About 6,000 square feet of space on St. Claude Court in the Lower 9th Ward, once one of the thousands of vacant lots across the city, now cultivates vegetables and herbs for Rashida Ferdinand’s organization Sankofa Community Development Corp.

On land leased from the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, students learn how to garden, produce is harvested and sold at community markets and neighbors have a section to pick vegetables for their own families to eat.

“It creates a model and a space of possibility,” Ferdinand said Friday, as city leaders and developers gathered in her garden.

The model is one that NORA hopes will be taken up, copied and reimagined by individuals and organizations citywide, as the agency tackles what to do with the 2,5000 remaining vacant lots on its books — beyond just cutting the grass.

Since Hurricane Katrina, NORA has sold 3,000 lots. But much of the city’s vacant land has been left unwanted by developers and have failed to sell at auction.

On Friday, NORA officials pushed a newly branded “NORA Green” initiative with four programs designed to get vacant lots back into use, at least temporarily, while waiting for neighborhood real estate demand to strengthen.

NORA Executive Director Jeffrey Hebert said his agency studied other cities — such as Chicago and Boston — for how to get vacant land back into productive use.

“What can you do in the interim until the market comes back?” Hebert asked.

A program called “Growing Green” offers leases of vacant lots for $250 per year for projects that focus on planting, gardening and urban agriculture. It will be a more broadly implemented version of NORA’s previous alternative land use project, Hebert said.

In addition to the annual $250 lease, applicants to the program must buy liability insurance for at least $1 million per incident and $2 million in aggregate, which costs an estimated $400 per year. To apply, visit NORA’s website.

Earlier this week, NORA launched an entrepreneurship contest looking for ideas on what to do with vacant commercial and light industrial lots for a chance at $7,500 in seed money from Entergy.

Other NORA Green programs include:

• Green infrastructure projects that use planting and other natural ways of managing water.
• Alternative land management in partnership with Louisiana State University’s urban landscape lab to research sustainable beautification of vacant lots.
• As an extension of the Lot Next Door program, offering discounts on lot-buyers who plan to invest in landscaping improvements such as flower beds, patios or fencing.

By Kendall Hatch
Daily News Staff


Posted May. 23, 2014 @ 6:00 am

What’s a growing trend for 2014? Restoring and sowing “balance” in life – and the garden, according to the Garden Media Group.

While to some that may mean practicing yoga near the euonymus, to many it also means making more thoughtful choices for this year and beyond.

Homeowners still want their outdoor spaces to look beautiful – lush plants, inviting furniture, chic accessories – but they also want to invest their time and money into high-quality, eco-friendly products with a smaller carbon footprint, the group reports.

And they want that outdoor space to do double duty – a place for solitude but also for socializing. Balance, remember?

Among the gardening trends highlighted by the group:

• Composting: Recycling food scraps to create compost is the new recycling.

• Growing fruit: There’s much interest in planting things like raspberries and blueberries for crafting cocktails and smoothies, hops for home-brewing and grapes for homemade wine.

• Bee-friendly gardening: Environmentally aware consumers are interested in planting native, pollen-rich flowers, trees and vegetables to provide safe shelters.

• “Fingertip” gardening: Gardens are going high-tech with mobile apps and technology. Suntory Flowers’ Virtual Container Designer app is one example.

Locally, Jeffrey Salmon noted another interesting trend in landscaping: Homeowners are requesting smaller flowering trees – patio-size trees – rather than big shade trees.

“People want to keep the sun in the yard,” said Salmon, president of Arbordale Nurseries Landscaping, 480 Dodge Road, Getzville.

Other landscape trends: Planting edibles into the landscape – using blueberries as a landscape foundation plant, for example. Salmon also noted a decline in plastic edging. It’s being replaced by natural products – perhaps local stones from places such as Medina. People want local, natural products, he said. Plants, stones, mulch.

“I think Buffalo people have accepted that we don’t need to truck the mulch from five states over. We can use the stuff here,” Salmon said.

Miniature fairy gardens continue to be hugely popular. And water gardens are evolving and maturing – with homeowners putting more thought into their placement and maintenance.

“People want them to be easier to care for,” Salmon said.

