Moose Country Gardening

Last of the Red Potatoes

2012-01-08T17:08:00.000-06:00

These are some pretty sorry looking potatoes! It's the last of the 30 pounds we harvested at the end of the season from four pounds of seed potatoes (after several meals of baby reds throughout the summer). They did get a little scabby this year, so I'll be moving the potatoes to a different area in the garden this spring.

In addition to these red potatoes, we planted Norkotah russet potatoes (looks like one of which snuck into this box) and Kennebec white potatoes. We harvested about fifty pounds of each, also from roughly 4 pounds of seed. From what I've been able to find online, that sounds like a good harvest. It seems to be just about the right amount for my family of five to get us through the winter.

Spring Frost Free Dates

2012-01-06T17:26:00.002-06:00

What do the following towns have in common?
New Meadows, ID
Colorado Springs, CO
New Meadows, ID
Grayling, MI
Great Falls, MT
Berlin, NH

They all have a later spring frost free date than my little slice of Minnesota heaven, according to pioneerliving.net.

Usually it's just plain silly to start thinking about frost free dates in January in Minnesota, but with yesterday's high over 50 and today over 40, it's just feels like spring! I went to the Johnny's Select Seeds website to take a look at their planting guide to see when I can start my tomato growing project. Turns out, I have a couple of months to wait (April 11, to be exact), so I may just plant some herbs just to get my fingers in the dirt and celebrate our "spring."

2011 Gardening in Review

2011-12-13T22:47:00.000-06:00

Last January, I made several gardening resolutions. Here they are:

I will plant fewer "salad greens" that only end up feeding the slugs.
I will can, freeze, or otherwise preserve everything we can't eat fresh. Even that last harvest of green beans which just kept on producing in 2010.
I will begin to vermicompost before the year's end.
I will buy and use a decent composting bin to replace what my husband believes is my "compost eyesore"
I will always amend soil before planting in a new location (see #3 & 4).
I will not overcrowd my perennial gardens!
I will make pesto instead of allowing all of those lovely herb leaves to be destroyed with the first frost.
I will weed more often! (one can always hope)

Five out of eight ain't too bad! I did not do 3, 4 or 7. But that's ok, that's what next year is for!

Something's Cookin'

2011-12-12T01:50:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow, my coworkers get to taste the delicious treats my garden shared this fall. In the crockpot, I have Goat & Beer Vegetable Soup cooking with onions, carrots, and potatoes from the garden along with some goat stew meat, a can of beef broth, minced garlic, spices (thyme, salt, pepper and two bay leaves) and a bottle of beer. It's "Crockpot Monday" at work and we take turns bringing in lunch to share. It's a way to get everyone in the faculty lounge and it's something to look forward to on an otherwise uneventful Monday. I'm also bringing a back-up soup, Red Pepper Tomato Soup, just in case the goat doesn't go over well. Though one thing I appreciate about this group of people is that there are several hunter/gatherer/gardeners among us. You usually have to ask what the meat is because it's not always identifiable in that lounge. This year we've had elk, bear, venison, goose, and now goat to go along with the usual chicken, port and beef. If the recipe is a hit, I'll share. Though it may be hard to tell, there is a saying about food in a teachers' lounge.

Here's another measure of how much I enjoy these people I work with: I used the last of my canned tomatoes for the soup! This year's harvest wasn't as good as last. But I also made salsa and pizza sauce this year, which I hadn't last year. The pizza sauce was a winner - all fourteen pints of that have already been used! The salsa, not so much. I just can't find a salsa recipe that I'm excited for, I guess. I have about ten quarts of spaghetti sauce in the freezer, and we use about a quart a week, so not too many weeks left of the good stuff!

One of my gardening resolutions last year was to use all of the harvest and not let anything go to waste. I'm proud to say we did just that! Though it may be too soon to report on the potatoes, I still have a basement full!

How did I do on my other gardening resolutions? I'll think about that tomorrow....

A Winter Walk

2011-12-04T15:26:00.001-06:00

Winter Road on a Sunny Afternoon

Winter always puts me in a funk, but if I could see beyond it, there is a lot of beauty in the season. I happened to pull out my phone and take a few pictures on my afternoon walk. The temperature was a brisk 23 degrees. We have had a very dry fall. Usually we have a few inches of snow on the ground this time of year. This dusting was just from the overnight.

A very sunny Shade Garden

We also stopped by Rita's to take a peek at our vegetable garden but I just couldn't bring myself to take a picture. It's strange to think how land that is so fertile and verdant in the summer can be so barren and cold just a few short months later.

Rabbit and Deer Tracks - I wonder which came first

I wish I could learn to love winter. Maybe I need to solicit the advice of other northern gardeners to see how they cope in the gardening off-season.

Where did summer go?

2011-11-20T22:52:00.000-06:00

Has it really been four months since I posted? Terrible! What happened?

Oh yeah, life... :)

In August, we took a 12 day trip to Colorado and when we returned, I was back to work. While Colorado was lovely, our return to Minnesota was bittersweet. It was great to be home, but I was sad to have missed two weeks of time on the lake and in the gardens. Summer is so short here, I decided then that I would NOT spend two weeks away again during our most beautiful time of the year.

So, having not blogged for awhile, here is how the season turned out:
1. LOTS of potatoes and onions harvested (will definitely plant Candy onions again next year!)
2. Not as many tomatoes as last year, but still enough to freeze about 20, 3 c. bags of spaghetti sauce. I freeze 3 cups in a bag because my family seems to never use the last cup in a quart jar, and 3 c. is just right with no waste!
3. LOTS of pickles this year. I stopped canning at 24 quarts and started giving them away. People started running away whenever I started to say anything about cucumbers.
4. Few squash - our cold spring, dry August, and early frost pretty much made for a difficult year for everyone. We yielded about a third of what we did last year and only froze 10 cups this year.
5. Great flower show this year! Wish I had taken more pictures. Maybe next year (famous last words!).

So now we have had our first accumulating snowfall of the season, and we're settling in for a long, cold winter, northern Minnesota style.

MMM...mmm... Good!

2011-07-27T00:16:00.001-05:00

It was a good day of Raspberry picking today!

Before

After

I don't have a special secret recipe, just the insert from the box of Sure-Jell to guide me. It's SO GOOD!

Lilies

2011-07-26T05:22:00.002-05:00

Lollipop

I've long since lost the tags for these lilies, so while I don't know their varieties, I do know that I LOVE them!

More Hostas

2011-07-23T19:55:00.002-05:00

I just updated my blog to include a page devoted to my hosta collection. It is my intent to grow this collection, and this is a way for me to simply keep track of things! I also placed an order today with Bluestone Perennials for more. Here's what I chose:

Great Expectations - Because I love to read and it is one of my favorite books

First Frost - Recommended by Diane at My Cottage Garden

Frosted Mouse Ears - I just added Blue Mouse Ears, may as well have a set

Lakeside Baby Face - Living on the lake, need I say more?

Patriot - Great name, beautiful hosta!

Stained Glass - Fell in love with this one after visiting a co-worker's beautiful backyard shade garden

There you have it! What are your favorite hosta varieties? Is there a must have that I'm missing?

Perennial Border Update

2011-07-23T02:07:00.000-05:00

Well, I've been a bad garden blogger and have been gardening more than I've been blogging. But here are updated photos of my sun border, both a pre-season photo and one I took a couple of days ago.


Early Spring Perennial Border


Mid-July Perennial Border


Perennial Border

Perennial Border - Shadier End

The lilies are alive right now, which is so exciting! I'll post some closeups of the lilies next week. Happy gardening!

