tomatoes | Stacking Functions Garden

December 29, 2023
by Jennifer 1 Comment

2023 Gardening Wrap-up

Here we are, that odd space between Christmas and New Years, when I have some breathing room to really think about gardening and both process the past year whilst planning and anticipating the next. If I just focus on gardening goals and resolutions, I feel only excitement.

2023 was a heavy year—I lost my big sister to cancer in September—her illness and death was top of mind this entire year (and most of 2022, really). So other things tend to fall by the wayside, or perhaps we simply gain perspective on their relative importance. A crop failure? Something to brush off with nary a second thought. An opportunity to lead a bunch of boomers on a bus tour of Twin Cities-area gardens? One of the best days of my year.

Cross-country skiing with Lisa (left) a little over a year ago.

But let’s get down to specifics, since that’s what this post is about. Here are some of my findings from the garden year that was, 2023. These are in no particular order, they’re just various AHA moments that I happened to remember to write down.

Flowering tobacco is not a container plant

I purchased “wild” flowering tobacco annuals this spring. I like the look of flowering tobacco flowers in general, and also like that they attract hummingbirds. The woodland variety, Nicotiana sylvestris, is the only one that tolerates shade, so that’s what I went with. As promised, the flowers are very pretty! But the foliage is nothing to write home about, and it just didn’t look right in a container—it was also unpleasantly sticky. Mixed with other plants in a part-shade border, heck yes. But on its own as a showstopper, not so much.

Someday I’ll learn about plant spacing

But it is not this day, nor this year. Now that I start many of my own seeds, I always have some extra seedlings in the spring. The temptation to “just squeeze them in somewhere” is very strong. I placed 4 cucumber plants (top of picture) where 2 would have been great plenty, and ended up with a cucumber jungle that quickly got away from me. The plants competed with each other and died out sooner than they should have. Cucumbers in particular are allelopathic even with each other, so they don’t take well to crowding.

Sometimes a gamble pays off

I’ve had these three tanks for many years now, and over the course of the last couple years, gradually moved them to this new location directly along our back path—this is the path from our back door to the garage / driveway area and we walk it many times each day. It’s also one of the few areas in the yard that is sunny. I wasn’t sure if it was sunny enough for vegetables but gave it a try. I’m happy to report that a wide variety of vegetables are thriving quite well in these containers, after a few years of experimentation. Hurray! Now we’ll see how long it lasts as other trees and plants grow and fill in.

Someday I’ll figure out what to do with these darn strawberries

My strawberry area is a big headache. It could use just a tiny bit more sun for the plants to really thrive, and on top of that it’s adjacent to a rabbit and chipmunk thoroughfare, so the plants get mowed down and the fruit sampled as soon as they are unprotected for more than 5 minutes. But wait, there’s more! It’s also infested with creeping bellflower. What to do? I’m honestly considering giving up on strawberries. What could I plant here that is part-shade tolerant and rabbit resistant? Please leave me your suggestions! One possible idea I have is poppies.

Phlox is rather invasive, honestly

My house came with a patch of good old fashioned pink garden phlox. It’s so easy to grow. It blooms for a long time! And holy hannah after 15 years it is everywhere. I declared war on it a few years ago, starting by removing spent flowers to make sure they didn’t go to seed. To my horror, the plants just kept reblooming, every time I lopped their heads off. So the last two years I’ve resorted to digging up at least 50 or 60 of the plants and composting them every spring. By July it really doesn’t look any different. Phlox. Plant it with caution.

Trellises can be a pain

Wanting some privacy on our deck, I successfully lobbied Adam to add these cute panel trellises to the north side a couple summers ago (upper left in picture). Welp. One fell down in a windstorm, and the others are not standing the test of time real well, either. Nothing is permanent, I guess. Struggling with finding a low-cost solution here. I’ve got Virgin’s bower vines thriving all over the ground in the area, so hopefully I will figure something out and give them something new to climb on.

LOL bamboo tomato support

Bamboo is very tough! This simple trellis system looked like it would be sturdy enough when I first put it up in May (see earlier picture a few paragraphs above), but by late August it had a very large dip in the middle. Somehow, SOMEHOW, it lasted until the end. Phew. It didn’t help that I basically gave up on pruning suckers off my tomatoes somewhere in July. This happens almost every year, but especially when I grow cherry tomatoes.

