Hello! Summer is in full swing, and we have garden challenges galore—from four-lined plant bugs to weeds, weeds, weeds, to the impending doom of a complete main line sewer replacement in August. On the other hand, we ate a kohlrabi from our garden yesterday and it was delicious. Here’s what we’ve been up to the past few weeks.

I spent 4 crazy days in Grand Marais with 80 or so 5th graders (including my two). We endured a severe thunderstorm, one and a half days of cold rain, and then on the final day, damp cold to wrap it up—we were eating cold cereal outside at 40 degrees. On the other hand, we hiked 8 miles of the Superior Hiking Trail during one glorious, mostly rain-free day and I had the privilege of seeing trillium in bloom along the Brule River.

The trail was a bit muddy!

We came home to find that our 40 or so monarch caterpillars had grown a bit under Adam’s care while we were gone.

We released most of them yesterday, in a butterfly bonanza.

This one kindly posed on a milkweed just long enough for me to take some iconic monarch pictures. Can you spot the long-horned milkweed beetle?

Last year, squash vine borers hit my community garden plot hard, so during a rainy period in early June I put down beneficial nematodes. They’ve worked great for me in the past; it’s been about 5 years since I last did this and it was time to refresh the population. You can buy them on a sponge from a garden store (I bought mine at Mother Earth Gardens in Minneapolis). You soak the sponge in water for at least several minutes (rain water is preferable here)—I used a 1/2 gallon jar. Then you can dilute it quite a bit. I split mine into 8 cups and diluted each with 2 gallons of water to water in to my squash hills (background, behind the weeds).

Nematodes can be beneficial for Japanese Beetle control—but only at certain times of the year. I found this article from University of Minnesota’s Jeff Hahn to be very helpful and I plan to try and put some nematodes down in late July if the weather cooperates. They survive better if it’s rainy and a little cooler.

On the home front, I watered in my comfrey compost tea on my vegetables and raspberries yesterday. I’ve seen differing advice about how long to brew this concoction, but I hardly ever brew it for more than 2-3 weeks. I checked it Friday night and saw that it was full of mosquito larvae, so it was time to get rid of it, lest they hatch and make us miserable. I dilute this about 1:3, but again opinions differ on how much you should dilute it as well. Err on the side of caution, I say. It’s powerful. (And STINKY.)

We went to the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden two weeks ago to see the Showy Lady’s Slippers in bloom—unfortunately none of my pictures of them turned out very well. But I caught this bumble on some wild indigo. I recently realized wild indigo (also called blue false indigo) is *not* native to North America.

However, it’s a beautiful plant that supports pollinators, so maybe it’s… not so bad? I was surprised at how much it dominated the prairie area of Eloise Butler. It’s such a unique plant, perfect when you want something shrub-like, such as along a path. It dies all the way to the ground in the winter, so there’s none of the normal winter shrub care needed.

The kids continue to obsess over their fairy gardens; yesterday they added patios to them with some old leftover slate tiles we had lying around.

Anneke made this new fairy house out of clay over the winter, and added a few accessories from Mother Earth Gardens this spring.

I felt that a good cleansing fire was in order for solstice on Thursday night—we borrowed a neighbor’s fire pit and now I don’t want to give it back. We are having a string of gorgeous weather and I just want to be out in it as much as possible. Think I’ll head out there right now.