As for flowers, “I think tropicals are going to be a big deal again this year. Mandevilla seems to be one of the hot plants; it has been the last couple years, and it is again this year,” said Mark Yadon of Mischler’s Florist and Greenhouses, 118 S. Forest Road, Williamsville.

Container gardening also remains a popular option – including ready-made.

“You will see a lot of multiple types of plants – maybe three different plants – in one container, which makes it easy. You can just take that combination and pop two or three of them into a window box and instantly be done. Or put it into a basket or container of your own, and you have it already mixed for you,” Yadon said.

“We’re finding that more people want stuff done for them. We’re selling a lot more mixed containers that are ready to go out the door rather than people buying their own components and making the container themselves,” Yadon said.

“It’s big. It’s instant. It’s now,” he said.

email: smartin@buffnews.com

SHOREHAM – Raj Bhakta is standing on high ground in the middle of a rye field here, surrounded by the bright green clumps of a new crop covering the rolling terrain of WhistlePig Farm, the former Norris dairy farm. On this roughly 500-acre spread, Bhakta plans to distill what he says will be the world’s first farm-to-bottle straight rye whiskey.

Bhakta will grow the rye for the mash that begins the distilling process and see that process through all the way to bottling, something he says isn’t happening anywhere else. He believes adding value to his rye crop in the form of distilling it into whiskey will prevent his farm from failing as the Norris farm failed and as thousands of dairy farms in Vermont went out of business.

The Vermont Agency of Agriculture estimates there were 995 dairy farms in the state in 2012, down from 11,206 in 1947.

On April 7, Bhakta received the Act 250 permit he needed to build a distillery in a historic barn on his property, but not before he tried to move forward earlier without a permit by converting farm buildings to offices, a bottling room and storage space for whiskey barrels. He was fined $18,750 by the state.

Established in 1970, Act 250 gives the Natural Resources Board the authority to manage the environmental, social and fiscal consequences of development, ranging from housing projects to gas wells. Farming and forestry are exempt from the Act 250 permitting process.

Bhakta says in addition to the fine, he spent $250,000 in legal fees over the two years it took him to get his Act 250 permit. Bhakta maintains his entire operation, including the distillery he hopes to begin building soon, should be exempted from Act 250 as a farming enterprise. Only then, he says, will his farm and other farms in the state be able to survive and thrive, free to pursue whatever entrepreneurial path will keep them in business.

Dressed in bright green pants, a knit navy sweater, yellow plaid shirt and polka-dot tie, Bhakta is Vermont’s most unlikely farmer, with a prep school smile and dark sculpted hair that brings to mind a Dewar’s ad. The son of immigrants — his father is Indian and his mother is Irish — Bhakta grew up privileged in Philadelphia, his father flourishing first as a car dealer, then as a hotelier. Bhakta attended private schools, and joined a boutique investment firm in New York City after graduating from Boston College.

Jumping into the dot.com boom in 2000 at age 25, Bhakta and some partners developed an online platform for trading in used cars, ultimately selling out when the dot.com bust came.

“We got the investors paid back, but didn’t make a nickel out of it,” Bhakta said.

Bhakta joined the family business next, finding, gutting and renovating an under-performing lodge in Vail, Colo. That was a success. Bhakta bought the property for $5.5 million and estimates the hotel’s value today at $25 million. But he found it increasingly difficult to be in a partnership with his father, a dynamic, self-made man who had come to the United States in 1969 with $68 in his pocket.

His way out of the family business was to take a run at The Apprentice, the television show where Donald Trump fired people after giving them a series of humiliating tasks to perform. Beating tremendous odds, Bhakta was selected for the show in 2004, but was canned in fine Trump fashion, ironically enough, for the job he did gutting and renovating a house.

“I had a bad contractor,” he said. “In the real world you would fire the contractor.”

The Apprentice sucked up six months of Bhakta’s life, but did give him a measure of fame which he turned to running for U.S. Congress representing the Philadelphia area as a Republican against Democratic candidate Allyson Schwartz. Bhakta says the liberal Philadelphia press ignored him, or wrote him off as a lightweight, so he concocted a plan to get national attention.

