As a local gardening and wild foods instructor through West high School’s Community Education program for years, I have noticed a steady increase in the interest of the community to eat healthier, local foods. My students have indicated that they are starting backyard gardens or even foraging the many available foods to increase their health through better nutrition and more … [Read more...]
Winter Gardening — Why Wait for Spring?
Why Wait for Spring? Most gardeners believe the only way they can grow vegetable plants during the dead of winter is in some type of greenhouse. However, I have successfully grown cold-hardy plants such as spinach, lettuce, arugula and even carrots, beets, radishes and Swiss chard right through the coldest Utah winters for more than 30 years without any protection from the … [Read more...]
Four easy ways to conserve water in Utah from snow
Utah Water Conservation Utahns live in one of the driest places in America. We know about the very real need for water conservation in Utah, we talk about it all the time. Yet those living along the Wasatch Front waste more water per person than almost anywhere else in the world. To make things worse, we water our yards with expensive drinking water, which consist mostly of … [Read more...]
Utah Hunting: Modern Day Big Game Hunting Cooperatives
Putting red meat on the table Utah Hunting Although my grandfather was an avid duck hunter and helped to start Utah’s first duck hunting club, and my father was an avid pheasant hunter, neither of them introduced me to hunting big game. I started hunting mule deer when I was 21 and a poor undergraduate wildlife student at Utah State University. Forty-four years later, I … [Read more...]
A Few Practical Ideas On Reducing Car Idling
Over the years, improvements in energy efficiency of newer cars, and more freeways facilitating higher car speeds traveling at higher gear ratios have contributed to reducing air pollution per mile traveled. Unfortunately, smog from vehicles along the Wasatch Front continues to worsen. In this article, I attempt to provide a few ideas towards reducing car … [Read more...]
The Endangered Utah Lake June Sucker
The June sucker (JS), native only to Utah Lake, was placed on America’s Endangered Species’ List more than a decade ago when there were less than 400 remaining in the lake. Two other native fishes of the lake, Utah Lake sculpin, and a unique form of our state fish, the Utah Lake Bonneville cutthroat trout, are already extinct. To save this unique suckerfish and its extremely … [Read more...]
Local Native Wildlife: Pigeons, Squirrels, and Blackbirds, Oh My!
As a longtime promoter of local native wildlife, I have always been intrigued by native animals adapting to the urban environments of Salt Lake City. Native deer, doves, and ducks all do well and whole herds of mule deer now live well within city limits. Many mourning doves now raise their young in our neighborhoods and no longer migrate south as they had done for millennia. … [Read more...]
Dog Obedience for Everyone
Decades ago, my grandfather was the pharmacist at a downtown Rexall Drug store, but his heart lay in the outdoors. He was well known as an avid fly fisherman, and also helped to establish the first duck hunting club in Utah; the Utah Duck Club. His true passion, however, was in training hunting dogs, a passion that was handed down to me. I mostly train bird … [Read more...]
Foraging Wild Spring Foods
Most readers of Utah Stories might recognize my name as an author of mostly gardening-oriented articles. Although I have been passionate about foraging since I was a teenager, I taught my first class through the West High Community Education program in the fall of 2011 with only 12 students in attendance. As the years passed, the number of students continued to climb, … [Read more...]
DIY Greenhouses: Get a Go on your Gardening
I have designed, built and managed a variety of different greenhouses over the past 40 years. All of them have been primarily intended for starting hundreds of transplants for many varieties of vegetables for our garden and many others. My wife and I have never actually used a greenhouse for growing food. Obviously, some folk do, although that would be more aligned to … [Read more...]