beans | Stacking Functions Garden

May 26, 2020
by Jennifer Leave a comment

Spring in the Minnesota garden

I can’t think of a more glorious month than May in the state of Minnesota. For the second year in a row, we had a rather chilly April and start of May, so when things finally got warmer, and then we got some much-needed rain here in the Twin Cities on the 17th, plants really took off and the end of the month has been simply glorious. There’s nothing better than planting untold numbers of seeds and transplants, only to have them well-watered in by rain. Here are some photo highlights from May in my garden.

A mining bee (not sure of the species) approaches my Autumn Brilliance Serviceberry (Amelanchier grandiflora) in early May. Early flowering plants like this are critically important sources of nectar for all manner of queen bees who are the only ones in their colony to have overwintered, and now must feed the entire next generation.

Jacob’s Ladder (Polemonium reptans), also blooms in May. It’s a low-growing groundcover plant that thrives even in dry shade. It deserves to be widely planted—it spreads only slowly and the foliage looks great even after blooming.

A not-so-fun spring project around here is trying to protect plants from squirrels and rabbits. Strategies for both need to evolve for different times of year. Rabbits are more of a problem in the winter, when they will eat woody shrubs and small trees down to the ground (or frustratingly, just eat the bark off them, which also kills them).

In the spring, squirrels get very excited about digging in freshly-disturbed soil, especially the friable soil in pots and containers. Happily, this behavior dies down after the pots have been around for a while and the plants in them are actively growing. So these ugly cages on nearly all of my containers can be taken down in another week or two.

Many spring garden vegetables such as lettuce and peas will need to be protected from rabbits continuously. Summer vegetables like zucchini and tomatoes require protection from squirrels. Last year I lost all but one or two zucchinis to squirrels. This year they’re in an impenetrable cage with my tomatoes.

My solution for lettuce is to grow it in a stock tank—it’s a little too high for the rabbits to jump in. We’re eating lettuce daily now and enjoying it while it lasts. The season is always over so quickly. One nice thing about being home-based now with my work is that I’ve had a little extra time to think about succession: I’ve got some romaine lettuce started already in my basement. When this lettuce seeds out in early July, I’ll replace it with some nice romaine. Hopefully.

Thank goodness for an abundance of lettuce, because the rest of the vegetable garden is only just getting going. Beans are sprouted and up, along with carrots and zucchini. My tomato, kohlrabi and brussels sprouts seedlings are small but healthy, and I am growing more sweet and hot peppers this year than I ever have!

Here’s a weedy corner of my back yard. Well, weedy depending on who you ask. It’s got a giant mullein that I’m keeping my eye on—I’ll pull it as soon as it flowers to keep it from self-seeding. The area has also filled in with wild sarsparilla (Aralia nudicaulis) at the front, and it’s fine for now. I’ve got a honeycrisp apple tree in here, as well as a nice patch of Mexican sunflowers at the back (in a rabbit-proof cage for now; rabbits love to eat sunflowers when they’re little).

In the front pots are some 2020 experiments. I took an apple tree pruning and grafting course in February—one of the last social things I did before the pandemic, and it was such a pleasure. So I’m trying to get my grafts to “take” in the smaller foreground pots. We’ll see if it works. Behind them is a half barrel. We had a rain barrel for years that was not holding water very well anymore, so Adam cut it in half and now I have a new large planter. It’s going to be my barrel of onions this year. I plant onion starts thickly, then strategically thin out and harvest them green, gradually creating more room for the remaining ones to grow into bulbs.

Here, an early spring glimpse into what is my ultimate plan for a good-sized chunk of my backyard: a miniature tallgrass prairie! It’s honestly not that impressive in the spring. These are plants that thrive on heat, and every year I spend April and early May fretting about whether they’re actually alive or not. The answer is nearly always yes because these are seriously hardy plants. I’m trying to keep the palette fairly simple, mostly big bluestem, culver’s root, joe pye weed, and I’m trying out a couple of royal catchfly at one edge.

It’s also bordered by many other random things, including asters, showy goldenrod, rhubarb, a cherry tree, gooseberries, and a serviceberry. This part of the backyard has been really fun to sort out since my southerly neighbor cut down a very large tree that deeply shaded it until just a couple years ago. Suddenly I have so many options…

We had a very rainy Memorial Day weekend here, just perfect for sprouting carrots. It also knocked down the last of the pink crabapple petals around the neighborhood—at times it was raining pink petals in a very magical way. The main star of my gardens right now is Wild Columbine. It’s gently reseeded itself all over my yard, and it really ties everything together nicely. Repetition is such an important part of good design, and incorporating more of it in my landscape has made a big difference.

Fruit season is right around the corner: my Red Lake and Ben Sarek currants, plus my gooseberries are nearly ready to eat. Sour cherries are coming along too. We’ll get a short breather between the madness of planting season and then jam-making season will be upon us. And thank goodness—had I not made some rhubarb sauce we would be pretty much out of jam.

I’m so happy to see one of my two red chokeberries (Aronia arbutifolia) blooming this spring. Both shrubs are alive, but barely: I piled snow a little too high next to the protective rabbit fence, and they used the snow as a jumping off point to get right inside. They nibbled off most of the bark on the bottom 1/4 of many of the branches. Fortunately enough branches survived that I think ultimately these shrubs will bounce back.

The web traffic to this blog has gone up significantly this spring—interest in gardening is at an all-time high. If you’re new here, what brought you here? Do you have gardening questions? Ask away, I am happy to help. My U of MN Extension Master Gardener activities are currently on hold, so I’m happy to answer questions virtually. Thanks for reading.

