MONROE — The Farm Aid festival is back in Wisconsin this year and attendees will have the chance to taste a true Wisconsin beer there — one brewed 100% with ingredients from one family farm in Green County. ... Read more
The garden is winding down and it’s time to think about your gardening year. Were you buried in beans or swamped by squash? With successes and failures fresh in your mind, take note of how this garden season has been.
SPENCER LAKE — Carloads of Packers fans, decked out with green and gold gear, streamed to Lambeau Field in Green Bay Sunday for the first home game of the season against the Minnesota Vikings, but cousins Elizabeth Retzlaff and Jeremy Griesbach took the slow route. They arrived by horse and buggy.
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services has announced new funding for grant programs which will help fill critical health care positions by expanding education and training opportunities for Wisconsin health care professionals in rural areas.
At long last, it’s tomato season! A juicy, red ripe tomato is a sure sign of summer, and none taste better than those plucked from the vine, still warm from the sun. While it may seem to take forever for that first green orb to ripen, before long the plant may be producing more fruit than a …
LondonDairy Alpaca Ranch, 6827 Highway 147, Two Rivers, will host free open houses for National Alpaca Days on Sept. 28 and Sept. 29 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
If you grew up on a farm during the time when I did, of necessity, you learned many skills. I learned how to pound a nail in a board without bending the nail or hitting my thumb. I learned how to tell the difference between a pine board and an oak board and sometimes I learned the hard way w…
A study from the U.S. Department of Agriculture reveals that individuals are putting themselves at risk of illness when they wash or rinse raw poultry.
BOULDER JUNCTION — A little after lunchtime on a recent Sunday at the intersection of County Roads M and N in Vilas County, Barbie Bunnell helped her 5-year-old son Blake Igl pump up the tires on his bike.
As the wind began to gust and push down rows of delicate, silvery misty miller, vivid-colored celosia and tall, fuzzy, bottle-brush-shaped liatris on July 19, farmers Maggie Shuhan and Ben Olson worried.
The Women in Sustainable Agriculture Conference — the only national conference that brings together farmers, educators, food system activists and other women in sustainable agriculture — is scheduled to take place this October in St. Paul, Minnesota. The event features workshops, demonstrati…
PLATTEVILLE — Jayne Dunnum and her partner, Robin Timm, and Heidi Dyas-McBeth, along with her husband Bill, all found themselves in Platteville around the same time in the late 1990s — moving from urban centers in the state to the busy college town in southwest Wisconsin. Both had interests …
School is starting, September is here, and fall is right around the corner. But the growing season is not yet over. Tomatoes are often just starting to mature in a quantity sufficient for canning. Peppers are ripening as well. To keep the harvest developing, be sure to maintain good soil moi…
The Food, Faith and Farming Network of southwest Wisconsin is seeking applications for seed money for new initiatives that support their mission and address issues raised during their Listening/Networking Sessions held in early 2018. The organization is accepting applications for projects in…
I stand in the animal clinic’s lobby joined by several other patients and their owners.
Demonstrations of steam-powered antique threshing machines and 1920-30s harvesting techniques will be part of Schumacher Farm Park Heritage Fest Sunday, Sept. 8, from noon to 5 p.m., at Schumacher Farm Park, 5682 Highway 19, Waunakee.
The Midwest Sheepdog Championship will be held 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 30-Sept. 1 and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 2 at scenic Badlands Sno-Park, 772 Kinney Road, Hudson.
The 2019 Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival, Sept. 6-8 at Jefferson Fair Park, 503 N Jackson Ave., Jefferson, will celebrate the diversity of sheep, the fiber they produce and the renewable products that they provide.
Along the sunny property line dividing my land from my neighbors, I used to have a row of lilacs. The neighbor persuaded me to let her remove all of the lilacs. Now that they are gone, I find I miss that natural demarcation. I want something that grows 8-10 feet tall and is about 4 feet wide…
REAP Food Group, a Madison-based non-profit, has launched an initiative that will change how locally-grown produce makes its way to the plates of southern Wisconsin’s most vulnerable residents. Workers will now process fresh produce in Madison College’s Culinary Arts kitchen, and REAP will d…
A friend asked me about transplanting rhubarb. Ours has been in the same spot for 20 years and this year seemed puny — smaller stalks and did not rejuvenate much. I thought this was due to the several frosts the rhubarb experienced but maybe it is time to transplant. What are your suggestion…
Wisconsin State Fair Park officials announced 2019 was a record-breaking year, with 1,130,572 people visiting the Wisconsin State Fair in early August.
It was a Sunday afternoon in August when Pa cranked up the Willys car and we started down our tree-lined dusty road and headed south. We drove by Miller’s farm, our nearest neighbors and soon arrived at County Highway A, which had recently been blacktopped.