Nature finds a way

We had quite a bit of snow at the end of December and early January last winter, and rabbits managed to girdle the bark on my honeycrisp apple tree. I have already replaced that tree twice, so this time I decided to just let it live and see what happened. Low and behold, it sprouted new branches below the damage but above the original graft (all apple trees are grafted). I’m still not sure what’s going to happen with this tree; I may try and prune it into more of a bush or espalier form. But I’m going to wait and see.

New plant discovery: American spikenard! (Aralia racemosa)

Spotted during a garden tour in August: a new native plant to me, American Spikenard, aka Aralia racemosa. It gets big and bushy even in shade, and has beautiful red berries to boot. Currently scheming where I can put a couple of these in 2024.

Succession plant the things that you like best

When you have limited space to grow vegetables, think hard about what you like to harvest just a little of, every single day. For me those things are lettuce, snap peas, and green onions. And all three of those happen to also taste significantly better when just picked. I can get a nice large heirloom tomato at the farmers market easily enough, but I want to prioritize these things that are better fresh. So in 2024 I’m succession planting all 3 of these to have both spring and fall harvests of them (all of them happen to be cool-weather veggies).

Passionflowers are dang cool

Another new-to-me plant this year, Passion flower (Passiflora incarnata)—a flowering vine native to the southeastern United States that has been traditionally been used medicinally. The flowers are just absolutely spectacular. With the mild winter we are currently having, the one I planted may just survive this time. Usually grown as an annual up here in the north.

Other things to note

The USDA released newer, more detailed hardiness zone maps and the Twin Cities, where I live, is now zone 5 (formerly zone 4). Zone 5!? That’s supposed to be for wimpy Iowans. Minnesotans have been flexing our zones 3 and 4 prowess for so long! My fellow Northern Gardener blog contributor Mary Schier has an excellent breakdown of the news.

I did plan a vegetable garden for 2024! I have to, so that I know which seeds to order. I’ve already got one order in with Seed Savers Exchange and will order some more if I can ever make up my mind which variety of zinnias I want to try for my alley zinnia garden.

Here’s my vegetable garden basic layout (click to enlarge):

I’m growing one single pumpkin plant this year, for fun. It’s been so long since I’ve grown pumpkins and I miss them. I’m also having some fun with succession planting and companion planting—this book has once again proven very inspirational.

I probably won’t be back here until December 2024, so I wish you a wonderful year and an abundant growing season. In the meantime, you can catch me every month on the Northern Gardener blog from the Minnesota Horticultural Society, and in most issues of Northern Gardener magazine. I’m also on Instagram. Best of luck, and please drop questions, eureka moments, or advice in the comments!

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.

March 22, 2020
by Jennifer Leave a comment

Garden Plans for 2020

I usually plan my gardens in January and February. This year, I was waiting during those months to find out whether my community garden would be available or not this year. Just days after I found out that we would be able to garden there this year (yay!) a … global pandemic hit.

Uncertainty has got to be the word of the year for 2020, yes? My anxiety over the community garden seems laughable now in hindsight.

I’ve decided to plan my garden for the best case scenario—the scenario in which my favorite local garden store is able to supply me with things like onion starts, leek starts, and various other seedlings that I usually buy each spring. My seed starting setup is rather small, but I’m also trying to strategically max that out, just in case. Anyway, here’s my plan. Click to enlarge:

LOTS going on here. First, I need to tell you something sad about my home garden. Reader, I sorta ruined my own home garden plot. How did I do this? Here’s some photographic evidence:

This is my wine grapes and hops arbor—my “booze bower” that was featured in Northern Gardener magazine last August. Behind all that lush, green, tall foliage, to the right, is my vegetable garden. You can see the tomato cage just peeking out at the very far right of the picture near the bottom. What I’ve done here: I created a beautiful, shady, just lovely place to sit in the summer. The unintended consequence: I took away a few hours of late afternoon and evening sunlight from my vegetable garden, especially the west side of it.

As you know, vegetables NEED a lot of sun. I’ve had to do some rethinking of this garden. The plot at the far west is really only good for greens now. Kale and collards grew marvelously in that spot last year and I’m going to try them again—is this best practice? No. I simply can’t rotate other types of vegetables into that spot (except for lettuce, I suppose). I’m going to experiment and try some Hungarian breadseed poppies mixed in with the greens, to see how different types of annual flowers do here.

