It is the most wonderful time of the year in Minnesota! The leaves are changing, pumpkins line the country roads, and there is a lingering scent of apple cider and cinnamon in the air. Minnesotans have a long list of favorite fall past times, including football, apple picking, and corn mazes. Perhaps most popular of all, however, is the time-honored tradition of “leaf-peeping.”

If you’re starting a pollinator garden or native planting, however, one of the best times to plant is actually in the fall.
While planting in the fall might not seem intuitive, it makes a lot of sense if you think about the way nature works.

https://eastmetrowater.org/2022/09/01/going-native-fall-is-a-great-time-to-plant/

From studying other lakes around the state, we know that small changes – removing trees, shrubs, and perennial plants; adding rock along the water’s edge (rip rap); or building homes and driveways – can add up to big ecological impacts over time.

With new grant funds from the state, the Lower St. Croix Watershed Partnership has hired a Minnesota Extension agronomy outreach specialist – Jennifer Hahn – and has earmarked more than $200,000 to support soil health practices and conservation plans. Funds will also support larger conservation projects, including grassed waterways, sediment basins, gully repair, and conversion of less productive land to natural areas.

What has four legs, eats everything in sight, loves yoga (apparently), and is guaranteed to make you smile?

Currently, the Walz-Flanagan Administration is asking Minnesotans to share ideas on how to best respond to our changing climate. The state has set up a website to provide information and collect ideas from the public related to: 1) Investing in clean transportation; 2) Protecting our natural and working lands; 3) Creating stronger, resilient communities; 4) Moving to clean energy and efficient buildings; and 5) Promoting health, equity, and a strong economy (climate.state.mn.us/ideas-lead-bold-action).

The MN and WI DNR partner on sturgeon research and management programs including a long running tagging study that is designed to learn more about the sturgeon population size and movements. Tagged fish have been caught numerous times by anglers and each have an interesting story.

Poke along the trail at the Lilydale brickyards in St. Paul, and you’re likely to find fossilized remains of prehistoric sea creatures that lived 450 million years ago during the Ordovician period – bryozoans, crinoids, brachiopods, and trilobites. How did they end up here, more than 1000 miles from the nearest ocean?

Recently, the Minnesota Legislature approved a third round of funding for the Lawns to Legumes Program, which was developed in 2019 to increase habitat for pollinators such as the federally endangered rusty-patched bumblebee. Minnesotans can apply for grants of up to $300 to support native planting projects, and there are larger grants for demonstration neighborhoods as well. Over the past two years, Lawns to Legumes grant recipients have created more than 800,000 square feet of pollinator habitat, including pocket plantings, pollinator lawns, and pollinator meadows / prairies.

Last week, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) released its draft list of impaired waters for 2022. The list catalogs lakes, rivers and streams in our state that are impacted by a wide variety of pollutants and stressors. Some no longer support the fish and insect species that they used to. Others are prone to frequent algae blooms due to too much nutrients in the water. Still others have fish consumption advisories due to high levels of mercury, PCBs or PFOS. In total, 2904 water bodies in Minnesota are considered impaired.

On Monday, November 8, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) released a draft list of lakes, rivers and streams to be added to the state’s impaired waters list in 2022. Included are six water bodies in Washington County that have recently been found to have high levels of perfluorinated alkylated substances (PFAS), also known as the “forever chemical.” The affected waters include Tanners Lake (Oakdale), Eagle Point wetland and H.J. Brown Pond (Lake Elmo Park Reserve), Clear Lake (City of Forest Lake) and the St. Croix River/Lake St. Croix from Taylors Falls to Prescott.

When Marge Sagstetter and her husband Steve moved to Oakdale after 25 years in Lake Elmo, they took more than just their interior furnishings with them. Marge, a Master Gardener, had spent years lovingly cultivating and tending to gardens at her old home and, though she looked forward to a smaller, lower maintenance yard in Oakdale, she just had to bring a few flowers and ornamental grasses along with them when they moved.

You might not expect to find an ecological wonder in the middle of Woodbury, but Tamarack Nature Preserve is not only the southernmost tamarack wetland in Minnesota, but also, it turns out, both a rich fen and a poor bog …

University of Minnesota and others are currently researching new technologies that could reduce our need for salt, including novel applications of porous pavement, nano-technology and solar roads that prevent ice from adhering to pavement, salt-free water softeners, and chemical alternatives to road salt. Meanwhile, here are two ways that you can help to reduce salt use this year:

In the fall, many communities deploy street sweepers to clean-up city streets. Though the phrase “street sweeping” may conjure up images of a people with brooms, industriously sweeping our roadways, many modern street sweepers actually suck, like vacuums. Street suckers to the rescue?

What if someone told you that you could skip raking your leaves this fall? It turns out that raking leaves off of your lawn can actually be counter-productive. “The leaves have organic matter in them,” explains Sam Bauer, Executive Director of the North Central Turfgrass Association. “You’re adding good organic matter to your soil when you’re not picking them up.” Instead of raking…