Garden Bullies

2011-06-29T02:23:00.000-05:00

A garden is like a playground; it's a beautiful sight when everyone is getting along. But every once in awhile, someone gets a little out of hand, and then the adult needs to step in. You know what I'm talking about: plants that don't stay where they're planted, that push their way into others' space, that knock others down, hog all of the resources (SUN), and overpower their playmates.

Today's biggest offender: Filipendula, a.k.a. Queen of the Prairie.

Alone, it's a beautiful plant. This picture, and the plants in my garden, are from Glorified Weeds. I had some planted in the back of the sunny driveway border. Had I looked more closely at the details of this plant before I set it in the soil, I would have discovered that it spreads by stolon and should be given either a large space, or should somehow be contained. So I guess I got what I deserved, a beautiful plant that overshadowed everything around it and almost took over my border.

What are stolons? They are horizontal shoots from plants that grow just beneath the surface and produce clones of the same plant at the buds on the tip. Strawberries and spider plants are other plants that spread from stolons.

But back to the filipendula. I did decide to rip this out of my driveway border. I tried to salvage some of them and planted a few in Emma's new bed behind the large boulder. On one side of the plant is the boulder so it won't plop over on other plants, and behind it are trees, so these two "enforcers" on both sides should keep this unruly plant in line.

Weekend Warrior - Blue & White Garden Installed

2011-06-12T19:29:00.000-05:00

Whew! I'm exhausted. This weekend, I put in a new "blue and white" bed in front of the addition.

Here's the before shot:

The bench was actually not a part of the "before." My husband's need to move it from its prior location so he could take down some dead trees prompted the whole project. Behind the bench is some goatsbeard, to the left is a Quickfire hydrangea, and to the right is a variegated dogwood of some sort.

Needless to say, the sod removal was the most labor intensive part of the project.

The stepping stones are heavy slate rocks that someone had dumped off at my husband's shops because they didn't want or need them anymore. Again... notice how I'm blaming this project on my husband. :)

And here's the finished project. At the sides of the bench are two Sum and Substance hostas (one which looked much better before I moved it). I planted some Walkers Low nepeta along the sidewalk, some Glory Bee Geraniums and some balloon flowers along the front of the curve, with little white clips campanulas for edging. Closer to the stairs (back left corner) I planted several herbs to have right outside of the kitchen window. But I'm most excited for the irises that I planted in this garden. I've had irises here for several years in a variety of locations and they just don't enough sun to produce blooms, so I'm hoping now that they're here, they'll bloom next year.

I'd like to say that this is my last new garden of the year, but I still have several wheelbarrows full of black dirt in a pile behind the garage just begging to be part of a new little garden soon!

Rabbits... Stinkin' Rabbits!

2011-06-05T23:15:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite plants for shade is tiarella, also known as foam flower. Above is a picture of what it should look like. This picture is from Kathy Wieditz of Glorified Weeds Perennials.

Here's what MY tiarella looks like in my shade garden

Again, the picture is taken with my iPhone so I apologize for the blurriness - but you'll notice something missing. Each of the foamy flowers have been chewed off! I've had these in another part of my yard for four years and I've never had any rabbit damage to them, but apparently these must be pretty tasty.

So... do I move them? Leave them and appreciate the foliage? Or put out rabbit traps?

Random Shade Garden Photos

2011-06-02T23:27:00.000-05:00


Lily of the Valley

Shade garden - Pulmonaria, lamium, and bleeding heart in bloom

Shade garden - tiarella and forget-me-nots in bloom

Another area of the shade garden - muscari and bleeding hearts in bloom

When we moved to our house four years ago, I lamented the fact that it was a heavily wooded lot and I wouldn't have as much room for sun-loving perennials as I did at our previous house. But I'm starting to change my tune. Here are some random shots of my shade garden from my iPhone, so the quality is not the best. Most of these plantings were new last year so it's fun to see that most survived the winter and are thriving. I can't wait to see it in three years when everything has filled out a little more!

The lily of the valley was transplanted from another area in our yard where it was growing for three years but never bloomed. How fun to finally see flowers! I'm not sure why it bloomed in this area and not the other, except that this area is much more shaded than where it was previously planted, so that could be part of it.

The debris in all of the photos is a result of a hailstorm here on Saturday. Out of nowhere it started hailing golf-ball sized hail! My rhubarb took a beating, as did some of the hostas that have leafed out, but otherwise, the flowers were pretty much left undisturbed.

On the vegetable garden front, this week we've planted broccoli, beans, carrots, beets, cucumbers, and tomatoes (added to our already planted potatoes, onions, and peas) at our community garden. Squash will go in this weekend. I haven't planted ANYTHING in my little salad garden at our house - not even salad greens which could have gone in several weeks ago. Maybe the weather will cooperate this weekend so I can get that taken care of and checked off of the infamous "list" that all of us gardeners have... the list that is never ending. But that's a good thing!

Pretty Much Picasso Petunia, take two

2011-05-28T03:49:00.002-05:00

Last year I really wanted to plant some of these petunias in hanging baskets on the lake side of the house where they would get a lot of sun, but they were nowhere to be found around here. This year, I did get my hands on some, which are potted in two lovely hanging baskets just waiting for summer to arrive. Currently, they're sitting on the hearth of the fireplace where they won't freeze at night!

I was excited to finally find these, but I was also surprised at how small the flowers were. This picture is from the Proven Winners website and unless you really look closely at how the flowers compare to the leaves, you would assume that they're larger than they truly are. Or at least I did. But that didn't stop me from buying them.

Now we just have to wait for the temps to catch up with the calendar here in northern MN!

Hyacinths

2011-05-26T22:13:00.000-05:00

Hyacinth (hyacinths?) are a new flower in my garden this spring! I'm so glad that I planted more spring bulbs last fall. I have these hyacinth blooming right now as well as graph hyacinth, scilla, a plethora of daffodils, and a few tulips. Bulbs that haven't bloomed for me this spring yet are the allium and snowdrops that I also planted last fall. If the snowdrops haven't bloomed yet, and it's late May, does that mean they won't? Does anyone have experience with these, especially in zone 3?

Potatoes!

2011-05-23T23:43:00.000-05:00

Today, the kids helped me plant 12 pounds of seed potatoes - four pounds each of red norlands, white kennebecs, and norkotah russets. Last week we planted onions (candy variety from plants) and peas (sugar ann snap peas).

It's still really cold here, cooler than average, so while I usually plant tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and the rest on Memorial Day weekend, I'm not sure it's a good idea to go ahead and do that quite yet. Maybe beans, carrots, and dill can go in this weekend, but I think I'll wait another weekend to plant my transplants and cucumbers & squash.

Any other zone 3 readers out there who have been brave enough to plant more than potatoes and peas?

More Spring Blooms

2011-05-21T20:17:00.001-05:00

Narcissus - Not sure of the variety

Fern Leaf Bleeding heart

Primrose - This one has never bloomed for me, so it's a treat to see!

Dwarf Bearded Iris

Forget Me Nots


Lamium

Here are some of the beauties in bloom in the gardens today. The tulips are just starting to open up, and the yellow daffodils are putting on a beautiful show!

Turf to Brag About

2011-05-21T01:18:00.001-05:00

Look at this beautiful lawn! Ok, it's not winning any "turf awards" to be sure, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. At one time, before I started gardening and thinking more about my family's impact on the environment, I might have been embarrassed that our yard isn't lush and green and free from weeds. But if my lawn did meet that aesthetic standard, then I wouldn't have the opportunity to see these white little wildflowers that I believe are some kind of anemone. There's also a fun little patch of moss in the bottom right corner of the photograph, and maybe some wild strawberry as well.