May 29, 2017
by Jennifer 3 Comments

Memorial Day Garden Update

Spring is finally underway, after an abundance of cold and wet weather. From a phenology perspective, we’re all over the place. Some things are 2+ weeks later than last year; other things are early. We’ve already got 20 monarch caterpillars in our living room—Anneke spotted eggs on the milkweed leaves from 6 feet away! This is the earliest I’ve ever found monarch eggs.

My American Highbush Cranberries are looking great—their blooms are so unique. They have really taken off recently, and are now about 7 feet tall. I appreciate a shrub that can thrive and look this great in the dry shade under a mature silver maple tree. Our understory layer is coming along.

My raspberries (left), on the other hand, are looking less lush than they have in previous years. In talking with a fellow master gardener about it yesterday, I realized that I haven’t fed them in at least 2 years. I picked up a bag of blood meal and sprinkled it on the ground at their feet, then watered it in; I’ll also add some compost in the next week or two. I’ve not always given these the best of care, but they are forgiving plants and keep on going. Hopefully the blood meal will perk them up and we’ll still have a good harvest.

Here’s something new I’m trying: two very small blueberry bushes in a half barrel. My soil is not right for blueberries, so by growing them in a barrel I have more control over soil composition. I mixed half potting soil, half peat moss for this and so far they are thriving. They’re in a pretty shady spot so they may not ever get really big, but that’s fine.

Over on my currant and gooseberry bushes, we’re fighting another sawfly invasion. I pulled hundreds off today; we pulled nearly that many off a few evenings ago. If I can stay on top of them we should still be able to salvage a great berry harvest. I pull the caterpillars off and drop them into a container of soapy water, which is my general method for all garden pests that I deal with. The “EW” factor is high with these guys.

I am happy to report that FINALLY, I have had a successful radish year. I’ve not had the greatest of luck with them, for several years now. This year I planted them around April 12—a few weeks earlier than usual. My thinking was that I could put them where I intended to grow tomatoes and eggplant, and that the radishes would be done by the time I could plant those warm season crops. They weren’t quite, but very close, so I just put the soil amendments and plants around my rows of radishes. We’ve harvested nearly all of them now, and I’m calling this radish year a success.

Some people replant radishes every two weeks and harvest all summer. Growing them in the heat of summer has never worked for my particular microclimate. You have to keep experimenting until you hit on the right timing and right soil amendments for your situation.

More solutions to our particular problems: pictured here is a new squirrel-proof tomato fortress that we are building. It’s nearly done, just needs a little more chicken wire. It has a door on each side so that I can reach in and harvest. In celebration of this, I’m growing lots of big tomatoes this year—no cherry tomatoes, which I’ve grown in the past in hopes of sacrificing some to the beasts. On the trellis to the right, snow peas are doing quite well (no blossoms yet).

Left to right, garlic, poorly-sprouted beets, and well-sprouted haricot vert green beans. Under the cage/trellis: cucumber seeds not yet sprouted. I had a beautiful line of cucumber seedlings and a squirrel ate all of them. I had to replant. Some day I would like to build a squirrel proof GARDEN enclosure, not just one for tomatoes.

On the west end of the garden, some nice rows of onions, and between them rows of parsnips, which also sprouted nicely. I soaked my parsnip seed this year, and I also planted them very early—we had a very rainy April so I think that was a good strategy as well. They can be finicky to sprout and this was the most successful I’ve ever been. We’ve also got more snow peas and some no-longer-homeless collard greens at the back; finally, a sad dog who wishes he could be right at my side at all times on the deck.

The warnings about planting Jerusalem Artichokes, aka Sunchokes, are apparently not ill-founded. This was three seedlings, last year. They never looked great, and I thought my experiment was a failure….then they turned into more than 15 seedlings this year. I will be sure to harvest at least half of these this fall so that they don’t get out of control. But to get a harvest, really, was the whole point—so I’m pleased.

The kids have spent many hours on their fairy gardens already this year. Anneke’s fairy even has a greenhouse (with the blue plastic). When the elephant’s ears get bigger we won’t be able to see much of this, so it’s fun to get a peek now. Our resident squirrels drink out of her fairy’s pond every day, while the cat watches from the kitchen window in irritation.

We planted a shady rain garden several years ago, and one of the recommended plants was Virginia Waterleaf. This is not the most popular of native landscaping plants due to its aggressive nature. We started with one or two and now they’re all over our back yard. But most of them are growing in places that would otherwise be populated with some noxious weed like garlic mustard, which this is out-competing in a couple places. I’d much rather have Virginia Waterleaf—it’s pretty and it helps pollinators. The rain garden was buzzing with bees today, in between rain showers.

How does your garden grow, this year?

February 12, 2017
by Jennifer Leave a comment

Gardening Calendar

Last year I created a month-by-month gardening calendar for myself, because of the amount of work I wanted to accomplish. We also had an early spring, so that gave me ample opportunity to do some things early. I anticipate another early spring this year.

Please keep in mind two things: these dates are for the Twin Cities of Minnesota–USDA hardiness zone 4. If you live south or north of there, adjust by a week or more. Every spring is different, so I may have to adjust these dates depending on many factors including snow depth, temperature, and long-range forecast.

Feb 15-28
Now is a great time to prune shrubs. I pruned my currant, viburnum and serviceberry shrubs yesterday. It’s easy to see the shape of the branches when they don’t have leaves, and the plant is dormant right now anyway.

