By Alex Krantz, Gathering Ground intern 2020 Before becoming an intern with my sister Izzy at Gathering Ground, I was an Island regular. Every summer my family would drive up from our Illinois suburb to Washington Island, anticipating the euphoric moment when we would...
by Russell Rolffs, farm manager This year, Gathering Ground grazed six White Dorper sheep, rotating them through the vineyard June to August and then the young chestnut and fruit orchards the rest of the season. Combining livestock with crops is a sustainable...
This year the grapes didn’t ripen very well — they have low sugars (10-13 brix) and won’t make good wine. The low sugars are due to the downy mildew that prematurely defoliated the vines and prevented them from ripening the grapes adequately. While...
by Izzy and Alex Krantz, Gathering Ground Interns As we reflect on the past five weeks of the Gathering Ground internship, the smell of dead Rose Chafers composting in the sun haunts us. We close our eyes and see thousands of brown beetles swarming around us, clinging...
The last few years have been very trying for many gardeners on Washington Island due to massive numbers of rose chafers. We have been researching methods of organic and biological control at Gathering Ground, methods that go beyond the standard conventional controls,...
By Russell Rolffs. This article first appeared in the The Washington Island Observer. Winter evenings are best spent sitting near the stove and dreaming of what to plant in the spring. The same is true for us at Gathering Ground. Our vision is to develop the grounds...
It was a year of challenges in the vineyard. The grapes had a hard time ripening due to the cold spring, and the lack of heat and sunlight made for grapes that were low in sugars and high in acid. Nevertheless, we harvested 500 pounds late October (after all the...
–Our goal is to grow grapes using low environmental impact management. Success with organic management starts with variety selection, and so, in 2019 we began transitioning our vineyard to a new variety of grape by grafting a variety of grapes called Itasca onto our...
This article first appeared in the Washington Island Observer. By Sheridan Ash, Gathering Ground intern 2019 marks the second year that Gathering Ground is tending the vineyard on the Island. Because the organization’s mission is to educate youth and adults in...
First published in the Washington Island Observer By Russell Rolffs, Gathering Ground executive director Recently I saw a sign at the entrance of a garden that read: “If nothing is eating your plants, your garden is not part of the ecosystem.” The...