What fun surprises nature has in store for us if we let her do her thing!

Prairie Restorations Field Trip

2011-05-17T23:11:00.003-05:00

On Saturday, we took a long road trip to the Prairie Restorations headquarters in Princeton, MN, with the purpose of purchasing some swamp milkweed to add to our butterfly garden. Butterflies, particularly monarchs, lay their eggs on swamp milkweed as the caterpillars find the plant quite tasty. Not only did we find some milkweed at Prairie Restorations, we also went home with a few other treats!

Pink Rue Anemone (Enemion biternatum)


Dwarf Trout Lily (Erythronium Propullans)

Bishop's Cap or Two-leaf Miterwort (Mitella Diphylla)

I'm hoping these plants thrive in our woodland shade garden. When we moved into our house four years ago, I lamented the fact that I couldn't grow a large number of my favorite sun loving plants because of our heavily shaded lot. I have one very small sunny garden that I've had to load up with lilies and the like, and the rest of the gardens are made up of shade loving plants. Four years later, and my favorite spot in the yard is the shade garden out by the road. Who would have thought I could learn to love the shade.

Wildflowers in my yard!

2011-05-14T21:48:00.004-05:00

Who knew that my yard was a prime breeding ground for a variety of wildflowers. We now have field pussytoes (antennaria neglecta) in bloom (sorry, no picture) all over the lakeside hill. And when I was walking the dogs around the yard I spotted a large clump of Northern White Violas (viola macloskeyi). With the help of my four year old, we dug up several of these and moved them to an area in my shade garden where they were less likely to be disturbed.

Northern White Violet also known as Small White Violet

I also found several Early Meadow Rue (Thalictrum dioicum) growing in the shady spot behind my garage where nothing grows. In fact, it's become the resting ground for all of the river rock that was once surrounding our house and has slowly been removed bed by bed, so I wouldn't have thought that it would be good breeding ground for many plants. We dug some of those up as well and moved them to various spots in the shade garden, leaving a few back there behind the garage. That space may become an impromptu "rock garden" before you know it!

Early Meadow Rue

I also think that I spotted a few Canada Mayflowers (Maianthemum canadense), otherwise known as "False Lily of the Valley," behind the garage. I think I'll wait until they flower to go through the hassle of moving them, just in case they aren't Canada Mayflowers after all.

I guess it's a good thing that my husband and I live in a neighborhood where it's ok for us not to be obsessed with our "turf." Grass just doesn't grow well here, but we have a lot of beautiful varieties of moss! And we have more creeping charlie than most people would care for. Can I admit in this space that I actually enjoy the minty smell of creeping charlie when underfoot? And there is nothing sweeter than my little guy bringing me a hand-picked bouquet of dandelions with a big smile and loving hug. So I'll take my imperfect lawn any day as it holds surprise treasures all over the place!

Thank you to the Minnesota Wildflowers website for providing so much helpful information on these and other Minnesota natural beauties!

Ring-necked Duck

2011-05-14T11:14:00.002-05:00

It's fishing opener in Minnesota, but the lakes are quiet today except for the whitecaps from the strong winds. These Ring-necked Ducks were finding a little respite from the rough waters along our shoreline.

L to R: Male and Female Ring-necked Duck


What a beautiful bill!

According to Ducks Unlimited, the "ring-necked" name comes from a faint brownish ring at the base of the neck that you can slightly distinguish on the first picture.

And this lonely Mallard seems like he's not really sure what to do and eventually swam off, perhaps to find another of his kind.

L to R: Ring-necked male, female, and male Mallard

Duck recap from this spring:
Mallard
Common Mergansers
Hooded Mergansers
Ring-necked Duck
Common Loon

I wonder what we'll see next!

PJM Rhododendron Blues

2011-05-13T20:54:00.001-05:00

About two years ago, I planted three PJM Rhododendrons in front of my kitchen window. Then last summer, something strange happened - one of them slowly died. I tried nursing it along all summer, but to no avail, and by the end of the summer it was clear that it was a goner. Then as I was raking leaves in the fall, I found the culprit - my adorable little Bichon-Poo named Jack took it upon himself to "water" said rhododendron. So this spring, as my husband was doing yard cleanup, he dug out the dead shrub. Unfortunately, another of the rhododendrons is showing similar signs of struggle that the dead one showed last year. Dare I guess who is behind that?

Notice the one on the right, how healthy it is! I'm afraid that when we pull out the dying one on the left, that little bugger will take out this final rhododendron.

So, do I leave the dying one there? Should I buy a couple of new ones to replant? Do I need to do anything to get the ammonia out of the soil before replanting? Does anyone have some good suggestions for deterring this disgusting and destructive male dog behavior?!

Martagon Lily Update

2011-05-11T23:22:00.000-05:00

bLast fall, I purchased and planted some martagon lily bulbs. Martagon lilies are shade loving plants, which is great for a yard full of tall oaks that provide lots of lightly dappled shade. I have never seen martagons in person, but from what I've read, they have whorled foliage that emerges early in the season, and will develop small waxy flowers with recurved petals. Martagons are slow to increase, which is nice if you don't want to disturb your plantings, but not so much if you want them to multiply in your gardens. From what I have read, they can also lay dormant the first year that they're planted, depending upon the size of the bulb. So I wasn't sure what to expect of them this spring. When would they emerge? What would they look like? Would I even see them this year? Well, the good news is that two of three varieties I planted last year are starting to grow! Here's how they looked today.

The third variety hasn't emerged yet, but I'm not going to give up hope because it was a small, small little bulb compared to the other two. The one that hasn't sprouted yet is the Pink Attraction martagon, and here's a picture of what it will hopefully look like in my garden some day.

I'd love to hear from other bloggers who may have experience with these understated beauties!

The Daffs Are Blooming! The Daffs Are Blooming!

2011-05-11T23:11:00.000-05:00

Look what was greeting me today when I got home!

Not only that, but it was 82 degrees today! 82! Minnesotans everywhere were giddy as school children on the last day of school, and working in a school, I'm very familiar with that feeling! Do we spoil the excitement by looking at the weather report for the next few days? No, because we know we're going to pay for this 82 degrees and we will no doubt have another day in the 40's sometime soon. That's spring in Minnesota. But for today, we enjoyed it as if it were summer!

Here are some other blooms in the gardens.

Tilling, tilling, tilling

2011-05-08T21:44:00.000-05:00

Northern end of garden - soon to host potatoes, onions, and squash!

I know many gardeners who tout the benefits of a non-tilled garden. In truth, they're probably on to something. While I spent hours this weekend with the rototiller running, I shudder to think of the gas that was used to accomplish this feat. And I believe I've read somewhere that turning up the soil in the entire garden can cause dormant weed seeds from deep in the soil to emerge and sprout, nevermind how upsetting it is to all of the little critters living just below the surface of the earth. Yet I spent three hours, YES, three hours, tilling my vegetable plot in semi-clandestine fashion, with a guilty pleasure at seeing all of the fresh soil upturned and ready for me to dive in and sew my seeds, but feeling that if I were more eco-friendly, I'd only till where I would plant my rows. Maybe next year. Until then, I will admire my freshly tilled garden with it's dark, fluffy soil, and dream of the weather warming enough to do some planting someday soon!

Southern half of garden plot - soon to be salad greens, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, broccoli, dill, peas, beans, and beets (in no particular order).

If you're happy and you know it...