Now is also a great time to think about whether you want to start seeds indoors. Some will need to be started around the end of this month, including celery, onion, lettuce, and brassicas like cabbage and broccoli. I plan to start lettuce the weekend of 2/25. Here’s a great guide from the University of MN outlining when to start seed and when to plant outdoors. Go to your favorite garden store and pick up seeds, seed-starting soil, etc.

Mar 1-15
The first half of March, I get the hoop house in place on my tank. In the middle of the month (depending on the weather) I’ll transplant lettuce seedlings into this protected spot and also sow some lettuce seed. We can still get snow into April, so this cover protects the tiny seedlings from heavy, crushing snow.

I’ll also finish up any planning, making lists about which new perennials I’m going to invest in, how many I need, and where I’m going to buy them. My goal this year is to visit at least one of the local nurseries that specialize in native plants, such as Prairie Restorations.

Mar 15-31
The second half of March, things really start to happen. Last year I harvested chives and parsley before March 31! Chives are a perennial; parsley is a self-seeding biennial. We have enough parsley going in various places that we can reliably find some every year.

More seeds to start indoors during the second half of March: peppers, tomatoes, okra, and eggplant.

Apr 1-15
I plant my snow peas the first half of April. I soak the seed for 24-48 hours (change the water every 24 hours) to speed germination. You can see some of them growing their first root in this picture from last year:

If we have a warm, early spring, you can also start looking for wildflowers in early April. Last year my bloodroot was blooming on April 13!

April 15-30
Mid-April through the end of May is the most intense time for gardening in Minnesota. I set aside several hours each weekend during this time. Most of this list depends on frost being out of the ground, so make sure your soil is workable before you start. Most years, you can depend on this by the end of April.

Amend your garden soil with whatever yearly amendments you usually add. I will be adding compost from my bin as well as blood meal, a great organic source of nitrogen, to my primary and community vegetable gardens.

Place your soaker hoses or whatever watering system you like.

Plant onions, radishes, more lettuce, any brassica family vegetable, hardy herbs, carrots, beets and other cool season crops that you plan to grow this year.

Divide and transplant any hardy perennials that are overgrown. Examples include hosta, rhubarb, wild columbine, comfrey.

If you grow hops, now is a good time to put up support for the vines, which will really start to take off. I use twine.

Rain barrels, outside furniture and decor can all be brought out now. Fill up pots with potting soil so they’re ready to plant. Some hardy annual flowers can easily be set out now, too, such as violas.

May 1-15
Last year I harvested both rhubarb and lettuce in early May!

The weather should be nice enough now to remove the hoop house from lettuce. I always keep it put together for a few more weeks though in case I need to protect some tomatoes or peppers from a late frost.

You can *cautiously* start to plant out your warm season vegetables and herbs depending on: the long-range forecast, if you’re no farther north than the Twin Cities, and the microclimate of your garden area. You can *definitely* plant things like potatoes, all herbs except basil (unless you can bring it in at night), and all perennial flowers and shrubs.

May 15-31
With an eye on the long-term forecast, you can now safely plant the rest of your garden: tomato and pepper seedlings, bush and vine beans, cucumber (seeds or seedlings), pumpkins and squash, basil. Take a look at the nighttime low temperatures: are they generally at or above 50 for the entire long-range forecast? If so, you’re good to go.

I usually put down straw mulch at this time too, but that can also wait until early June.

When June arrives, harvest season gets into full swing starting with strawberries and radishes.

I hope you find this calendar helpful! I will be adding more specific dates for myself because I will also have a very large project to coordinate at Sabathani–more on that VERY soon.

May 30, 2016
by Jennifer 1 Comment

Mega Garden Update: Memorial Day

Hello! Now that my garden is almost completely planted…wait, is it ever completely planted? No, but I’ve planted many things since my last post. Here’s a small slice of what’s been going on here this month.

Permaculture achievement unlocked: my first batch of comfrey tea is brewing right now. I’m following the instructions from Rodale.

I’ve had this Pagoda Dogwood for several years, but due to rabbit damage it was growing sideways. So I trimmed it up and made it stand up straight with some twine. A year or two of maintaining that and it should straighten out just fine.

We’ve learned about a new garden pest this spring: the currant sawfly. It attacks white currants, red currants, and gooseberries. We have 5 bushes from this group, and one got almost completely defoliated a few weeks ago. As you can see in the picture above, it’s got some new leaves now, but that’s only after diligent hand-picking every other day or so.

sawflies

Here’s what the little critter looks like up close. They’re tiny and we had a hard time spotting them at first. Then I promised the 8-year-olds 5 minutes of iPad time for every caterpillar they found. They sprang into action. Anneke found more than 100 of these just yesterday, leading to intense political negotiations about caps on total screen time available per day.

Happily, only one bush has been majorly affected. I stripped the fruit off that one so that it could put its energy into recovering. This gooseberry, which is right next door to the defoliated one, has only had minor damage, and is loaded with fruit.

The two new grapevines that I planted last year came roaring back this spring and are going exactly in the direction I want: UP! I won’t need these strings forever; they’re just to help the grapevines grow in a pleasing spiral up these columns. Once they reach the top and get established, I’ll cut the strings off. Pictured is Marquette; on the opposite corner of our arbor is a Frontenac Gris—it will be another year or two at least before we can actually make wine from them. Both are University of Minnesota hybrid wine grapes.

We’ve been eating lettuce since late April.

Virginia Bluebells in my raingarden have been full of bees. They’ve proved elusive to photograph so far.

Raspberry or blackberry flowers (I have a few random blackberries mixed in with my raspberries).