Last year, even further east in the garden, my beans were all foliage and no fruit:

Now, pole beans always take a long time to get going, and last year was a very late spring. But plants that are very leafy might be trying to tell you something: they’re not getting enough sun.

I had some other fails last year too, one of which is pictured above. I tried to grow Christmas lima beans inside the tomato cage. Here’s the thing about my squirrel-proof tomato fortress: we realized that it is nearly impossible to move, for a variety of reasons. So in late 2018 I decided it was going to stay in the same spot and I’d just rotate different crops into and out of it. I can always grow a tomato in a pot if I’m desperate. Anyway, this year I have the fortress slated for 1/2 tomatoes and 1/2 zucchini. I’m going to attempt to stake the zucchini following this interesting tutorial.

Over at Sabathani Community Garden, here’s where we stand. A high rise building for elderly folks will be built starting in September or October of this year (pending global pandemic easing up, I suppose). This is great news for the community, truly.

We will be kicked out of the garden as soon as mid-September and have no access to it for at least a year. When it reopens it will be a different configuration, the soil will be compacted from having construction equipment on it for 12+ months, and half the garden will now be a parking lot. Again, this was slightly more upsetting before I knew the other things that were coming our way for 2020.

But I’m glad I get to garden there this year. I’m going to refrain from planting pumpkins, since they might not be done in time. I’m moving all leek activity to the home garden since I usually harvest those late August-late October. Even planting brussels sprouts is taking a bit of a chance, but then again I started harvesting sprouts in August of 2019 so hopefully that will be true again this year. Check out this bounty from my community garden plot last August:

The tomatoes were a little uninspiring—diseases are unfortunately rampant in the community garden and our cool wet spring did not help. But I had a banner year of many things, including runner beans:

If you’ve never grown these, I cannot recommend them enough. They are SO easy to grow. They are a vine plant so they need some support, but they get gorgeous flowers, and produce bucketloads of large edible green beans. If you don’t get to them in time and they get very large, no worries! You can simply shell them and eat the seeds like lima beans, or let them dry and use them as dried beans. This plant is amazingly versatile.

So I’ve got my “plan” for 2020 but I don’t feel very certain about it; so much will depend on… so many things. UNCERTAINTY, folks, get used to it, I guess? I’ve never been more thankful for my edible perennial plants. I’ve already got a protective bunny-proof cage around my French sorrel, and keep watching for my lovage to pop up. I can’t wait for some of the wild edibles that I know I’ll see, like garlic mustard and stinging nettle. I can count on raspberries, cherries, and hopefully some apples. I’ve never been a prepper on the scale of the types of people you see on the news, but the little bit of prepping that I have done here is helping to ease some of this uncertainty.

A big area of uncertainty is my teeny tallgrass prairie in my backyard. I had hoped to at least triple its size this year with the addition of 40-50 new plants, but I don’t know what stores will be open / what will be available. I can divide some of what I have and expand it slowly year by year, so it’s not a terrible thing. I am going to need to learn patience. That’s for sure.

Be well, friends. Take care of each other. Call me if you’re local and need divisions or volunteers of wildflowers.

February 4, 2018
by Jennifer 2 Comments

Garden Plan 2018

Happy Superb Owl Sunday! I actually saw three great horned owls this week while running along Minnehaha Creek; I can only assume they were here for the “event.” As for me, I think it will be a fire in the fireplace and board games tonight.

I did some careful sketching and reading through my journal the past few weeks to come up with my garden design for this year. I’m incorporating several things I’ve read about, and some insights from 2017. Without further ado:

From left to right, here are my plans and my inspiration for them all:

Tomatoes. Last year I debuted my new squirrel-proof tomato cage and it was well-worth the effort of building it. We had an abundance of tomatoes, and are still enjoying frozen tomato sauce (I use the oven-roasted tomatoes recipe from this book and then freeze it in half-pints).

I also finally had radish success last year by planting them earlier than I EVER have, I believe the second week of April. They were just about done by the time I planted my tomatoes, so it worked out beautifully. I plan to repeat that this year. I’m also planting two tomatillos. I love tomatillo salsa—I don’t really use a recipe but my method is something like this one from Epicurious.

I’ve tried tomatillos before and was disappointed by how few I got, but then I was reading the Seed Savers 2018 catalog and they recommend planting at least two tomatillos for best pollination. Maybe that explains my puny harvests before! I’m giving two plants a try this year.