2011-05-07T10:02:00.002-05:00

I don't know who is happier - me or these little plants that have been sitting in my bay window for weeks and now get a breath of fresh air because, glory be, the sun is shining!

Little Wonders

2011-05-06T21:54:00.000-05:00

There still isn't much happening in the gardens, but I did spot these little blooms the other day.

Pulmonaria

Purple Viola

I also discovered, to my displeasure, that deer seem to enjoy bergenia, as you can kind of see in the photo below. These are planted out in the shade garden by the road, which is right across from a large wooded area. I guess they'll need to be moved closer to the house, as if that'll stop the deer.


Deer-chomped Bergenia

And just for fun, here's a picture of the rhubarb making it's appearance. Funny plant, that rhubarb. The first year we were in this house, I just let the rhubarb go. My secretary was quite taken aback by that and the next year, brought me several wonderful rhubarb recipes. I'm looking forward to rhubarb sweet bread, rhubarb bars, rhubarb pudding cake... mmmmm!!!

Rhubarb!

Foundation Planting in Need of Serious Help!

2011-04-25T08:28:00.003-05:00

Here's a picture of the front of our house. We moved into my husband's childhood home on a beautiful lake four years ago. My mother-in-law is a wonderful woman and had many talents, but she is not a gardener. When she had the house resided and landscaped several years ago, she instructed the landscaper to put in plants that she wouldn't have to do anything with to maintain. So we had a lot of evergreen shrubs and river rock around here when we moved in. It is a design that worked for her, but doesn't work for this girl who likes to see flowers blooming and get her hands dirty!

This little foundation planting is the last of the river rock, and it's coming out this spring! We're in gravel soil, which you could probably guess by the sorry state of our grass, so every bed that I've put in has required a LOT of work removing gravel and hauling in some good soil. I'm hoping that the landscaper did his job amending the area before he planted way back when. The site is mostly shade as it is north facing. I'd like to add some height to the area as well and I wouldn't mind bringing the bed out a few more feet. Any advice or suggestions out there?

More Water Fowl

2011-04-23T13:27:00.002-05:00

Female Common Merganser

Male Common Merganser

Tell me you don't think of penguins when you see this picture!

I'm getting tired of posting about ducks, but it's truly the only thing of interest to view around here these days. Here are some pictures of Common Mergansers, though they are truly lovely birds and not "common" at all. Note there is STILL ICE ON THE LAKE! Tomorrow we are supposed to hit 60 degrees, and if we do, I plan to hop in the canoe with my daughter to head to the other shoreline to see if we can pick out the nest of a bald eagle that was swooping over the lake yesterday.

For now, I'm heading out into 35 degrees to rake up some leaves. Brrrr. I'm going to need to come in for some hot cocoa after that. It hardly seems like late April.

"Wishin', and Hopin', and Thinkin' and Prayin'"

2011-04-20T01:40:00.001-05:00

Snow is flying again tonight, not entirely unusual for late April, but unusual in how often this seems to be happening this "spring." Yes... "spring" in quotation marks. It's hard not to feel a crippling sense of hopelessness at this point. Of course spring will come, eventually, right? Right?

*sigh*

Well, here's a photo from one of my first years gardening at our house. We're coming into our fifth season at this place, our ever after home, and I'm wishin' and hopin' that the gardens fill out just a little more this year, that I get to grow my gardening space, and that spring truly will decide to show up!

Hooded Mergansers

2011-04-16T18:59:00.002-05:00

One thing that I've become more interested in, especially after reading other MN garden/nature blogs, are the birds and waterfowl in our little corner of the universe. This evening, I spotted a new duck that I hadn't noticed or paid attention to before, the hooded merganser. Now that I know what they are, I'll have to pay more attention to whether or not they are frequent visitors to our shoreline. If they are, I'm sure they're thinking what I'm thinking... man, it's cold, what are we doing here?!

Sounds of Spring

2011-04-14T20:29:00.002-05:00

"Quack, quack, quack..."

Mallards along the shoreline in front of the house

That sound at 5:30 am really should annoy me, but the past few days, it's been music to my ears! It means the ice is melting on the lake, that spring will truly arrive one of these days! The sounds of spring are almost as delightful as the smells and sights. There's a morning songbird that always reminds me of spring, but not being a birder, I have no idea what it is or how to even describe it's two-toned, high-low, sing-song. But I know that whenever I hear it, it brings a smile to my face,and I just want to whistle right back!

Herbs & Such

2011-04-13T22:11:00.000-05:00

Last night I had the opportunity to rake the leaves out of several gardens here and was surprised at what I discovered in my herb garden. Last year, I planted some perennial sage and oregano. Here's how they look after surviving a harsh MN winter:


Oregano


Sage

These were new plantings last year and I didn't expect to see them right away this spring. I knew something was up when I was raking away and smelled the oregano in the air. Mmm... what a smell!

I also discovered some onions that overwintered. I got these for free at a local greenhouse last summer. They had planted the seeds rather late and the onion plants were just teeny-tiny last year. So I planted them last year and they barely grew. I wonder what they'll do this year.


Onions and some renegade strawberry runners from the plants "next door"

And finally, some spring bulbs are just starting to show up. Last fall I planted scilla, muscari, and snowdrops, and I haven't seen any signs of them, but the daffodils are starting to grow as you can see in the picture.

I planted some tulips when we first moved in four years ago and they just never did very well, so I haven't bothered planting any more even though tulips are my favorite spring bulb flower. I'm not sure if I'll try again this fall, I'm feeling more adventurous and maybe if I purchase some good bulbs from a good supplier (John Scheepers?) then I'll have better luck. I just don't know of a lot of people with luck with tulips in this area. We'll see - there's a full year of gardening ahead and I'm starting to get excited!

Butterfly Garden

2011-04-11T20:17:00.001-05:00

My neighbor, Rita, emailed me today to ask me to help her put in a butterfly garden at her house. What a fun project!! She found this link on the U of M extension website and we have plans to do something similar.

Figure 1. A sample butterfly border garden has a large variety of host plants.
		Tawny daylily ‘Marine’ heliotrope Gayfeather Butterfly weed Petunia Mountain bluet Annual aster ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum Rock cress French marigold ‘Happy Returns’ daylily Blanket flower Nasturtium Goldenrod
Purple coneflower Dill Hollyhock Joe-Pye weed Globe centaurea	Peony Turtlehead Swamp milkweed Yarrow Queen Anne’s lace

Rita has been gracious enough to open her garden to us for our use, which is where we grow most of our veggies, in true neighborhood gardening fashion. She has a great spot to add a butterfly garden as she has a large, sunny lot. I have some of these plants here that we can divide, but for the most part, we'll have to spend some serious time at the greenhouse or at my favorite plant stop, Glorified Weeds!

I'm not a butterfly expert, and I'm only an amateur plant enthusiast, so I'd love to have some feedback or suggestions for this project.

Snow Free Gardens!

2011-04-07T17:07:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it - it's actually 61 degrees here this afternoon! I came home from work to discover that all of the snow in the gardens has melted. Wow, do I have my work cut out for me!

National Frog Month

2011-04-06T00:40:00.000-05:00

Leopard Frog

April is National Frog Month. Frogs are one of my favorite little critters. They're harmless, stealth little guys, hiding out under the big leaves of the rhubarb, waiting to snatch up some tasty little bugs. And when you spot one, it usually causes you to do a double take as they blend in so well you're not sure if you actually saw one or not. As kids growing up in an area full of natural wetlands, we loved spending time catching the little guys, collecting them in a pail, pretending we were going to have a frog farm, only to send them off their merry little way before we had to run in to dinner. Often one of my brothers would suggest we sell them to fishermen, which probably prompted the rescue release mission.