Milkweed is almost blooming but no monarch eggs yet. I checked underneath the leaves of every single plant last night. We saw two monarchs north of here at William O’Brien state park yesterday, so hopefully we’ll see some in our neighborhood soon.

Bearded iris. Yes, I still have a few non-natives. They’re from when I first started gardening and hadn’t yet realized the importance of native plants. But they’re pretty, and I only have a few, and I’m keeping them.

Pasque flowers, done blooming a few weeks ago but still very cool to look at.

The little Meyer lemon tree that I bought last fall on a whim survived the winter and is now flourishing next to the irises.

Can you spot the little garden visitor? Why must they be so cute when they’re babies? He’s not the most brilliant rabbit I’ve ever seen; he is not very cautious at all. I’m hoping the neighborhood bald eagle (yes, we have one!) scoops him up some morning, preferably when the kids have already left for school.

The thing about rabbits is: if you learn how to protect the things they really like to eat (your vegetables), and plant some clover in your grass for them, they do very little damage during high summer. It’s just during the winter that they will nibble every shrub on your property to the ground. So, this time of year I get a little more tolerant. Note the garlic next to the herb spiral. They have no interest in that; it’s placed there strategically.

My Red Lake currant bush is once again loaded, but we’ve already picked several of the currant sawflies off, so we’re going to need to be vigilant in order to keep it healthy.

My cherry tree garden, newly planted one year ago, is starting to fill in. In the foreground, left to right, we have wild columbine, garlic, and another Red Lake currant. I have three pots of hot peppers and the lemon tree occupying the remaining open spots around the tree.

We’ve already harvested a handful of strawberries. Everything’s happening early this year.

The pests are also a little early this year. Here is an imported cabbageworm feasting on my collard greens (he was killed 2 seconds after this photo was taken). My management strategy for pests like this is to hand pick and then let the plant recover. My vegetable garden is small enough that it only takes a few minutes to look it over every day and remove these guys. When you get good at recognizing the signs (see all that frass dotting the leaf?), you can spot these easily.

This spring, I followed my own advice and got a soil sample from my vegetable garden tested at the University of Minnesota. It revealed that my garden had an imbalance in NPK nutrients (what does NPK stand for?)—I had high levels of phosphorous and potassium but very low nitrogen. Not really surprising, given the intensive gardening I do there. So this spring I put down a very generous feeding of bloodmeal, one of the highest organic sources of nitrogen. My tomatoes are really showing this; they’re twice the size now that they were last year at this time.

My green beans, on the other hand, are struggling. Something is eating them before they can leaf out. I’m not sure these will even survive; they’ve looked like this over a week now. I will most likely buy new seeds and replant these today.

Overview of our backyard. I feel like we still have so much grass. I’d like to get rid of it all eventually; but on the other hand we do use our lawn for family fun.

outdoormovie

Speaking of which, Adam rigged up the swingset for double duty as a home theater, bought a used projector off eBay, and we watched our very first outdoor movie last weekend. That swingset now supports swings, a grapevine, hookups for a clothesline that we hang each weekend, and now also holds our movie screen. This is the permaculture concept of stacking functions—getting the maximum benefit out of every plant and/or structure that you add to your landscape.

Welcome summer! Here are the kids watching the Sandlot and finally understanding why Adam and I always say, “You’re killing me, Smalls!”

January 18, 2016
by Jennifer 5 Comments

Garden Plan 2016

Hello again friends! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season. Now that my yard and gardens are buried in snow, it’s time to start planning for next season. Here’s the layout I came up with for this year. Click to enlarge:

Not terribly different from the last 2-3 years, honestly. Just a couple of new things I’m trying:

Peppers: I’m not growing peppers in the main vegetable garden this year. Rather, I’m going to plant 3-4 of them each in 3-4 big containers which I’ll spread around the sunniest parts of the front yard flower beds. I have some extra space in my cherry tree garden while I wait for the tree and surrounding shrubs to get bigger (I got tired of weeding this in 2015). I’ve not had good yields of peppers the past 2 years, so I want to give the garden a break from at least one nightshade vegetable.

Spacing: each year I have to re-learn the spacing lesson. I’m going to try once again to control myself when it comes to how many plants I try to cram into each area (exception: I’ve gotten good at crowding onions). It’s hard when you have a tiny garden!

Sabathani Community Garden: after two years of growing only pumpkins and potatoes there, we’re going to add just a couple of other things: namely kohlrabi and (maybe) some radishes and/or onions if I end up with extra.

Other than that, we’re just continuing to try and rotate things through. I’m growing two trellis’ worth of cucumbers, in hopes that I’ll produce enough for the squirrels AND me (rather than just enough for them). I also doubled the number of onions, because onions fresh from the garden are SO good. We plant onion “starts” quite close together go down the row, picking every other green onion to allow the remaining onions to get bigger. Last year, only a handful ever got close to full size.

I’m trying two new-to-me varieties of vegetables this year:

First is the Watermelon Radish. It’s not just for looks either; these are seriously delicious. We first tried them at the farmers’ market last summer but have purchased them from the co-op several times since. I may try to squeeze a row of these in at my community garden plot. I ordered this (and all my seeds) from Seed Savers Exchange in Iowa.

Next up is the gorgeous Musquee de Provence pumpkin. I love Long Island Cheese pumpkins, but after two years in a row it’s time to try something new. Crossing my fingers for a long enough growing season–these need 110 days!

It might be useful to review some of my past garden plans. I keep making the same mistakes!

