greenhouse effect’ yourself by covering containers in plastic cling wrap, Katie says. “We sow [seeds] in trays on freestanding shelving, then cover the whole thing in a clear mattress bag.” Just be sure to keep the soil surface moist using a hand pump mist sprayer, or even a hand-held bottle with squeeze sprayer, Mike adds.

When the tiny seedlings poke through the soil surface – this is pivotal – you MUST move them into bright, full spectrum light before they’re 1/2” tall, often within just hours of emerging. If covered in plastic, seedlings will suffocate as they use up the oxygen sealed into their ‘greenhouse,’ and they will stretch and get spindly or ‘leggy,’ searching for daylight. The result is irreparably weak plants, Katie says.

“If you have a really sunny south-facing window, that can work, but honestly, the best thing is to put plants under standard shop lights,” with one cool white fluorescent bulb and the other giving warmer/orange light,” she explains. “You want the plant to be within 3-4 inches of the light source as it grows, which means setting up your growing area so the light can be moved up as the plants get taller.”

This phase of growth requires less heat – most plants don’t need more than 60-70 degrees. It’s important to honor nature’s cycle of light and dark, too, Katie says. “Give them 16-18 hours of light to mimic the length of day in warmer climates, where these seed varieties are native. Then, turn it off. The plants need ‘nighttime’ even though they’re not outdoors yet.”

WATERING

Bottom-watering, or letting soil take up water through holes in the bottom of containers, is recommended once the seedlings pop up, Katie explains. This cuts down on soil splash, or the splattering of potentially fungus-bearing soil onto the stem and leaves when watered from above. In addition, bottom-watering does not shift the fragile plants around at the soil surface.

PAYING ATTENTION

“A lot of your success comes in just paying attention – starting with reading the seed packet,” Katie says with a laugh. “The information might vary from company to company, but it’s there for a reason, and each vegetable or flower is unique in its own way.” To plan your garden’s productivity, look at the number of days to maturity. Is it given from seeding or from transplant? And keep in mind that some species really do best with direct seeding outdoors, as suggested, including beets, beans, cucumbers, squash, and pumpkins.

Another important directive? Thinning. “Don’t be afraid to thin,” Katie says. “I understand the temptation: people see that they’ve grown this little green thing, and they don’t want to kill it, but plants need space to grow. Always plant more than you need so you’ll have your target number of the strongest plants after thinning.”

And then there’s the importance of good lighting, again. “Check on your germinating seeds a couple times a day,” she repeats. “Stuff will pop up and be an inch tall in the blink of an eye.” Then, when seedlings are under bright lights, make sure plants don’t burn by growing tall enough to touch the bulbs.

Within just a few short weeks, your greenlings will be ready to join the profusion of plant life known as the growing season in the Midwest. “Moral of the story? Keep at it,” Katie says. “We learn something new from the garden every year.”

_______________

After whole decades of tangled tomatoes and limp lettuces, Kristine Jepsen has finally thinned her gardening proclivity to the handful of things her family will readily eat fresh from the garden. She is otherwise happy pay local professionals for their expertise. Read more of her misadventures at kristinejepsen.com.