Bhakta rode an elephant across the Rio Grande at the Mexican border to make the point that illegal immigrants had a free pass into the country.

“We nearly lost the elephant,” Bhakta said. “A Mexican farmhand said the water was six feet deep but the elephant disappeared entirely into the river.”

Schwartz won 66 percent of the vote to Bhakta’s 34 percent.

Now Bhakta was really at loose ends. In a decision even more improbable than running for Congress, he traveled to India to look for the next Steve Irwin to build a television show around. Irwin was the famous television “Crocodile Hunter” from Australia who died in 2006 in a freak stabbing by a stingray in the ocean near Queensland. When that failed to work out, Bhakta hit a low point.

“I felt like I had suffered a series of public defeats,” he said. “I couldn’t win a TV game show. I run for office and get thumped. Then I go to India figuring there are 600 million men, I should be able to find one to replace Steve Irwin, but I can’t find him.”

Facing bankruptcy

Bhakta was 31 years old. He had run out of ideas. That’s when a friend in Vermont suggested he buy the neighboring farm. And that’s how Bhakta found himself standing at the picture window of the farmhouse he now owned on a defunct dairy farm in Shoreham, looking across his land toward the hills beyond, still unsure what to do.

“I was wracking my mind and soul for inspiration,” Bhakta said. “It came in the form of the financial crisis in 2008. The checks stopped coming in from Vail. I was faced with the fact that if I didn’t make this farm work, I was going to be bankrupt.”

Bhakta had been drinking fine whiskey since he was 18 years old. The thought of making the drink appealed to him. He sat down with Lawrence Miller, former Vermont secretary of commerce and founder of Otter Creek Brewery, and talked about the brewing business. Miller advised him to build a market before he built a brewery, Bhakta said.

“My dad thought I was crazy buying a farm,” Bhakta said. “He said, ‘Raj we left the farm in India, now you’re going back to the junky old farm that we left in India.’ He thought he had obviously over-educated his son.”

Bhakta spent two years investigating the possibility of investing in an existing whiskey, vodka or beer company, burning through the money he had raised for the purpose with some investors. Out of money again, he at least knew what he wanted to do. He would distill his own premium rye whiskey. The name came from a strange encounter he had with a French mountain biker on the trail in Colorado, who stopped to ask repeatedly, “Is it a whistle pig?”

For the record, a whistle pig is Appalachian slang for a woodchuck.

Borrowing as much as he could against the farm, and securing a $275,000 loan from the Vermont Economic Development Authority, Bhakta launched WhistlePig whiskey in mid-2010 by buying a huge batch of premium Canadian 10-year-old rye whiskey in western Alberta and bottling it in Vermont. The Canadian stash was discovered by Dave Pickerell, former master distiller for Maker’s Mark, straight Kentucky bourbon whiskey made primarily from corn.

Pickerell left Maker’s Mark to become a consultant to the industry. He was trying to interest one of the big U.S. distillers in buying the Canadian whiskey, but was having no luck. Bhakta sought out Pickerell for advice on building a distillery, and learned about the Canadian rye. Here was a way for him to launch a business that requires a product that is 10 years old — without waiting 10 years.

Bhakta bet the farm.

“Suffice it to say that many millions were invested in cornering the old rye whiskey market on a global basis by WhistlePig,” Bhakta said. “Basically we have a seamless supply of what is widely considered to be the best rye whiskey in the world at 10 years and above.”

A fifth of WhistlePig whiskey costs $70 in Vermont and $80 everywhere else, Bhakta said, putting it in the same category as Scotch whiskys.

Sales have grown by more than 50 percent every year since WhistlePig’s launch in mid-2010, and the whiskey has gotten good reviews in publications ranging from Wine Enthusiast to the Wall Street Journal.

In 2013, WhistlePig sold 375 barrels of whiskey, up from 150 barrels in 2011, the first full year of bottling. To put that in perspective, Jack Daniels, the Tennessee whiskey favored by rock stars everywhere, ships about 550,000 barrels annually.

Bhakta says he has enough Canadian supply to grow 25 percent per year for the next decade. By then, he plans to have the first WhistlePig whiskey both distilled and bottled in Vermont, from rye grown in the surrounding fields of WhistlePig Farm.