2015 Garden Plan

The biggest problem with the 2015 garden plan was that I did not leave enough space for the beets (top right). The parsnips got shaded by the grapevine, leaned over the beets, which leaned over the carrots, and NONE of them sprouted very well. (It sure looked good when I planted it in May, though!) I also continue to have poor results with radishes (yet continue to not give up). My peppers also did not do well–I picked them up at the Friends Plant Sale as I often do, and many of them were spindly and weak. A dose of too-strong compost tea (oops) then killed some of them.

BUT! But. We had great crops of peas and beans. We *would* have had great crops of tomatoes and cucumbers had the ___ ___ squirrels not eaten so many. I was on the right track with planting smaller-sized tomatoes last year, but this year I might plant all F1 hybrid tomatoes and skip the heirlooms. When squirrels take so many, I need a plant that seriously produces.

2014 Garden Plan

Aaah, 2014: the Crazy Garden. The main thing I remember: this was *way* too many plants for the center-left spot. Even though that is the biggest spot of the garden, to think I could do carrots, kohlrabi, beets, chard, broccolli AND cauliflower was way too much. At most, 3 broccoli or cauliflower plants would have fit this area, along with maybe two rows of something smaller like chard or carrots. Kohlrabi plants also get pretty big. The other issue with the broccolli, kohlrabi, AND cauliflower was that they took too long to get to maturity–by the time the plants got ready to make heads, they stopped getting enough sunlight to do so–I didn’t get anything from those plants.

The longer I garden in this spot the more I’m checking the “days to maturity” on the seed packets / plant labels. The season of full sun is short between two 2-story buildings. Although brussels sprouts also did not do a whole lot at Sabathani (which gets plenty of sun for a very long season)–perhaps insufficient soil fertility? They just never amounted to much. This was part of the reason why I abandoned pretty much all cruciferous vegetables in 2015–I’d had it from the previous year.

2013 Garden Plan

For 2013, I remember the zucchini taking over the whole left section of the garden, and basil never getting tall enough because the garlic was so huge. You’ll notice I do not have garlic in my garden for 2016. I’ve been thinking a lot about rabbits and squirrels. And I can’t afford to use space in this rabbit-proof enclosure for plants that rabbits don’t eat. So I planted garlic all over my flower beds in front of the house this fall. I can identify garlic plants easily enough that I’m not worried about finding them.

Rabbits don’t eat tomatoes, either, but I have the tomato trellis here and very little sunny space elsewhere. So here they remain.

2012 Garden Plan

Oh boy, we are heading into the deep recesses of my memory: 2012. And clearly I didn’t learn from my mistakes in 2012 when planning my 2014 garden, because I crammed to many large cruciferous veggies in that left-middle spot again. Looking at these old plans makes me very grateful for my new herb spiral garden, which frees up the space I used to dedicate to them. My garden plans get more simple each year.

2011 Garden Plan

Speaking of complicated garden plans, wow. This one sure looks neat as designed. This was before I built my tomato trellis, so it was the last year we used tomato cages. It was also the year we installed our four wall trellises. I really upped my garden game in 2011! But this plan was so complex. It took me a very long time to plan each section, and once again I crammed too many things into the center-left section (story of my gardening life). The celeriacs never amounted to anything and the cabbages took over and crushed everything around them. See the size of the “tomato” circles? My cabbage circles should have been the same size, in this design.

The thing I like about this design though is the biodiversity in each plot–meant to thwart garden pests that I struggled with my first few years of gardening. But since I started adding more and more native plants to my yard in 2012, the number of pests I have to deal with has plummeted. My biggest challenge now is maintaining fertility in this intensely-gardened soil, and continuing to tweak the varieties that I choose to take advantage of the intense but short period of full sun between two houses.

What am I going to do about fertility this year? Last year I added a large amount of Happy Frog Soil Conditioner to each of the beds, but the results were not as spectacular as I hoped. Disappointing, because I have great luck with that in my container gardens each year. I thought about trying lime this year, but our soil is alkaline so that might do more harm than good. Readers, can you comment on that? This was an interesting read about lime.

Any other advice for me? Is it time to finally take my own Master Gardener advice and just get a dang soil test?!

September 6, 2015
by Jennifer 2 Comments

Summer Lessons Learned

Greetings! Every summer has to come to an end, and this one is no exception. We’re having a hot Labor Day weekend, but there can be no doubt the end is near–Minnesota’s first frost averages around September 21, only two weeks away. Obviously I hope it won’t come that early, but it definitely could.

It’s time to talk about what worked well for us this year and what gave us mixed results. It’s a great exercise to record your successes and failures–especially with gardening–because otherwise you might be doomed to repeat your mistakes.
First new thing for 2015: clothesline! Now that we have the large trellis over our deck in the back, it’s really easy to stretch out a couple of lines from the deck to the swingset. We’ve been putting it up on the weekends. Does it save a ton of money? Probably not, but this is one of those things that just makes sense. I expected to be quickly bored by the drudgery of hanging out sheets but in the end found that it really didn’t take any more time than loading up the dryer–they actually dry faster outside anyway.

We released 16 monarchs that we had raised from caterpillars this year. I still see some butterflies flitting around, but their breeding season is over and they’re on their way south now.

In August, we took a trip up to the very tip of Minnesota’s arrowhead, camping at Judge CR Magney State Park and hiking Grand Portage State Park (among other adventures). Here’s a view of Canada, across the Middle Falls on Pigeon River. I can only hope that the next time we see this it does not have a fence anywhere in the picture. Common sense will prevail, right? At least in this one small area?