Next, I’m going to try an interplanting of onions, carrots, and leeks. I tried leeks once before, and they turned out only OK, but I’ve learned a lot since then. I’ll sow carrot seed (I’m going to try soaking it overnight this year), onion starts, and leek seedlings. This bed can be planted early as well—probably around the end of April or very early May.

Next, I’m going to try moving my chamomile plants back into my garden after a few very uninspiring years in the herb spiral. They really need the fullest sun possible to get a profusion of flowers, and attracting a few more bees to the garden couldn’t hurt for my vegetables either. I’m also planting fennel and kohlrabi here. All three will have to be planted as seedlings.

My haricot verts will go in the last garden bed near the chimney. They’re one of the few non-heirloom seeds I grow—they are spectacular and prolific and I can’t find an heirloom that is their match. I’m also growing runner beans, though, so I might change my mind and put a hill of zucchini in this spot.

You’ll note the big question mark in my Sabathani community garden plot. We’ve been unable to find out whether we can garden there in 2018 or not. Sabathani community center [apparently] is building a senior housing complex in an empty lot next door. The garden is featured prominently in the designs, but they’ll need a year of parking their construction equipment on it before we can have it back (GROAN). It’s very much a wait-and-see situation there, and I may not have the chance to do my large plot of pumpkins and potatoes.

Over in the herb spiral I’m trying two new things: caraway and chervil. Apparently the entire caraway plant can be used—not just the seeds. My husband (our primary cook) loves his French herbs, so he’s getting lots of tarragon, chervil, thyme, and parsley.

Finally, I’m going to try and do a little more edible landscaping this year. I transplanted a huge piece of horseradish root from Sabathani so I’m hoping that survives and thrives in an open area of my front yard flower garden. Next to that I’m going to plant okra seedlings—I’ll start it indoors and transplant the seedlings, probably into large pots since okra is so finicky about soil temperature. The plants will also require some protection from rabbits and squirrels at first.

I’m also adding shallots to my strawberry bed, per a recommendation in the Encyclopedia book that I reviewed in my previous post. I’ll continue to grow hot peppers in pots, just like the okra.

Finally, I’m going to start collards and kale indoors in May so that I can plant them out in my lettuce tank in early July when my lettuce is done. I’m really hoping that replacing the bulb on my grow light results in much stronger seedlings this year.

Last of all—I’m thinking a lot about squirrels and how to keep them off my cucumbers. They took revenge on me last year for depriving them of tomatoes and ate EVERY SINGLE ONE of my cucumbers. I will need to build some sort of structure over the cucumber trellis.

I’m also bringing back another old favorite—Christmas Lima Beans! The primary reason I’m bringing them back is to have an excuse to make my favorite soup recipe, Christmas Lima Bean Stew from 101 Cookbooks. I made it with some other beans from the co-op last week, and it was fine, but it didn’t reach quite the same level of magic.

What are you planting this year? What did you learn last year that you’re putting into practice?

August 10, 2017
by Jennifer 2 Comments

It Might Be Over Soon

I finally got a chance to see one of my favorite bands live a few weeks ago—Bon Iver played an incredible set on a beautiful evening at the Walker Art Center. It took me a long time to warm up to the newest album; but it’s now indelibly in my heart along with the first two. So as I’m reading awful news headlines, or working in my August garden, I sometimes find that first track running through my head—It Might Be Over Soon. But not necessarily in a bad way, I guess? Everything has a season.

Even Japanese beetles have a season, and it will be over soon. Apparently I’m not the only one suffering—our cool (but not cold), wet spring meant a bumper crop of beetles for Minnesotans. So, if you have foliage that looks like my poor grapevine above, there’s a good chance you have these bugs (look on the under side the leaf). My whole family has been hunting them every morning and evening. We simply carry around little containers of soapy water and brush them off the leaf and into the water. It’s not hard or even gross; they die pretty quickly.

Here you have a collection of dead Japanese beetles along with two of the last grapevine beetles. Our grapevines had a hard year. Please, if you see Japanese beetles try and get over the gross out factor and TAKE THEM OUT. You will thank yourself next year.