The fear of black fungus

George Gross and his wife, Barbara Wilson, are Bhakta’s neighbors and owners of Solar Haven Farm, a small berry farm started four years ago. Gross said he has a couple of acres planted in blackberries, blueberries and raspberries.

Wilson and his wife objected to Bhakta’s plans to build a distillery because they were afraid a black fungus that can form as a result of the aging process for whiskey would infest their berry bushes.

“We had made a large effort to show the science behind whiskey mold, technically called Baudoinia compniacensis,” Gross said. “Basically they age their whiskey in oak casks, ethanol oozes through as part of the process, the hotter it gets the more ethanol is released, which triggers the mold to adhere to sides of buildings, cars, or in our case, berry bushes.”

In August 2012, the New York Times reported Kentucky residents were suing three Louisville distilleries over the black mold dotting their deck furniture, home siding and more. Gross understands WhistlePig is very small, but says the company will certainly grow.

“If you did realistic predictions of growth, the model could put tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of barrels in this valley if they’re successful at marketing their Canadian whiskey,” he said.

Geoff Green is the District 9 coordinator for the Natural Resources Board which oversees Act 250 permit hearings in Addison County, where WhistlePig is located. Green said the Act 250 process specifically allows for neighbors to get involved.

“Listen, there are some times we get these projects where people are very principally opposed to them,” Green said. “We’ve had projects that create a lot of public interest and a lot of opposition but by far — and this is what’s important for business to know — 90 percent of these permit applications go through the process in a very timely and efficient manner.”

WhistlePig, Green says, is the 1 in 100 that generates controversy. He says nearly 85 percent of Act 250 permits are done as “minors,” which means without a hearing, and that two-thirds of permit applications are completed within 45 to 60 days. Over the past five years, Green said, only 1 percent of Act 250 applications have been denied.

Green believes Act 250 is good for business.

“Act 250 is not a process to deny business opportunities in Vermont,” Green said. “Most of the time, businesses and neighbors work out problems and conditions, hours of operation, landscaping, access, a lot of things. I think that’s really good.”

A vision taking form

WhistlePig’s Act 250 permit limits the storage of whiskey to 6,000 barrels to address the concerns of George Gross and Barbara Wilson. The District 9 Environmental Commission determined there would be no threat of fungus to Solar Haven Farm from that level of whiskey storage.

WhistlePig Counsel Leo Gibson, a college friend of Bhakta’s who left his practice in Detroit to join the company three months ago, said WhistlePig can live with the storage restriction for now.

“That’s what they’ve given us at this point,” Gibson said. “Depending on how the business goes, we can work through the process to seek additional leeway. We’re happy to do that.”

Bhakta spent $80,000 stabilizing the Old South Barn where WhistlePig’s still will go. The faded red boards of the barn are no longer sagging, and freshly poured concrete is ready to receive the stainless steel fermenting tanks, about 20 feet long and 12 feet high, and rising column of the still, which will go through the ceiling into the second story of the barn.

“You can see the vision starting to take form,” Gibson said, stepping outside the drafty barn. “This view as you step out through this barn door and get a look down at the mountains and you’ve got the Lemon Fair River there in the foreground. It’s a beautiful place.”

The Natural Resources Board took Act 250 jurisdiction over Bhakta’s entire farm, the former Norris dairy operation, under the theory that the rye that will be grown is connected to the distillery.

WhistlePig’s operations, including offices, barrel storage, bottling room and still, covers about 8 acres of the farm, but Geoff Green said previous court decisions show that when there’s a relationship between what going on with the farm and the commercial business, Act 250 jurisdiction attaches to the entire farm.

Bhakta has appealed the overall jurisdiction provided in his permit to the Environmental Court, a division of Vermont Superior Court.

“Frankly we think the whole thing should be viewed as a farming operation and we preserve our right to make that argument,” Gibson said. “But even if you take the position that distillation, bottling and aging are insufficiently connected to farming, we don’t think the other 492 acres should be subject to the requirements of Act 250.”

For Raj Bhakta, the best-dressed farmer in Vermont, the question is whether the state wants to continue to watch dairy farms disappear.