Here's hoping I have the pleasure of running into one of these little guys soon!

"They're gonna put me in the movies..."

2011-04-04T00:00:00.000-05:00

Okay, so not ME, exactly, but my little hometown of Moose Lake, MN, for which this blog gets its name, is featured in the upcoming animated movie RIO. Opening April 15, Rio is a 3-D animation feature from the makers of "Ice Age." Set in the city of Rio de Janeiro, the comedy-adventure centers on Blu, a rare macaw who thinks he is the last of his kind. When Blu discovers there is another - and that she is a she - he leaves the comforts of his cage in the small town of Moose Lake, Minnesota, and heads to Rio. Blu and his female counterpart are soon birdnapped, escape, and have to find their way back to Moose Lake, to the only true friend Blu has ever known- his owner, Linda.

Our little town is all a-buzz with the movie mania. Film crews have been in town all weekend and the movie apparently premieres in our vintage, one screen, little movie theater here this week before opening across the country later this month. We'll take our 15 minutes, thank you. Congratulations, Moose Lake, for being the quintessential little Minnesota small town!

April Fools, Indeed!

2011-04-01T10:35:00.005-05:00

A view of the lake from the house this morning

Weather

2011-03-31T19:52:00.000-05:00

Tonight Mar 31

Fri Apr 1

Sat 2

Sun 3

Mon 4


Rain / Snow	Rain / Snow Showers	Mostly Cloudy	Rain / Snow Showers	Snow Shower
--	43°	46°	40°	35°
High	High	High	High	High
30°	29°	29°	31°	23°
Low	Low	Low	Low	Low


				I wish I could get excited about spring, but you can clearly see that there isn't much to get excited about. We still have snow on the ground, but hopefully the coming rain will get rid of the remaining snow, at least until Monday's snow shower.

				SIGH

Cruel, cruel winter

2011-03-26T15:50:00.001-05:00

Oh, cruel, cruel winter of 10-11, when will you release your death grip on us?! In an act of self-torture, I decided to re-read my posts from last March, and discovered that I had the following peeking out of the ground on March 21:

daffodils
creeping yellow sedum
geum
pink mallow
bee balm
evening primrose
jacobs ladder
Autumn Joy sedum
bachelor button
rudbekia

Now we still have at least 10 inches of snow on the ground thanks to the storm earlier in the week, and it's snowing again today.

Thanks to all of this late season snow, instead of spending my day outdoors cleaning out gardens and expanding my front yard foundation planting as planned, I'm spending it reading my newest addition to my gardening library, Edible Front Yard: The Mow-Less, Grow-More Plan for a Beautiful, Bountiful Garden, by Ivette Soler. I purchased this after reading about it on the Garden Rant blog. It's a fast, easy read, and is giving me some glorious ideas! The longer this snow is on the ground, the more grandiose my plans become. While a lot of the plants in this book will not work in my northern garden, the book was still a worthwhile read.

Seedlings

2011-03-25T19:55:00.000-05:00

Here's a snapshot of the Johnny's Seed Disks that we planted a few weeks ago. The sweet marjoram didn't do much, but the rest looks like it's coming along. I'm not sure what happened with the marigolds - may have to replant.

The seedlings in the trays in front are a few varieties of cosmos, two varieties of zinnias, a packet of morning glory and a packet of sunflowers. Here's a close up of the cosmos:

It's nice to see something green growing since you'll notice the view out the window is still snowy and depressing!

Mourning Dove

2011-03-23T15:55:00.001-05:00

This mourning dove, spotted off our deck, is probably thinking it should have waited a little longer before heading back north. I'm sure many of the other Minnesota "snow birds" feel the same way today!

Sorry the picture is blurry - iphones are lovely devices, but they do not take very good pictures, especially through a window.

Spring in Minnesota

2011-03-23T13:02:00.001-05:00

Well, my wishes for a snow day came true! Here are a couple of shots of the view from the deck at 10:00 this morning.

Though it's hard to tell, it is still snowing and blowing, and we have several inches of snow on the ground.

I guess it was a little overly optimistic of me to put out lawn chairs already. Spring in Minnesota is so unpredictable. While others around the country are posting pictures of lovely flowers in bloom, I'm just getting excited about perennials finally waking from their winter slumber. I try to rationalize living here by believing that the long, cold winter only makes the spring and summer that much more sweet, but in reality, I'd love to be sitting outside in 70 degree weather in March. Heck, I'd even take 50! C'est la vie. Another day to stay inside and dream of spring flowers to come.

Snow!

2011-03-22T07:24:00.000-05:00

I can't believe I'm actually cheering for a blizzard in March, but I am! I'm lucky enough to work in a school district that I love, which is incredibly stressful, difficult, yet rewarding work. But I can't help but feel like a little kid at the prospect of a "SNOW DAY!" For those of you not working in education, remember the sweet victory you felt when listening on the radio just to hear your school called out as one that is closed for the day? And suddenly, a little gift from heaven above, a day where you don't have any obligations, where you don't have to deal with the bully on the bus or science homework. As an adult, I appreciate those days even more - a day without meetings, without appointments, without stress. A gift of a day that I can do whatever I want with. If we have a snow day tomorrow (which looks pretty good at this point) after our 10+ inches of snow prediction and blizzard warning, then I will spend the day lounging around with my kiddos, playing games, maybe watching a movie, and definitely dreaming of the gardening season to come!

Signs of Spring

2011-03-17T20:01:00.000-05:00

Today, the mercury rose to an absolutely gorgeous 52 F. It was wonderful to come home from work and see that all the snow had melted off of the lakeside hill. Although we still have a few inches of snow in the yard, the unseasonably warm weather prompted a quick garden tour. Most of the snow in the gardens has melted, and I was able to pull away some of the dead sedum stalks to unveil the earliest emerging sedum buds. I love the optimism of these plants - they usually emerge very early and are early harbingers of the gardening season to come. It's nice to finally feel that spring may actually come to the great northwoods!

Glorified Weeds

2011-03-12T12:14:00.001-06:00

Kathy Wieditz truly has the most beautiful home garden on the planet, in my opinion. She propagates plants from her gardens in northern Minnesota to sell as well, calling her business Glorified Weeds. I'm just as excited to see her gardens in bloom as I am my own! Here is a link to her garden gallery to enjoy.

Sidewalk Garden

2011-03-05T16:11:00.001-06:00

Lacking software for garden planning, I used Better Homes and Gardens online garden planner to plot out a "sidewalk garden" to make the path to the house a little more interesting. Everything shifted a little after I saved it but it gives the general idea. The plan involves the following plants: Endless Summer hydrangea, nepeta (the three bluish looking mounds), pansies, hardy geranium (in blues or purples, not the pink as is indicated), bearded iris (the larger looking ornamental grasses) and a gold sedum I'm ordering from Bluestone Perennials titled "Sedum Angelina"(the shorter looking ornamental grasses). I'm hoping the Iris will do something in this location - I have had NO LUCK at all with bearded irises at this house despite being able to grow them just fine at our previous home a mile away as the crow flies.

The Catmint and Geranium (Jolly Bee variety) I plan to get from my favorite gardener, Kathy, at Glorified Weeds (glorifiedweeds.webs.com). The Iris plants will be moved from another location in my yard, the pansies will come from Young's Greenhouse in Sturgeon Lake, and I'll pick up the hydrangeas at Spring Fresh Garden Center in town.