My tomatoes were a bit late this year—partially because I grew only large ones. I didn’t harvest my first until July 29 or 30. Depending on when we get our first frost, this is going to be a very short tomato season. But they’re coming so fast now that I made a big batch of sauce to use them up—I use a recipe from Trout Caviar’s excellent cookbook for oven-roasted tomatoes, then I just blend them up with the immersion blender and freeze in half-pints. This becomes pizza or pasta sauce base in the winter.

The reason for my big tomato harvest: my squirrel proof tomato fortress, installed in May. This thing is wonderful. When Adam built it, we had a small debate over whether to make something just for the tomatoes or whether to make something bigger for the entire garden, and I am not sure we chose correctly. I have beautiful cucumber vines climbing the trellis just to the left of the tomato cage, and I have harvested precisely 2 tiny cucumbers from it—squirrels have eaten nearly 100% of my cucumber harvest. I have some leftover chicken wire and I’m going to see what I can do with it this afternoon.

Summer vacation for my teacher husband and kids will also be over soon. Adam’s been very productive; he’s almost finished with a massive landscaping project of brick paths all over the yard. Walking out to the garden in my slippers can now legitimately be a thing. He also made this raised strawberry bed. Our strawberries were overrun with weeds, and the size and shape of the bed made it annoyingly difficult to maintain. We carefully dug up the strawberry plants, built this, filled the bottom half with compost, then added soil and replanted the strawberries. A week or two later we had pumpkins sprouting, from the compost. I decided to let three of them grow, just to see what happens. If we have a late frost I could end up getting a pumpkin or two!

Here’s another angle. I love all the curved intersections on these paths.

This view hints as to what he has in the works for 2018: a gate! He’s going to complete this path to the door of my garden shed, then replace this chain link fence with a wood fence and gate. The garden will be 10 steps from the kitchen instead of 60. I may never walk around the north end of my house again. He is also going to add a few arches at certain intersections, based on what I found in my friend Marianna’s garden. Arches give such a nice effect.

My peppers also got going a little late and are now making up for it with great quantities. Trying to pickle as many as I can, but everyone’s eating them as fast as I pickle them.

I’m also drying some herbs. Of course basil (right) and parsley (middle left) are not as good dried as fresh, but I have tons and they’ll just go to waste otherwise.

I should get a few ground cherries for the first time this year, but less than I hoped for because the spot is shadier than I first realized when I planted them early this spring.

I love the contrast that these blue bachelors’ buttons give to my brown-eyed susans. They were some orphan plants that I got for free and just planted very randomly with little thought, so what a happy surprise that they’re thriving. Hopefully they’ll reseed and come back next year.

Over in the boulevard, several of these suddenly popped up last year out of nowhere. I suspect their seeds were in some purchased wood mulch. Last year I thought they were weeds and just pulled them all—they do look a bit like creeping bellflower. After I pulled them I figured it out. They’re in the same family—Campanulaceae (Bellflower) but these are American Bellflower, Campanula Americana, a native! And they seem to be just as, erm, vigorous as their invasive cousin—they came back readily this year despite my pulling nearly all of them last year. I’m keeping an eye on them for now.

Here’s a bumble on my anise hyssop. For several years I had a wonderful anise hyssop patch in the back yard, and suddenly early this spring they all got eaten to the ground by some bug. I moved in some volunteers from elsewhere in the yard, and those got eaten too. So I dug up even more volunteers (are you sensing a theme with anise hyssop?) from my community garden plot and added them in a completely different area of the yard, and they’re doing fine. I’m going to wait another year or two before planting them again in the back. Fortunately they’re very versatile in their soil and light requirements—and they are absolutely covered with bees right now. I also dry these leaves/flowers for tea.

That was three blue or purple flowers in a row, but the reality is the majority of my flowers are yellow this time of year. These early sunflowers are VERY vigorous and are taking over much of my prairie boulevard.

Summer might be over soon, so it’s time to get out there and enjoy it while we can.

July 4, 2017
by Jennifer 2 Comments

In the mid-summer garden

If you’re going to have a garden, and you’re going to have kids, I highly recommend marrying a teacher. Adam has been busy all summer long working on landscaping projects, and by the time he’s done our gardens are going to be at a new level. Meanwhile, the kids and dog are … REALLY taking it easy:

Here’s a sneak peek of Adam’s big project:

He’s edging all of our primary flower, fruit, and vegetable gardens and putting in pretty brick paths to tie everything together. He’s going to rent a wet saw this week for all the half-bricks that he needs here.