“I made the claim of being a family farmer,” Bhakta said. “I may not look like one or talk like one but this is a farm I own and I live here with my family. We’re building out a very agricultural mission here.”

Bhakta says the sales and marketing effort that goes along with WhistlePig whiskey allows him to bring money back to the farm for further development.

“In that sense I think we have a model for many farms in the state,” Bhakta said.

Contact Dan D’Ambrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosio@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/DanDambrosioVT.

Spring Into Summer 2014_cover.pdf

Posted: Thursday, May 22, 2014 6:00 am

Watch for ‘Spring Into Summer’

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May 22, 2014

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Hometown News LP will publish its annual summer gardening and outdoor living guide, “Spring Into Summer,” on May 22. The guide is distributed free to subscribers to any of the company’s community newspapers.

The main local feature is a profile on Garden Prairie Farm in Sun Prairie. Meet the couple behind the thriving greenhouse and gardening center that brings new life to a former farm site.

The business offers a wide variety of flowers and vegetables for gardening enthusiasts.

Also inside readers will learn eco-friendly weed control ideas for lawns, mosquito prevention practices, tips for updating your outdoor landscaping, home improvement ideas that promote a healthier living environment, important considerations for those planning to list their homes for sale, gardening advice and ways to save money on roofing issues and materials.

We welcome feedback, article suggestions or theme topics for our publications.

To become part of the conversation, contact Hometown News LP General Manager Barb Trimble at btrimble@hngnews.com. Enjoy!

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5/22/2014 – West Side Leader
     

By Pam Lifke

BATH — Ideas for making Montrose safer, more attractive and easier to navigate were flowing from the more than 30 people who attended a May 15 public meeting at Acme Fresh Market in Montrose seeking their input for the Montrose Connectivity Plan.

More — and more attractive — streetscapes, roundabouts, connected parking lots, pedestrian bridges and fewer curb cuts on state Route 18 were just some of the ideas meeting attendees floated.

Last year, Copley and Bath townships were successful on their fourth try at securing a $50,000 Connecting Communities planning grant to study the busy regional shopping destination, according to Bath Trustee Elaina Goodrich. Last week’s meeting, organized by the Akron Metropolitan Transportation Study (AMATS), METRO Regional Transit Authority (RTA) and the two townships, is one more step in the planning process, which Environmental Design Group (EDG) Senior Planner/Project Manager Michelle Johnson said should culminate by the end of the year. EDG is the firm hired to do conceptual design and complete the plan.

An online AMATS survey from August 2013 was a starting point for the planning. From the 740 responses, half from the Copley-Bath-Fairlawn areas, officials learned an overwhelming majority, 98 percent, get to the area by car, said Copley Trustee Helen Humphrys and Goodrich in a presentation of key findings. And the drivers aren’t all that happy about it. Although most said there are about the right number of parking spaces, 85 percent said it was difficult to drive in Montrose, the survey said. The biggest obstacle to driving in Montrose is the unconnected parking lots, they said.

Most survey respondents, 70 percent, said they would like more sidewalks and crosswalks, and most respondents said crossing state Route 18 on foot was not an option, said Humphrys and Goodrich.

Only 4 percent of respondents found the area visually appealing and 77 percent said they would like more landscaping, said Humphrys.

Humphrys said she was pleased by the turnout and by the input they were receiving.

“They’re giving us some excellent ideas. Everything they’re telling us is what we thought,” she said.

Kris Liljeblad, planning director for METRO RTA, was gathering input for possible fall route and schedule changes for the Montrose area. He said METRO is actively seeking a permanent location for a transit hub to take the place of the Flight Memorial Drive layover site. Ideally, METRO would wait until the connectivity plan is complete before settling on a site, he said. Liljeblad said METRO is seeking a short-term solution, as it has been asked to move from the Flight Memorial location, as well as a permanent transit hub. The Montrose area is “a challenge” for bus riders, who have no sidewalks and no crosswalks to use as they walk to work from the bus stop, Liljeblad added. He said METRO hoped to locate the permanent hub in a “sweet spot” for the more than 200 passengers who get on and off the bus at the Flight Memorial stop.