Johnny's Seed Disks

2011-02-25T20:52:00.000-06:00

This is the extent of my early seed planting - next year I'll invest in some lights and attempt to grow my own tomato plants by seed, but until then, these little seed disks from Johnny's Seeds will do the trick! The starter set came with six pots and six seed disks: parsley, thyme, basil, greens, sweet marjoram, and chives. But I opted not to plant the chives - really, once you have chives, you don't need any more! Instead we planted some marigolds in the sixth pot. We'll see how it goes - it's fun to actually "plant" something after this never-ending winter!

Blooming Fence

2011-02-24T02:22:00.000-06:00

I came across this fence project in the Summer 2009 Better Homes & Gardens Do It Yourself magazine (thankful for my workplace magazine swappers!). Complete directions for this project can be found at http://www.diyideas.com/outdoorideas/Structures/fence-ideas_ss12.html.

This fence project would look amazing out by the end of the driveway, right behind the boulder that we brought over from the shops last fall. And it would be easy to find some colorful annuals to fill the pots to bring some color to that shady area. I just have to figure out where to get my hands on an old portion of fencing.

Last of the Tomatoes

2011-02-13T03:14:00.001-06:00

Last week, I opened my last jar of canned tomatoes and made a wonderful tomato & red pepper soup that even my children (okay, one child) enjoyed. How sad that makes me - no more chili, tomato soup, or spaghetti sauce made with our own tomatoes. Note to self - plant twice as many tomatoes this spring!

Back to the soup - there's no real recipe to follow - here's the best of what I can remember that I did:

Tomato & Red Pepper Soup

Quart of tomatoes
1/2 med onion - diced
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
Jar of Roasted Red Peppers - drained
1 c. chicken broth
sugar, salt & pepper to taste
1 c. half and half to thicken

In a large saucepan, saute the onions in olive oil until tender. Blend the tomatoes and peppers in a blender until smooth and add to the onions in the pan. Add chicken broth, sugar, salt & pepper and simmer. Add half and half to thicken just before serving.

The great thing about soup is that it's very forgiving and the recipe is always flexible.

Squash Soup

2011-01-25T01:43:00.000-06:00

I got this recipe from a friend of mine who also had an abundance of squash in her garden this year. It was absolutely delightful!

Squash Soup
2 Tbsp butter
1 medium onion, chopped
1 butternut squash, peeled, cubed (I used buttercup)
2 cups chicken broth
1/2 tsp dried marjoram leaves
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp ground red pepper
1 tsp cumin (or to taste)
1- 8oz cream cheese, softened, cubed

Melt butter cook onion, mix all ingredients except cream cheese. Cover, cook on low 6-8 hours, place a 1/3 at time to blender or food processor (or use an immersion blender, as I did) and blend til smooth. return all to slow cooker, stir in cream cheese, cook another 30 minutes on low. Stir until smooth. Enjoy!

Onion Follies

2011-01-12T23:35:00.002-06:00

Just when I start to feel like a "real" and not "pretend" gardener, I do something silly that humbles me into remembering that I'm new to this whole gardening thing.

Today's humbling experience involved onions. Last summer was the first summer that I've ever planted onions. I had purchased a bag of little onion sets from a greenhouse, not really paying any attention to them except that they were yellow and looked like they were in decent condition. And I paid even less attention to these poor onions once they were placed in the ground. Miraculously, I actually had a fairly decent onion harvest this year. Others in our area had trouble with their onions due to the amount of rain we had, but I guess that's one benefit of having a garden bed that is essentially sitting above a bed of gravel - plenty of drainage! So I had onions to add to my spaghetti sauce and plenty to store for use this winter. I have about a dozen left and they're just starting to show some signs of aging. So I'd like to plant some more next year, learn how to care for onions, and learn how to store them more effectively.

When I placed my order at Johnny's Selected Seeds, I included a well researched order for "Candy" onion sets, or so I thought. Imagine my surprise today to find my order included a packet of onion seeds, not sets. I guess I should have noticed that when I placed my order.
So now my question is, what does one do with onion seeds?

Minnesota spring

2011-01-10T22:30:00.001-06:00

Oops - here was a draft of a post from Spring 2010 that didn't make it out of draft stage, for some reason. I thought it would be fun to post it now - just thinking of things to come (wishfully thinking, I might add)

Draft from March 24, 2010:

Of course, spring in Minnesota means crazy temps. Last week we had 60 degrees, and today it's barely above freezing. The daffodils have about an inch of stem peeking up out of the ground. Rhubarb is actually making an appearance, as are some of my asiatic lilies. I'm just hoping it really hits 70 degrees next week as is currently forecast. Wouldn't that make a nice spring break.

There is still a lot of raking to do in the lawn. As I was out there today (freezing, I might add!), I was thinking about how to expand the shade garden by the road. I read a great article about martagon lilies in Northern Gardener this month. Too bad they're hard to find and take even longer to come to bloom. But in ten years I'll have wished I had taken the time to plant some now. It seems from my little research that they're fall planting bulbs. I would love to connect with some Minnesota gardeners who have had success with these flowers.

The good news is that I actually DID plant six martagon bulbs this past fall. Now I know why I don't see them in gardens, they were expensive! I had a strange, guilty feeling spending $30 on a flower bulb. But why not? It's a small indulgence... other people have their expensive vices... I don't smoke, gamble, travel, shop, or even drink all that often (which I type as I'm enjoying a nice bottle, I mean glass, of wine). So what's $30 to add a touch of beauty to our yard? Well, $30 times six, and you get the picture. So this small indulgence was a little more than small, but I'm not at all regretting the purchase. Unless, of course, the bulbs never produce. That's the thing about martagons - I understand that they take years to flower. But we could all use a lesson in delayed gratification in our culture of instant pleasure. I just had to spend $180 to learn the lesson. Isn't it ironic?

Squash

2011-01-02T22:17:00.002-06:00

Since I'm not spending time gardening, I'm spending time updating my blog with pictures from the 2010 gardening season and discovered that I didn't include our squash harvest in any previous post. We planted seeds that were a cross between buttercup and golden nugget. The seeds had been saved from plants that were harvested three years ago by Rita's husband, Joe, the last year that he gardened. I wasn't sure what would come of these seeds that looked like they had seen better days. Lo and behold, they took off, in a BIG way. I have about 15 pints of squash in my freezer still to prove it, which doesn't take into account the ten pints that I've already used to either eat or to bake pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, or pumpkin bars. I was surprised at how versatile squash is for baking, and surprised at how I enjoyed it as a side dish as well. So this year, we saved more seeds, and Joe's squash lives on.

2011 Seed Order

2011-01-02T14:06:00.001-06:00

With the help of Dave's Garden's Garden Watchdog, I discovered Johnny's Selected Seeds, Dave's Garden's highest ranked vegetable seed company. I like that this company has organic selections of the seeds I needed, from plants that were not treated with fertilizers or pesticides. And they had a wider variety of vegetables than I have found on other sites, including more varieties listed on the University of Minnesota Extension site for suggested vegetable varieties for our northern climate.

So here's what was in my cart:

Jade Green Beans (a very hearty producer for me last year)
Sugar Ann Snap Peas
Red Ace Beets
Northern Pickling Cucumbers
Marketmore Slicing Cucumbers
Candy onions (mild sweet storage onions)

Johnny's seed website also had a handy seed starting calculator which enables you to type in your spring frost free date to calculate a timeline for starting seeds indoors, if you are so inclined. I truthfully haven't had much luck with starting seeds - if it's something that can't be directly sown, then I'll find it in the greenhouse. Though I wonder, for those who do start seeds indoors (tomatoes, broccoli, and peppers are the plants I usually purchase), am I missing out? Should I be thinking of purchasing grow lights and all of the seed starting supplies necessary? Would I get great satisfaction from it? Would I save money in the long run? My opinion could be swayed with the right answers to these questions.