On a whim, we bought an egg sac of praying mantises in May. They hatched in June, and we released them all over the yard. We didn’t see any for quite some time, then in the last two weeks we found two of them in different areas. THEY ARE HUGE. Also: they’re working. I have zero aphids on my flowers, which are usually covered with them by September.

Despite this effectiveness, I still have mixed feelings about the mantises. They’re not native to the United States–and they kill both beneficial and pesty insects. I’m particularly worried about whether they killed any monarch caterpillars. My proposed solution to the kids is to capture them and donate them, in a terrarium, to their school’s STEM teacher, who can feed them crickets in the winter. Now we just have to catch them.

I get more forgetful all the time. So this year, when drying herbs, I wrote myself helpful notes at the bottom of the basket to help me remember what everything was. Many of them end up looking alike when they’re all dried out. You can always crush a leaf and eat it, in order to guess what it is, but this made it very easy.

Apparently my skill with carrots is similar to my skill with archery: wildly inconsistent. I tried the Chiot’s Run carrot method this year and got mixed results due to less-than-ideal germination rates. I had to reseed the entire thing in late June, and those newer carrots are just not catching up. I’m trying the method again next year (as far as the template part goes) but I’m going to put more seeds in each hole, and cover it with a little potting soil, not just the rice hulls.

Parsley keeps growing wild all over my garden, and this year has been a banner year for it. These petite Black Eyed Susans are new; transplanted from a co-worker’s garden. I’m making tabouli this afternoon. One of the great things about curly parsley (besides the fact that it keeps coming back), is that it’s very frost tolerant. If it doesn’t get covered by snow, I can still harvest it into November.

This was the first year of growing brewing hops on our new trellis. They didn’t provide much shade, but from what I know of hops we’ll have much bigger plants next year, so hopefully we’ll get more screening and shade in years to come.

School started two weeks ago already. Minneapolis has a very early start. One of my kids’ favorite lunchbox treats is kohlrabi chips. Simply peel and slice kohlrabi, sprinkle with salt and pepper. They are delicious, easy, and nutritious. I am going to try harder with kohlrabi in the garden next year–it needs A LOT of sun for a long time, so I am going to give over some of my pumpkin and potato space at the community garden plot to some kohlrabi.

I’ve never seen anything like this broom corn that Rowan planted this year. We got the seeds from his STEM teacher and planted it on a whim. It’s 14 feet tall! I don’t know if we’re actually going to make a broom with it, but we’ll definitely make some pretty dried flower arrangements or maybe even a shock of corn for Halloween decor. That stuff has been unreal, and survived a few high wind events to boot.

Here’s another native plant I want you to think about: Solomon’s Seal. I’m growing it in a very challenging spot: dry shade. It took a few years to get established, but now it is starting to flourish and spread. It is a beautiful choice, particularly if you want to add more native plants to your garden and are afraid you might not be able to distinguish weeds from plants. It has a very distinctive form, is easy to grow, and birds like the berries (which are poisonous to humans, by the way). This one is in my back yard in some dry shade under a large Silver Maple, but next year I’m going to add some more in the front yard under my large Elm. I have tried *many* different ground covers under that Elm and have not had very good survival rates. So, here’s one to try for 2016.

Lest you think harvest season is nearing an end: we’re not even close to being done. We have at least half our potatoes still left at our community garden, all of our pumpkins, these True Red Cranberry dried beans (still growing; we don’t pick them until they’re dried out), and lots of cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers still coming like crazy. Adam also hopes to harvest a deer: bow hunting opener is just two weeks away. He was unsuccessful last year, so we’ll see what happens.

I’m planning on harvesting another big round of herbs for drying as soon as the weather cools off–herbs tend to have better flavor when it’s cool. We also have quite a bit of kale growing in various places around the yard. In a couple weeks, I will pull out the seedy and weedy lettuce in my stock tank, transplant all the kale in there, and put on the hoop house. Then hopefully we’ll have kale into November–maybe December?

As for now, I’m off to the farmers’ market to buy some beets; as mine were a total fail this year. Despite everything I grow, I still go to the farmers’ market on a regular basis, but I look for very specific things. This year it was zucchini, kohlrabi and beets. I can’t grow everything, after all.

Happy Labor Day to you, and thanks for reading!

July 11, 2015
by Jennifer 3 Comments

A banner berry year

Apparently, it’s not just me: 2015 is a banner year for all berries in Minnesota! We’ve had bumper crops of strawberries and currants, and the raspberries are just getting started. We even got a handful of cherries from our tiny new cherry tree.

We have quite a few grapes on our vine–I am not sure what variety these are but they make a nice jelly and aren’t bad to eat fresh either (they turn purple when ripe). We only get grapes on this thing every 2 years or so, due to multiple factors including rabbits frequently mowing the vine all the way back to the ground some winters.

I was thinking that we’d escaped any grapevine beetle action this year, but then I saw one through the window today! I raced outside with a container of soapy water and sure enough, found six of them, apparently engaging in a grapevine beetle orgy on just a couple of leaves. They didn’t even see me coming.

I don’t get too uptight about grapevine beetles; they don’t cause fatal damage to the plant. But six of them could defoliate the whole thing and that could hurt my grape harvest for this year–plus I want to control them as much as possible since I have two baby grape vines in the back yard that I’m keen to protect. So, to control them: just knock them into a container of soapy water. They’re very easy to catch.

I also saw a Japanese beetle on my hops today, so apparently pest season has begun. I use the same method of control for them, though they are slightly more wary than the grapevine beetles so you have to sneak up on them. Japanese beetles are significantly more worrisome than grapevine beetles because they feed on a whole bunch of different plants.