Another new thing I’m trying this year: I purchased a “Snip N Drip” soaker hose system for the main vegetable garden, because my old soaker hoses basically fell apart (they lasted 10+ years so that’s not too bad). So far, so good except for one factor: there is not nearly enough pressure from the rain barrel to be able to use it with this system. So when I need to water the garden I’m using tap water. The rain barrel water is hardly going to waste though; I’m using it on my fruit trees and bushes.

My vegetable garden is looking very lush right now. Here we have interplanted onions and parsnips, which seems to be working quite nicely. At the back, two collard green plants. (One of which, oddly, is blue? Hmm.)

My new squirrel-proof tomato cage is great. The plants are suckering a little more than usual because it’s not super easy to get in there and prune them, but I’m fine with it.

I cannot wait for fresh tomatoes!

I think we’ll get a wine grape harvest this year, for the first time! These are Marquette grapes, a University of Minnesota hybrid. I’m not growing these in a 100% conventional way. If I were farming grapes with “maximum harvest” as my only goal, I’d grow them more like this. But since this is my home garden, I’m trying to accomplish several things here—I’m stacking up functions of plants and structures, to put it in permaculture words. So these grapevines also provide shade and beauty in the yard in addition to fruit. I’m just crossing my fingers that squirrels won’t eat all the grapes before I get to them.

Here’s a view of the arbor from further away. The grape is on the right nearest corner, in the middle on both sides are hops (climbing up twine). We got a nice hops harvest last year.

We had a minor infestation of currant/gooseberry sawflies in May but an hour or two of hand-picking took care of it, and they haven’t been back. There is supposed to be a second generation of them in June or July but I’ve never seen one. My [somewhat educated] guess is that this is due to the high number of wasps, ladybugs, and other predators that fill my yard by mid-June. Having lots of wildflowers surrounding my fruits creates a healthier ecosystem and less work for me.

It’s almost raspberry season, hurray! The kids have already eaten a handful of them.

My original red currant bush is now at least 8 years old. I’m not really sure when I planted it. The bush doesn’t look so great anymore. I gave it a good pruning this spring and now it looks worse (yet it’s still fruiting like crazy). I am strongly considering doing a “renewal pruning” and just cutting it to the ground next spring, so it can get a fresh start. We added a second red currant bush two years ago, so we’d still get a small harvest.

Our front yard cherry tree garden is filling in nicely, now in its third or fourth year. (I’m losing track of time.) The maximum size of this tree was supposed to be 10-15 feet and it’s already at least 10 feet and not showing any signs of slowing down. We finally had a large enough cherry harvest this year for a pie AND some delicious sour cherry muffins.

Wait, why am I showing you my ugly alley garbage can area?! I “upgraded” to a smaller garbage cart this year, and now this area looks better:

When I saw just how small the new garbage cart was, I got a little nervous. But we’re now several weeks in and it hasn’t gotten filled to overflowing even one time, despite Adam having some construction waste from his various projects. My only gripe about it is this: this garbage can is less than half the size of the previous one, but the discount per month is only $5. Doesn’t…quite…compute. But I do understand that a huge part of the cost of garbage removal is operating the trucks and paying the humans, so I will [try not to] complain.

All of this edging and path-making has left us with a very large pile of sod and soil. Instead of getting rid of it, I had a brainstorm: why not make a berm!? So… we’re making a berm garden in the front, under the shade of a large elm. Since it will become such a major focal point in the front yard, I want it to be very pretty but still use all native plants. I think the biggest plant will be a pagoda dogwood. I’ll surround it with pretty woodland plants like solomon’s seal, bloodroot, and wild ginger.

Look, I’m not a purist. Eleven years ago when we first bought this house, I was not yet turned on to native plants and I planted these beautiful Asiatic lilies. If they ever die, I’ll definitely replace them with natives, but for now… they are very pretty, yes?

I hope you have a peaceful Fourth of July.

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!”

February 1, 2015
by Jennifer Leave a comment

Garden Plan 2015

It doesn’t seem like that long since we planned and mostly executed Crazy Garden 2014. I’m afraid I don’t have a name for our 2015 garden; the closest thing I have to a concept is to call it “keeping it simple 2015,” because we have A LOT to plant this year.

Let’s start with the vegetable garden and what’s new or different there:

For starters, is that an herb spiral? Why yes it is. I’ll talk a little more about that later.