Gardening Resolutions for 2011

2011-01-01T20:36:00.001-06:00

I'm not one to make New Year's resolutions - if something is important enough to make a "resolution" about, then it's something I should be doing all the time, not just in the new year. But gardening is different. One year very naturally comes to an end, and one has time to prepare for a new gardening year to begin, at least in Minnesota. So here are my gardening resolutions for 2011:

I will plant fewer "salad greens" that only end up feeding the slugs.
I will can, freeze, or otherwise preserve everything we can't eat fresh. Even that last harvest of green beans which just kept on producing in 2010.
I will begin to vermicompost before the year's end.
I will buy and use a decent composting bin to replace what my husband believes is my "compost eyesore"
I will always amend soil before planting in a new location (see #3 & 4).
I will not overcrowd my perennial gardens!
I will make pesto instead of allowing all of those lovely herb leaves to be destroyed with the first frost.
I will weed more often! (one can always hope)

Some of these are easy things that I could check off of a to-do list, and some will have to wait until the end of the gardening season to be evaluated. I imagine I'll add a few things here and there, but it's a good start. Happy New Year!

2011 Garden Planning Begins

2010-12-28T19:18:00.007-06:00

Why is it all the garden catalogs start arriving after Christmas? Maybe because once the holidays are over, the next thing to look forward to is Spring. But in Minnesota, that's a long time coming. It is nice to think about the snow melting, and the temperatures warming, but in some ways it's also pure torture! But with the arrival of seed and perennial catalogs certainly comes longing for the next gardening season to begin. In that vein, I've already put together my vegetable garden plot for next year. This may undergo some changes yet - it'll only be our second year of gardening on this site and I need to do some research regarding companion planting, but I already know that I need to make sure that I move the potatoes and tomatoes from year to year to discourage scabs and blight, respectively. And I already know not to plant the cucumber near the squash. But here is the overall plan for the garden:

End of the Gardening Season - really this time

2010-11-07T22:40:00.001-06:00

I've planted every bulb that I've ordered this fall, as of yesterday, so I'd say that the gardening season is officially over here. I have no plans to move anything else, plant anything else, separate anything else, or otherwise do anything that requires tending to any garden of any type until spring. It makes me a little more than sad. However, I did get a Gurney's catalog in the mail last week, so I guess that means that it's time to start planning for next year.

What's first on my "to-do" list for the next gardening season? Probably moving the oriental lilies that I just ended up planting in the vegetable garden because I had already covered all of the gardens with leaves by the time these arrived, and I didn't feel like trying to figure out where they should go. Second will be preparing beds around the large boulders that we recently brought to the yard from the garages. There's always plenty to do in the garden, which is part of the beauty of it.

Potatoes Harvested

2010-09-27T00:58:00.004-05:00

We dug the potatoes yesterday. Rita said that they need to be dug before frost otherwise they'll get sugary, and frost was forecast for last night - and indeed we did get frost! So our timing was just perfect. We have eaten most of the reds already with probably one or two meals left. We yielded 95 pounds of Norkota (russets) and Kennebec!

I plan to freeze some of the russets as french fries. I found this info online somewhere and the kids LOVED them, so I plan to do more. Here's what I did:

Peeled potatoes and cut into french fries.
Boil potatoes in salt water until just about done.
Dry thoroughly and freeze on cookie sheets. Transfer to freezer bags.
To bake: toss fries with one to two tablespoons of oil and bake on a cookie sheet for 25 minutes at 425.

Yum!

End of Summer

2010-09-06T22:34:00.003-05:00

How SAD - I think I might actually like fall if it didn't mean two things: 1) Back to work which means a lot less free time for the gardens and 2) WINTER is an inevitability. Yuck, I just hate saying that word - winter. I really should live in a different state but I wonder if tolerating this winter is part of what makes the summer so sweet.

The cucumbers have slowed considerably thanks to the cold weather we've had the past few days. It's gotten down to the upper 30's at night, which makes me nervous as I have a garden full of green Romas still! Twenty-two quarts of pickles - AND a bag of cucs donated to a good friend - all, in all, the cucumbers were a success!

Now on to tomatoes - I picked three boxes of romas that were "almost" ready so I could monitor them more closely in my window sill now that I'm headed back to work. I have big plans for spaghetti sauce, salsa, and just plain tomato sauce and hope that the weather cooperates!

We've been eating potatoes for at least 6 weeks now. I've harvested half of the reds, and just a few of the Norkota plants. I found a website that gave advice for freezing potatoes, so I thought I'd give french fries a shot. I peeled, sliced into "fries" and boiled the potatoes before freezing them on a pan and then transferring to freezer bags. The site said that when ready to cook, toss the frozen fries in a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil and bake at 425 degrees for about 20 minutes. Hopefully that works!

When Joey (my four year old) saw me taking the pans of fries out of the freezer, he said "Where did you get those?" I told them they were from the garden. He said "WHAT?! Rita grows french fries in her garden? That's silly!"

Pickles Galore

2010-08-21T15:07:00.003-05:00

As of today I've canned 17 quarts of pickles and one quart of refrigerator dills. And we're just getting started!
Here's an easy pickle recipe that I've used in the past and love:

(recipe is for one jar, and you can make several jars at once, of course):

2 clumps/heads of dill
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp canning salt
dash (less than 1/8 tsp) alum
1/2 c. cider vinegar
water to cover pickles
Cucumbers to fill jar

In sterilized 1 quart jar, put one clump of dill, 1 clove of sliced garlic, and cucumbers. Add sugar, canning salt, alum, and cider vinegar. Add water to cover the pickles. Add another head of dill and one more clove of garlic (cut up). Boil in a hot water bath canner for five minutes. Wait six weeks to eat.

Fall Perennial Order

2010-08-13T10:05:00.002-05:00

The fall catalogs are arriving - a bittersweet thing. It means the season is almost over, but it also means planning for fall plantings to enjoy next year. Here's what's on my wish list (including where I plan to plant it so I don't forget!):

From Bluestone Perennials:

Grape Hyacinth (Shade Garden)
Scilla (Shade Garden)
Hyacinth (Blue Ice - a light blue one, and Blue Jacket - -a dark blue) (Garage Border)
Snowdrops (Shade Garden)
Lime Frost Daylily (Driveway Border)

I'm also ordering some more oriental lilies from John Scheepers to enhance my garden this time of year next year when a lot of things are past peak. I ordered five of each so I can plant some in the garage boarder, driveway border, and maybe even around the shed.

Miniature Oriental Lily Mona Lisa
Garden Party

Sheila

and some more spring bulbs:
English Bluebells (Shade Garden)
Allium (Driveway Border)

About two weeks ago the kids and I doubled the size of the shade garden. The soil was actually pretty good when I tilled it up - I just had to add some peat moss and it looks really good. I just divided up some of my perennials and moved a few more to fill it in. We also tilled up a little garden around the shed and put some more sun loving things there. I can't wait to see how things fill in next summer!

Other plans for the shed and garage next year - WINDOW BOXES!!!

Martagons, here I come!

2010-07-31T14:11:00.003-05:00

Lilium Martagon

Lilium x dalhansonii

We recently expanded the shade garden and now I'm ready to add some martagons to the mix. Martagon lilies are shade loving plants. Their attractive whorled foliage emerges early in the season. The small waxy flowers have recurved petals and are noted for their tremendous substance plus wide color range. Martagons are slow to increase, which is nice if you don't want to disturb your plantings, but not so much if you want them to multiply in your gardens. Here are the varieties I've ordered for this fall.