I’ve never had a red currant year like this one. We had to resort to making triple batches of Amy Thielen’s red currant compote this week. It’s delicious! We now have 12 half-pint jars of it in the freezer. We also made Adam’s favorite red currant pie.

Our gooseberries are nearly ready, and the bush is so laden with fruit that a couple branches broke off. We’ve been watching Mind of a Chef season 3 and I also recently read Fäviken (the book), so there’s been all kind of Magnus Nilsson-inspired cooking and preserving going on. Above, we salted green gooseberries, fermented them on the counter for two days, then put them into our pickle/beer fridge. We’ve also tried his herb salt recipe (here’s an adaption of it) and plan to make *a lot* more before the summer’s out.

Another garden success this year has been my herb spiral! I’m getting significantly more chamomile (shown above) than usual. I’m hoping to dry a greater variety of tea herbs, including a few new ones (to me) this year: stevia, lemon verbena, and feverfew. The stevia and lemon verbena have been instant hits, both fresh and dried. I’ve gotten a ridiculous amount of feverfew–perhaps three plants was a bit much? I tried it the other night in a cup of hot tea and it tasted complex and interesting, but medicinal. I think I’ll need to blend it with some other herbs. And next year one plant will be plenty.

Things are coming along fine in the main garden, too. My carrots did not sprout nearly as well as I hoped, and my peppers are disappointingly small AGAIN this year, but everything else looks good, including this fourth picking of Maxibel haricot verts beans. I can’t recommend them enough, both in terms of productivity and taste.

One of our non-garden-related goals for this summer was to get out fishing more! The delightful result has been some gorgeous days at various MN lakes and several nights of fish tacos.

We’ve released 7 monarch butterflies so far this year, with more caterpillars munching away in the critter cage as we speak. This one, which we released two weeks ago, sat on a coneflower for the longest time, and then as I leaned in as close as possible to take a photo, it suddenly flew away.

It’s not difficult to spot female monarchs laying eggs on milkweed plants. We watch for them, and then bring leaves (the eggs are always stuck on the underside of a leaf) in before the tiny caterpillars even hatch. This way we can ensure a very high survival rate–no worries about predators or bad weather.

I keep hearing from other people who have planted milkweed and not seen any monarchs yet in their yard, but I say: don’t lose hope. I think the reason why we started seeing them within two days of the first time we ever planted milkweed (no kidding) is because we live in close proximity to Lakes Nokomis and Hiawatha, both of which have large shoreline restoration projects with monarch habitat. So they’re in our neighborhood anyway. But if people keep planting milkweed as enthusiastically as they seem to be this year, we have reason to hope.

Anyway, that’s my update! You can always follow me on Twitter for ridiculous numbers of garden photos and updates on a day-to-day basis.

February 1, 2014
by Jennifer 5 Comments

Crazy Garden 2014

We reached a point in this past year where the kids simultaneously became more interested in gardening and less interested in trying new foods. We haven’t eaten mushrooms in ages! Oh, I miss them so. Last fall, in an attempt to tempt them into something new, I started buying only the crazy-colored vegetables at the farmers market. Orange cauliflower. Purple broccoli. Golden beets. Then we all got an idea: what if we planned our next year’s garden around crazy vegetables?! I give you our 2014 garden plan:

(click to enlarge)

We still have some standards in there, like bush beans, tomatoes, peppers, and onions. But we’re really going to try and mix things up this year. Here are some of the new things we’re trying:

Romanesco Broccoli (click image for source)

Cheddar cauliflower (click image for source)

Purple Kohlrabi (click image for source)

Golden beets (click image for source)

Rainbow chard (click image for source)

Dragon carrots (click image for source)

Easter egg radishes (click image for source)

Red noodle bean, aka yard long bean.

I’ve grown some of these before, including the easter egg radishes, rainbow chard, and dragon carrots, but never a whole garden full. You’ll also notice on the plan that I’ve included a 10’x20′ plot at Sabathani with Long Island Cheese pumpkins, potatoes, and brussels sprouts. I’m applying for a permanent plot there this year—last year my friend CJ and I filled a spare 10’x20′ plot full of pumpkins and squash, and our relative success has me inspired to make this a permanent thing. I can’t get there every day, so I have to choose plants that can survive a few days without weeding/watering/harvesting. I’m very excited about this development!

Our three stock tank gardens in the back won’t change significantly this year, although Anneke really wants to try elephants’ ears in hers. I’m letting the kids pick out their plants for their tanks when we get the Friends School catalog in a few weeks. Of course I’d love it if they planted edibles, but I’m not going to force them. My large stock tank will be planted in greens hopefully in very early April. (Or late March? Dare I hope?)

So there you have it! Our edible garden plans for 2014. Of course I have “landscape” garden plans too, as always. My prairie garden in my boulevard still has about a 10’x6′ space to fill, and I may add another currant bush somewhere. When there’s this much snow on the ground it’s easy to get carried away. Happy garden planning season, everyone!

January 21, 2013
by Jennifer 7 Comments

Garden Plan 2013

Here we are, my favorite post of the year! My detailed garden plan for 2013, click to enlarge:

Oh, how my plans have evolved over the years (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012).

I’ve been very focused, the past two years, on trying to grow a GREAT variety of things in my garden, but now that I’m a more experienced gardener, I want a nice-sized crop. I’m no longer excited about having grown one single eggplant fruit. Give me at least 15 of something or forget it.

With that in mind, I’m taking 2013 off from all brassicas and root vegetables in the main garden. I have had bad luck with both—brassicas due to their long growing season and root vegetables due to my very rocky soil. My main vegetable garden has a very short season due to the peak of my neighbor’s house. It blocks the sun in all but the highest summer weeks.