The near-term solution, which includes a temporary building with a driver-only restroom and space for three to four buses, could be located off Rothrock Road. The permanent solution would be more centrally located and would provide walking access to more destinations, he said. The permanent structure would feature an indoor waiting area, he added.

Krista Beniston, a transportation planner with AMATS, said she also was pleased with the turnout. She said the information gathered in the meeting’s break-out sessions will be used as a complement to the survey and planners will be looking for comments and data that appeared repeatedly.

Although the number of people who walk in the Montrose area is small, Beniston said there is an equity issue. She said the Downtown Akron-Montrose METRO route is the agency’s most-used route and mass transit and pedestrian issues keep rising to the top of the comments. The $50,000 study won’t be able to solve all the issues in Montrose, but Beniston said it’s a good start.

Johnson said the final plan will present concepts and cost estimates for completing chunks of the overall design. She said the stakeholders wanted to be able to implement individual elements of the plan, which will dictate the final product, she said.

Additional public comments on the project may be submitted via email to amats@akronohio.gov.

     

Marketing

Funding and creative power from the people

Only three and a half years out of film school, Landon Donoho has produced commercials for Sony’s PlayStation 4, Toyota, Gatorade and Disney. The Atlanta filmmaker’s impressive résumé was built up from posting winning entries on Zooppa, an advertising and digital marketing platform that sets up competitions to uncover new talent and save its clients hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“I didn’t have to pay my dues, build a network of connections with agencies or move to New York or L.A.,” Donoho says. “With these competitions, I can look at the creative brief posted on Zooppa, decide if I like the company, product or concept, and if I do, then take a week to go from concept to shooting to editing–using nothing more than my DSLR camera and computer.”

Donoho’s passion gets to the root of Zooppa’s success with clients that range from behemoths like Procter Gamble and Unilever to smaller, niche products such as Jones Soda. Because of Zooppa’s competitive aspect, it’s the clients’ true fans who are submitting the ads.

“It’s self-selecting,” says Zooppa founder and CEO Wil Merritt. “And in the end, a client may get 100 videos and stories that they can not only use, but also provides them with a powerful survey that actually shows them how their brand or product is perceived in the market.”

For setting up and managing a contest, the Seattle-based company charges a $50,000 flat fee (though this can vary based on the needs of the campaign); a prize pool–typically for up to 10 winning submissions–costs extra. Merritt claims that the sweet spot for a prize is $25,000 to $50,000 per campaign–a hefty sum, “but not when you consider that the average production price for a single TV commercial runs $350,000 in the U.S.,” he says. “For less than $100,000 you could get hundreds of videos and graphics to use on YouTube, in internal marketing presentations or as part of point-of-sale or trade-show displays, instead of one TV spot that may or may not work.” That’s because the client retains the rights to all the submissions, not just the winning entries.

Zooppa-sourced clips have even made it to the Super Bowl.

A Pizza Hut campaign built around football fans yelling “Hut! Hut! Hut!” pulled in more than 500 submissions; a mash-up of the clips became the pizza-maker’s ad during the 2013 game.

Since its launch in 2008, Zooppa has expanded to a staff of 20. While Merritt won’t reveal revenue, he shares that in the beginning, the average cost for a campaign was $5,000, but now it’s $70,000. Part of this growth comes from adding brand-name clients such as Bud Light and Chevron, but it also comes from his staff’s ability to design and present contests that bring out the best ideas from Zooppa’s community of roughly 240,000 filmmakers and designers around the world. “Oddly enough, the tighter and more constricting the creative brief, the more imaginative the results,” he says.

“Creatives seem to like boundaries.”

Filmmaker Donoho points out that Zooppa’s contest format guidelines make it easy for newbies to break into the business on their own terms. “Contests give me complete creative control over a project that I want to work on,” he says. “I couldn’t do that if I was buried in some agency in New York.”

More Marketing Brilliance

CrowdComfort gathers data from building tenants and office dwellers to determine their collective comfort level, converting feedback on heating, cooling and other environmental factors to improve conditions and help property owners identify potential maintenance issues, as well as energy- and operational-saving opportunities.

Crowdfynd lets users post and browse listings of lost-and-found items as well as reports of suspicious activity; monetary rewards encourage finders to return lost items.

