CURRENT
Eagan Apple Valley Rosemount
minnlocal.com
In the Community, With the Community, For the Community
April 14, 2011 • V36.15
New faces on Eagan mound. Page 24
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Area gardeners looking to save cash, resources Bachman’s and Pahl’s Market dish about latest gardening trends BY JENNIE OLSON • SUN NEWSPAPERS After a long, cruel winter, you’ll be hard pressed to find a Minnesotan who doesn’t long for the smell of spring flowers or the sound of cheerful birds. But as people begin planning their gardens this year there’s one trend that is emerging stronger than ever – saving money and resources. Here are some ways that people are being economically and environmentally friendly this season.
Vertical gardening Vertical gardening means gardening with upright structures such as fences, trellises, tiered-raised beds, and walls, which are especially useful for growing flowering vines. This helps to save space, increase air circulation and add variety. To mix it up, gardeners are also opting for hanging baskets and containers. “We have done vertical gardening, and we’re just starting to get that stuff in,” said Apple Valley’s Pahl’s GARDENERS: TO PAGE 20
Apple Valley resident Penny Kastner walks around Pahl’s Market with her daughters, Quincy and Cleo. (Photo by Jennie Olson • Sun Newspapers)
Rosemount park-and-ride project work slowed by site issues MnDOT archeological survey in the works BY JOSEPH PALMERSHEIM • SUN NEWSPAPERS After a Rosemount tenement house burned down in April 1888, residents using the site as a trash pit probably gave little thought to the idea that anyone would ever find their refuse interesting.
More than 120 years later, that is exactly what has happened. Development of the 100-space, $1.2 million park-and-ride lot is proceeding slowly in light of a pending archeological assessment of the proposed site. The facility, located across from Rosemount City Hall, would serve to relieve the need to run Minnesota Valley Transit Authority routes from the Rosemount Community Center. Currently, two routes make stops at the Community
Center several times a day. Gerald Mattson, the Rosemount Area Historical Society’s president and cofounder, says the city gave the group permission to dig on the city-owned site before it was redeveloped. During the course of the October 2006 dig, shards of 1880s-era crock-pots were found, as were shoes and various glass bottles. “We found mostly broken crock pots,” Mattson said. “There was thousands of shards we got from one hole, and we
spent the entire winter gluing them back together. It was nothing of any historical value. Odds and ends.” More than 100 pots were uncovered during the dig, and none of them were intact, Mattson said. Nearly all of them were butter crocks. “They were made like the pottery in Red Wing,” he said. “We were amazed there were so many of them there. There PARK-AND-RIDE: TO PAGE 20