I’ve also learned a lot about hoop house gardening, and this year will try to take my mini stock tank hoop house to the next level. With that in mind, I’m planting only very early spring things in March (weather permitting). These things will definitely be done by July 1 or so, when I will look to the fall and get greens and other such things started for fall harvests. My biggest lesson from 2012 in the stock tank was that I need to start the fall plantings earlier, giving them a chance to get good-sized before the cold and dark set in.

I grew both shallots and green onions from Mother Earth Gardens “starts” last year, and loved them. I plan to do that again. Garlic is already in the ground. I wish it had some insulating snow on top to protect it from the -20 degree F winds blowing over our area today, but… well hopefully it will be fine.

After pickling jalapeno peppers last summer and LOVING the result, I plan to grow quite a few more hot peppers this year. I’ve made room for 12 plants, and will get a variety of peppers when I make my annual pilgrimage. As for tomatoes, I’ll grow six plants again on the trellis, but will decide which varieties when the catalog arrives.

I actually have quite a bit of seed leftover from last year when I apparently went completely insane with seed, so I’m going to re-use wherever possible (yes, many seeds are still viable after a year or two). This means we’ll be enjoying “Maxibel Haricot Verts” again this summer–they are a spectacular bush green bean.

I’m also letting go of trying to grow vegetables in Rowan and Anneke’s stock tanks. They simply don’t get enough sun for anything beyond nasturtiums. I’m going to let them each pick out a variety of shade-loving annual flowers this year, and I think some fairy gardens may sprout.

My question for you: do you think acorn squash will work on a completely vertical trellis? Or am I dreaming too big?

Garden planning and seed starting information

My garden plans for 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012
My 2012 garden calendar (2013 planning dates, coming soon)
Starting seeds without peat or plastic
U of M Extension seed starting guide
U of M Extension: planting dates for vegetables (highly recommended)
U of M Extension: a whole bunch more information about vegetables

January 4, 2013
by Jennifer 7 Comments

Book review: The Resilient Gardener

The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times

by Carol Deppe

The title of this book is a bit heavy-handed; I probably wouldn’t have looked it up if my favorite permaculture blog hadn’t recommended it.

Yet, her broad definition of “hard times” resonated with me. Would your garden survive if you were unable to water it for two weeks? Weed it for three weeks? This concept was brought home to me long before I read this book, when Adam had a random injury in August that left him unable to do any lifting for well over a month. I had to do everything during that time, and it was both eye-opening and exhausting.

So, what if I, the primary gardener in the family, get a random injury? Or what if we have a drought and the city imposes watering limits (a very real possibility, actually)? I actually think these two questions should be asked about ANY landscape, not just a food-producing one.

Before I go any further, I should outline my recommendation regarding this book. Choose whichever of the following best applies to you:

1. If you live in Willamette Valley, Oregon and garden at any scale: BUY this book.

2. If you live anywhere else, and own or have access to acreage and have a desire to increase self-sufficiency by raising some staple crops like corn, beans, squash, or potatoes: BORROW this book from the library. (You may end up buying it.)

3. If you do not meet conditions 1 or 2: well, borrow it only if the topic really interests you.

This book suffers from the same problem affecting nearly all gardening (especially permaculture-oriented) books I read: warm climate-itis. The upper midwest is just a whole different ball game in gardening (though that’s not all bad, either).

Still, there are some useful nuggets in here. Here are a handful:

Plant spacing for resilience. Deppe grows corn, squash, beans, and potatoes enough to be self-sufficient on them as well as sell at market (i.e. she grows a shit ton of all four on acreage). The Willamette valley gets very dry in summer, but she grows most of her crops with little to no irrigation. She achieves this, in part, by increasing plant spacing to even double the amount recommended on the seed packet.

Timing. Because her region has rain at specific times (lots in the winter but very little in the summer) she plants strategically so that crops that need more water are maturing at the time when her region tends to get water. (This does not apply to the upper midwest, but still worth noting.)

Potatoes. She outlines three strategies for planting potatoes: hilling up, trenching, or growing in mulch, with details about how to determine which strategy is best for you. My own potato tower experiment was not successful, but I think that hilling up is probably a classic Minnesota potato strategy for a very good reason.

Ducks vs. Chickens. Deppe’s chapter on ducks offers a great comparison on determining whether you should raise ducks or chickens, and how raising fowl can have a dramatic effect on your resiliency. They can be a great choice if the land you live on happens to not be ideal for growing vegetables or fruit. Unfortunately they are not a choice for me right now, because of problems with obtaining a city permit.

Corn. Deppe has a real fondness for the lowly corn plant, and this book has great in-depth information on types of corn (flour, flint, dent), reasons and how-to’s for growing each, seed-saving and breeding techniques, and even recipes. As a person who is gluten-intolerant, she has a keen interest in providing high-quality non-wheat flour for herself—there are several interesting gluten-free recipes in the book.

Beans. One of the shortest chapters, but Deppe still manages to make a nice case for growing drying beans, and offers advice for those of us who still romanticize the old interplanting corn, beans, and squash myth. Deppe’s answer: it can be done, but mind your spacing and choose varieties that are suited for it.

I would love to think that someday Adam and I might be able to afford to buy a handful of acres somewhere in Minnesota or western Wisconsin. But since we likely wouldn’t be able to live there for many years, what crops (if any) could I realistically grow on this fantasy land, which I would only visit once per week in the best of times? Deppe’s book gave me LOTS of ideas to dream on, for now.