Led by former executives from iRobot’s Roomba team, Dragon Innovation has added crowdfunding to its services for launching innovative hardware products. In addition to design review and prep for fundraising campaigns, the company advises on scalability, marketing and taking products from prototype to high-volume manufacturing.

The Estimize community consists of thousands of analysts, portfolio managers and traders, all of whom provide consensus on stocks and alerts on earnings forecasts. The platform claims to be more accurate than Wall Street projections 69.5 percent of the time.

Tiltor aims to influence crowds. Its platform seeks to quell riots and other violent behavior from within the mob itself by sending users messages from event organizers, local businesses and law-enforcement officials, and distributing location-based rewards if the throng splinters soon after.

Ubertesters charges developers $20 per hour for each crowdsourced person who tests an app in beta form. The company produces a single, robust reporting screen that makes it easier for developers to see what works–and what doesn’t.

Arcbazar‘s online marketplace allows clients to post architectural, interior design and landscaping projects, no matter how small, and have designers compete to produce the plan of their dreams.

The Dandy community envisions, votes on and develops mobile apps, paying everyone involved a cut of sales based on how much they contribute to the app’s creation.

KarmaKrowd helps crowdfunded project starters file provisional patents prior to revealing their ideas to consumers. The site also helps entrepreneurs do proper diligence on existing patents before their campaigns go live.

Grant Davis is the Tech and Money Editor for Entrepreneur Magazine.

Like this article? Get this issue right now on iPad, Nook or Kindle Fire.

This article was originally published in the June 2014 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Fresh Spots.

NORTHBROOK — Northbrook residents who want their lawns to shine can take some advice from Expert Gardener Michael Brouillard, who is the grounds Operation Manager for the village.

Brouillard, who previously spent eight years working at the Chicago Botanic Garden, shared tips and ideas Thursday about how to make a yard look its best during a “Four Seasons of Landscaping” event at the Northbrook Leisure Center. He is passionate about what he does. “I love this industry, love the plants, and love learning about them,” said Brouillard.

He said the most important advice he can give is to not cut the lawn too short. “You only want to take off one-third of its height, otherwise you’ll stress it out,” said Brouillard, who has a Masters in Plant Science.

The stress will be evident because the grass will yellow and it will affect the root system. He added that even if the grass is a foot tall, do not just cut it all at once. Instead, do it little by little, only taking one-third off at a time.

Brouillard also suggests using a sharp blade, switching up the mowing patterns, aerating the lawn, fertilizing by either drop or rotary (just be sure to notice where you have already fertilized, he said), seeding, watering, and being aware of the different diseases and weeds.

“You have to know your weeds and what you’re dealing with. Is it an annual, a perennial? You should identify it first because if you don’t know, then you can’t fix it,” he noted.

Many of the event-goers asked Brouillard specific questions about their lawns.

Questions about landscapers were common, and Brouillard said that communication is key. He said to ask any questions and talk about products, treatment, and grass cutting, among other things, so that expectations are clear.

Brouillard also shared some garden tips with the close to 30 event participants. He suggests mulching, weeding and cutting back the plants on your property. He also urged local gardeners to watch for girdling roots, and to be aware of the planting depth and location.

“Make sure that you plant low enough, and also look at the plant site because there needs to be enough room around it. Use correct spacing,” he said.

Working with insects is also important.

“I practice Integrated Pest Management (IPM) with plant health care, so pesticides are used as a last resort,” said Brouillard. First, all other options should be used such as cultural care, watering, pruning, and mulching.

He also showed pictures to distinguish good insects from bad insects. “Many people might not know what the larva stage of a lady bug looks like, but its important to see so that we don’t kill lady bugs,” he said.

The biggest problem that he has seen around the North Shore area is the emerald ash borer. It is a shiny green beetle from Asia that feeds on ash trees and is responsible for killing more than 30 million trees in the northeastern United States and Canada.

When something like this occurs, identifying the problem correctly is the first step. “Bring in an expert, or bring a sample to somebody who knows about it,” said Brouillard.

“This is the first program that we have done cooperatively with the library, and it’s great to co-op with two government agencies,” said Nancy Graham, the senior center supervisor at the Northbrook Park District. “We also utilized staff that we have on hand, so it’s a free event.”