For our home vegetable garden, I haven’t marked out specific varieties of vegetables I want to grow; this year I’m going to use up a bunch of leftover seed. I’ve also got a huge network of gardening friends now–I end up getting phone calls in May about finding a home for large flats of onions and the like, which benefits me if I’m not too picky.

I’ve reduced the amount of space allocated to each pepper plant this year. It may just be that we’ve had two cool, not-good-for-pepper-growing summers in a row, but they’ve seemed like they had plenty of extra room. I’m also planning on more onions. We’ve come to love having fresh ones around all summer. The only other real change I’m planning this year in this garden is that I’m not going to plant any of my beloved large-size heirloom tomatoes. It’s not worth the heartache when you have a plant that only produces a handful of tomatoes and 3/4 of them are taken by squirrels (who eat one bite). I’m going to grow mostly cherry tomatoes, some tomatillos, and maybe something else very small.

The purple lines on here represent where I *think* I planted garlic last October. I didn’t draw a diagram at the time, and I’ve completely forgotten. So, onion rows may move around a bit depending on where I actually see garlic in the spring.

Parsnips are also making a glorious return to my 2015 garden after being absent a few years. I do love them so. Notice the strategic layout of my “root vegetable area” on the right side of the garden. Carrots are in front, where the will-be-8-year-olds can easily dig them up and eat them. Behind them are the slower-growing beets, and in the very back, hard-to-reach area are the parsnips, which we won’t harvest until everything else is done anyway. Small space gardening requires strategy.

At Sabathani, we’ll be focusing on volume again, probably dedicating most of the garden to potatoes and squash or pumpkins. Rowan got a free packet of broom corn, so that’s being added as well for fun.

Now for our perennial/landscaping plans for 2015, which are extensive:

Here’s a panorama of the garden in front of our living room picture window. It’s a little overgrown–can you even see the flagstone path that’s supposed to be going through there? The mail carrier has certainly given up on using it. On the right side of that path, which is currently occupied by an old Autumn Joy Sedum that desperately needs to be divided, I’ll add a currant bush.

On the left side of the stone path (right side of the main sidewalk) is where I want to put my herb spiral. I hope it will give a slightly more formal look to this area while also giving easier access to herbs. We love growing herbs, and when we first got started we used to mix them in with all of our perennial flowers here in the front yard. Well, the thing is, when you plant natives they tend to move around and fill in open spaces. Our little thyme, oregano, cilantro, and parsley patches didn’t really stand much of a chance (dill’s holding its own though).

So, that big group of coneflowers, along with some sedum and a Russian Sage that is not even visible, will be dug up to make room for a more formal herb garden. And happily, I have a nice new big open spot to move them all to:

Our new Cherry Tree garden, which we sheet mulched last fall. Should be in perfect condition for planting by the time May rolls around. In addition to divided perennials from around the yard, I’d like to add another currant bush (bringing our total to 3), an old-fashioned rose bush (so that I can make rosehip tea) and another non-fruit bearing native shrub closer to the boulevard. With the number of dogs walking by on our sidewalk, I’d rather not eat fruit that grows *right* next to it.

Moving to the back yard, we put up a beautiful new arbor over our deck last August. This spring I’d like to plant two grapevines to climb up over it, and I’m also going to add some hops on a wire system on the north side. I’m hoping this gives us a little bit of privacy on the deck. These echinacea and milkweed can probably stay as well.

Finally, the barest-looking spot in the garden: the area formerly occupied by our very large, fire blight-infested apple tree that we had to cut down in the fall (stump still visible). We quickly planted a Serviceberry bush. They’re supposed to get quite large, but we will want to fill in a little bit around it too. I’m thinking 2 more gooseberry bushes (bringing our total to 3) and something on the corner by the gate… I have not decided what, yet. Part of me would really like to add an evergreen somewhere on the yard–perhaps a juniper? That decision is yet unmade.

Two small columnar Chokeberry bushes are on the other side of the fence by the car. I’d rather not add any more shrubs over there because the area gets really piled up with snow during normal winters, and shrubs do not take kindly to having large amounts of shoveled snow thrown on them.

So there you have it: 2015 garden plans, ambitious as usual. But it’s so nice to have a stock of native volunteers in other areas of the yard to help fill these spaces in. What are your big plans/changes for 2015?