My zucchini plants look quite healthy but the zucchinis themselves are rotting at the tip. Some have skinny little ends that grow abruptly larger at the stem end of the fruit and are green but grow soft fairly quickly. Others have skinny ends that are yellow and start to rot quickly. What’s wrong?
BARABOO — Attendees of the 56th annual Badger Steam and Gas Show will be in for a treat as over a dozen Minneapolis Moline tractors and memorabilia will be on display as part of this year’s big feature. The show will be held Aug. 16, 17 and 18 from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily at S3347 Sand Road, …
BURNETT CORNERS — While some parts of the area had rain and storms on the weekend, the Dodge County Antique Power Club enjoyed sunny days and only a shower of rain on Saturday evening when they hosted their annual show at the club’s farm at Burnett Corners in early August.
My year as Wisconsin’s agriculture ambassador is off to a corny start. Kernel, my flex-fuel Ford Explorer, and I have quickly added up over 5,000 miles as we’ve crisscrossed the state promoting agriculture. Kernel is sponsored by the Wisconsin Corn Promotion Board, and is fittingly decorated…
Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation’s Ag in the Classroom informational meetings will be held around the state this fall to offer an opportunity to learn more about the program, events and resources.
Dairy farmers and allied members of the dairy community are invited to cheer on the Green Bay Packers as they take on the Kansas City Chiefs on Aug. 29 at the annual Packer Tailgate Party, which is being coordinated by the Dairy Business Association.
Elmer Duellman’s passion for collecting vintage automobiles ran so deep that he turned his Fountain City home into one of the world’s largest car museums.
The Chippewa Valley Antique Engine and Model Club is making a second attempt at their first Sunday Fun Day.
I am horrified to confess that I have been inadvertently killing monarch larvae!
PRAIRIE DU SAC — Canada thistle. Spotted knapweed. Crown vetch. Wild parsnip. If you’ve cruised county roads in southern Wisconsin lately, you’re sure to have seen these invasive plants growing, and maybe thriving, along the roadsides and in right of ways — areas where these plants can often…
Adam Winrich is home from a break in his busy work schedule, but it’s difficult to get a handle on exactly where work ends and play begins.
Remember the old saying, “Actions speak louder than words”?
SHELL LAKE — “I don’t know how she’s ever going to survive. She doesn’t have any African violets,” one elderly customer told another as the two women left Bashaw Valley Farm and Greenhouse back when it was a new enterprise with a single greenhouse in the midst of a dairy farm.
Rylee Brattle describes caring for animals and showing at the local county fairs as a “family affair.”
The Wisconsin Farm Center, a free and confidential resource available to all farmers in the state, reported more than 2,300 calls from farmers in 2018. As of May 30, 2019, the center had received more than 1,000. Farm Center staff said most of these calls are related to finances and levels o…
JOHNSON CREEK — Agriculture was front and center at Jefferson County Farm Technology Days on Walter Grain Farms last week, with farmers and the farming profession on the minds of those visiting numerous exhibitors and vendors. Conversations among attendees and those participating in Wisconsi…
The Chippewa Valley Antique Engine and Model Club is making a second attempt at their first Sunday Fun Day.
WEST ALLIS — Fair season is officially underway in the dairy state, with representatives of the 168th Wisconsin State Fair ready to welcome an anticipated crowd of more than one million people to Wisconsin State Fair Park Aug. 1-11, providing fairgoers with 11 days of agriculture events, ent…
Seven finalists involved in Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation have been selected to compete in two contests this winter as part of the 2019 WFBF Annual Meeting and Young Farmer and Agriculturist Conference in Wisconsin Dells Dec. 6-8.
ALTOONA — Thousands of people from across the Midwest made their way to Altoona on July 23 to catch a glimpse of something many of them never thought they’d see: a working steam locomotive.
When I was a kid, wild grapes grew in our woodlot on long heavy vines that tangled around some of the oaks and climbed 30 feet or more to the top of some of the trees. If the season was a good one, meaning rains had come at the right time, we had lots of wild grapes.
After a hot and frequently wet July, it is terrific to get back to working in the garden. That’s a good thing because there is a lot to do! Harvest is at the top of the list. Even warm-season crops should mature this month.
DARLINGTON — While this year’s Lafayette County Fair went off without a hitch July 10-14, this past March, a fast snow melt and heavy rains left the fairground completely underwater.
DODGEVILLE — David Bakker has known since the fifth grade that he wanted to be an artist. When he got to high school, a fantastic art teacher cemented his passion for art — particularly painting. After graduation, Bakker went to design school for commercial art and graphic design, which seem…