Graham said that the fourth and final talk of the series will be in August, and they might even continue for next year.

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May. 20, 2014

A popular and respected couple in Moore County education have announced their joint retirement at the end of the current school year.

West Pine Middle School Principal Candace Turk and her husband, Southern Pines Elementary counselor David Turk, are retiring after six years of service each to the school system. David Turk will end his duties in June, with his wife to follow in July.

“I have really mixed feelings about leaving Moore County Schools,” said Candace Turk, who assumed the principal’s position at West Pine in 2008. “I love the teachers, the parents and the children, and while I’m sad to go I feel really good about what’s happening here at West Pine Middle. I know that the staff will carry on and do an incredible job no matter who is in the principal’s position.” 

The Turks came to Moore County in 2008 after leaving Duplin County Schools, where Candace was the assistant superintendent for Human Resources and Operations for two years. Prior to that she was Duplin County Schools’ director of human resources, and served as the principal of East Duplin High School in Beulaville from 2004 to 2005. She was voted Duplin County Principal of the Year for the 2003-2004 school year.

“At the beginning of my career I wanted to be a teacher, and I worked in the classroom for awhile, but there came a time that because of what I saw in the schools that I knew I could make a bigger impact in administration,” she said. “I miss the classroom, and I will miss the one-on-one moments with students that I was sometimes able to do as principal.”

Turk said that she would like to return to a school environment part-time in order to assist first-year teachers in adjusting to what can be a “difficult and demanding” profession.

“One essential element that I think first-year teachers have to remember is that all decisions have to be based on what is best for the students, not the teacher,” she said. “Not only in the classroom, but everything associated with the school has to be for them.

“Most first-year teachers have a real passion for their jobs, but not all grasp this essential point. I would encourage those teachers to ask themselves questions, and to give themselves time. They should also remember that if they want their students to succeed, they need to get to know those students.”

David Turk described his work as a school counselor at Southern Pines Elementary School as the “fourth career” of his life.

“I am from a farming family in upstate New York and consider that as my first career, and later I became an ordained minister,” he said. “The ministry sent me to Greenville, North Carolina to coordinate activities, which is where I was living when I met Candace.”

The couple married in 1976, and after 15 years in the ministry David decided to make a career change.

“I worked on a dairy farm as a kid, and I thought that experience would translate to running a successful landscaping business,” he said. “Candace and I moved to the Burlington area and managed this until 1990, when we moved to Greene County and earned our advanced degrees at ECU. She obtained a doctorate in education while I received a master’s degree in counseling followed by an education specialist’s degree in the same field.”

Colleagues of the two expressed both sadness and well wishes about the couple’s pending departure.

“David is a quiet worker, someone who doesn’t seek fanfare for what he does, and he works quietly from the heart,” said Southern Pines Elementary School Principal Marcy Cooper. “He prepares the yearbook each time, he does a slideshow in our office, and wants to do what he can for everyone.

“We will miss him a lot, but hope he and and his wife have a great time in retirement.”

Barbara Levin, an AIG teacher at West Pine Middle School, expressed similar sentiments about Candace Turk.

“She has been wonderful to work for, and one of the great characteristics about Ms. Turk is that she believes in the potential of every student and every teacher here,” she said. “West Pine Middle School is a great place for a student to be, and Ms. Turk has done a fabulous job at creating a culture that is responsive to individual students’ needs in order to capitalize on that to bring out the best in everyone.

“She has also empowered the teachers here, in part by being a leader who is willing to advocate new ideas if there is a good rationale for doing so. I don’t forsee this culture that she has fostered going away, even after she has retired.”

The Turks “absolutely” have plans after retirement, Candace said.

“We have a fifth wheel camper waiting for us in upstate New York, and we are going to tour New England and then see our children, who are in Texas, Montana and Nicaragua,” she said.

David said that despite their travels, home will still be waiting.

“We anticipate having Moore County remain our home,” he said. “Having been raised on a farm, I’ll probably spend a lot of time outdoors. I probably won’t start another business, though. Since a business can run you, rather than the reverse, at 66 I’d prefer not having that kind of responsibility.”