Tips, tricks, and a quick peek into the everyday life of the conservation district.
The Snohomish Conservation District (SCD) is excited to launch the Equity in Conservation program. This program is funded through a cooperative agreement with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The Equity in Conservation program will help support our efforts to engage with Latino and Spanish-speaking farmers and agricultural workers in Snohomish County and Camano Island.
Read MoreWhat does six-foot tall rye mean to you? For Vince Caruso of Caruso Farms, it means experimenting with cover crops.
Read MoreManure is a constant presence on farms with livestock. Appropriate storage and management of manure allows it to retain the nutrients that make it such an excellent soil amendment. Proper storage also minimizes the risk that those nutrients will end up polluting our local streams, lakes, or well water.
Read MoreWhen Ken Coman first spotted a beaver along the stream on his property outside of Snohomish, his first reaction wasn’t concern, it was curiosity. He started doing some reading about the ecological benefits that beavers provide and decided that his goal wasn’t to get rid of them, but to welcome them instead.
Read MoreWhen Mark Batcheler was growing up in the Midwest, he swore he’d never have a career in farming.
“Everyone I knew had cows or worked on a farm,” Mark said. “As an adolescent, I thought, I’m never going to do that.”
Read MoreThe Sustainable Lands Strategy (SLS) coalition initially convened in 2010 to unite individuals and community organizations dedicated to improving the coexistence of farming and fishing in Snohomish County’s floodplain areas. Snohomish Conservation District has been involved in this collaboration since the start.
Read MoreIt can be easy to take water for granted in the Northwest, until you see it through the eyes of a farmer like Jake Stewart.
“I wouldn't call us climate refugees,” said Jake. “But we were certainly climate migrants leaving the droughts.”
Jake and his wife, Aja, were farming near Austin, Texas when their well began to run dry.
Read MoreFood forests are designed to mimic a forest ecosystem and are mainly made up of edible and medicinal perennial species, with some annual crops mixed in.
Read MoreIf you visit Niky Schultz’s food forest, you might get the sense she’s planting her own little Garden of Eden, an edible landscape where bees nap in her “Pollinator Paradise” and salamanders swim like little dragons in her pond. It’s hard to believe that she’s spent most of her adult life living in apartments with only enough space for a container garden.
Read MoreAlley cropping is an agroforestry practice where rows of trees are planted wide enough to create alleys where other crops can be cultivated.
Read MoreTwenty years ago, Eric Lee-Mäder found a strange-looking bottle in a wine shop that would end up changing the course of his life. The French cider inside was unlike anything he’d ever tasted.
“It was much more complex than sweet,” Eric said. “I got a sense of the whole orchard, from the bloom of the apple tree to the fungus growing in the understory.”
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Snohomish Conservation District | 528 91st Ave NE, Lake Stevens, WA 98258 | 425-335-5634