		Lilium Martagon var. Album

Cucumbers!

2010-07-27T00:30:00.002-05:00

I wish I had taken a picture of the cucumber we harvested and ate from the garden today! Joseph has inspected the cucumber daily since we noticed it growing a few days ago, and today we decided that it was time to pick it. Mmmmm.... nothing better! I planted two plants here in my kitchen garden in June and we have several little cucs on the vines. Then we planted both slicing and pickling cucumbers from seed at Rita's down the road and those just aren't doing as well. I think they're in a spot that's a little too shady so next year the cucumbers will trade spots with the squash and we'll see if they do better there!

We harvested more potatoes, broccoli, peas, and thinned the carrots resulting in some sweet little baby carrots to eat on July 23rd. Can't wait until the beans are ready - any day now!

On a flower note, the kids helped me carry rock to the shade garden yesterday to expand it! They had so much fun - I totally let them design the shape of the shade garden, complete with stepping stones that were repurposed old cement pavers that were hiding in a pile behind the garage. The bonus is that it cleared it out a little behind there. I've also decided that our old river rock from around the house will be spread behind the garage since it's so shady there nothing will grow. But one thing at a time - there's a lot of work to do out there in the shade garden (sod removal, haul in topsoil and composted manure, plant plants... whew!).

Day Lilies in Bloom - July 22

2010-07-26T08:58:00.003-05:00

Old Rose

Indian Love Call

Raspberry Pixie

My Melinda (?)

Catherine Woodbury

Carlton County Master Gardeners Tour - July 20, 2010

2010-07-26T08:54:00.002-05:00

Here are some of our favorite pictures from the Carlton County Master Gardeners Tour. We toured three beautiful gardens and got all kinds of inspiration!

Love this stepping stone idea!

July 16 Blooms

2010-07-26T08:44:00.001-05:00

From the top left: white phlox, rose campion in front of some silver artemesia, bee balm (red & burgandy), a pink asiatic lily, and Quick Fire hydrangea.

Baby Red Potatoes

2010-07-13T10:16:00.002-05:00

We had our first harvest of baby red potatoes on July 7. YUM! I was surprised that we actually had some potatoes the size of oranges! Now if I could get my weeds controlled I'd really feel like a successful gardener!

Potatoes Fertilized

2010-07-07T00:47:00.002-05:00

After much internet research, I came up with a plan to fertilize the potatoes. I followed the advice of one website and worked 1 Tbsp of 10-10-10 into the soil six inches from the stem of each plant yesterday (7-6-10). Thankfully it also rained profusely last night so I didn't have to worry about watering to distribute the fertilizer. The site I found recommended applying the fertilizer 6 weeks after planting, which was just about right (ok, a little late, but it was a busy week last week!). I went back to the garden to weed today and didn't notice any dead or over-fertilized foliage, so that's a good sign!

My favorite container

2010-07-02T11:53:00.000-05:00

This is my favorite container this year - I just love the lime color of the sweet potato vine with the purple foliage and the New Guinea Impatien.

University of MN Yard & Garden News

2010-07-02T11:43:00.001-05:00

The July issue of the University of Minnesota Extension Yard & Garden News is now available to learn about some of the latest horticultural research, tips, and happenings coming from the University of Minnesota.

Access this month's Yard and Garden News directly on the Extension website @ http://blog.lib.umn.edu/efans/ygnews/2010/07/

Grandma Swanson's Peonies

2010-06-24T12:08:00.001-05:00

Thanks, Mom, for this bouquet! These are from a transplant from my Grandma Ruth Swanson's peony bush from her home near Denham, MN. Grandma passed away around five years ago, so it's nice to have these beauties every year.

The Story of the Squash

2010-06-24T00:19:00.003-05:00

This summer, I am "community gardening" with my neighbor down the road, Rita. Her husband, Joe, passed away three years ago. They had a huge garden in their backyard - it was his summer's passion. He had cross bred two types of squash to create his own variety that he planted every year from seed from the previous year's harvest. This summer, we planted seed from the squash that was from his last gardening year. Lo and behold - we have plants! Yesterday I counted six plants - I'm hoping I have a lot of friends who love squash!

Spring Flower Photos

2010-06-23T23:58:00.003-05:00

Geum

Columbine and Bleeding Heart Foam Flower with columbine and fern leafed bleeding heart in background

Lilacs, sure sign of spring!

Loony Visitors

2010-06-23T23:48:00.003-05:00

This family of loons spent the better part of an hour in front of our house today looking for tasty treats under the water.

Blooming Update

2010-06-17T20:44:00.001-05:00

The following plants are now in full bloom:

Siberian Iris
Peonies
Jacobs Ladder
Fern Leaf Bleeding Heart
Spiderwort
Geranium (all varieties)
Viola

The following are past bloom: Old Fashioned Bleeding Heart, Columbine, Virginia Blue Bells, Lungwort, Miniature Iris, Forget Me Not.

This fall I need to divide up the Siberian Iris and put some in the other part of the main garden where all of the Lilies are as there is almost nothing in bloom there right now and it looks awfully green and boring. I planted some peonies there last year but they just haven't bloomed yet this year. Plus I just need to move them a little because they are getting crowded by the white peonies that are in full bloom.

Always work to do in the garden!

First Harvest!

2010-06-14T20:47:00.002-05:00

Last night, we enjoyed the first salad from our garden. Granted it was just lettuce with a green onion sliced on top, but it was wonderful!

Today I saw a little bitty tomato on one of my tomato plants. I can't remember the variety but it is supposed to be an early producer. My tomato plants are looking a little soggy from all of this rain. My brandywines especially are showing the effects of too much water. Hopefully it dries up and we get some sun soon (2 inches of rain here in the last week - whoa!).

Garden Update

2010-06-12T15:40:00.003-05:00

On June 2nd, I finished planting the vegetable garden. I planted squash, beans, the rest of the row of peas, 18 roma tomato plants, and several hills of cucumbers, both slicing and pickling. I hilled the potatoes two days ago and did some more weeding. Everything is coming along so nicely!

Today I finished planting my latest delivery from Bluestone Perennials: Blue Angel hosta, Zounds hosta, Paul's Glory hosta, bergenia, and snowdrop. I've really been adding things to the shade garden - not really expanding the bed sizes, just filling them up more. I will post pictures when things start flowering!

Happy Memorial Day

2010-05-31T22:12:00.003-05:00

What a wonderful memorial day weekend! Here's what we got done:

* Eight graduation parties and one graduation ceremony that almost went off without a hitch!
*A family birthday party at our house today.
*Our salad garden at our house planted with the following: lettuce (planted a few weeks ago), green onions, clicing cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, celery, and some basil and cilantro for some kick.
*Shade garden update: Added some lupines and sweet William, divided up the Mrs. Moon pulmonaria and planted the divisions at the other end of the shade garden, moved some hostas around and divided those a little, added some impatiens, and the results are a shade garden that looks a little more full. (Next year we'll make it a little bigger as well!)
*Planted some perennials at the end of the shed: Cherry Bells, and some red little tyke day lilies.
*Planted some Sum and Substance up by the house on the new addition and in the shade garden behind the bench.
*Cleaned the house.
*Played with my kids.

All in all, a very, very busy weekend!

Potatoes

2010-05-28T21:44:00.002-05:00

Rita called on Wednesday to tell us that we had potatoes sprouting out of the ground. Yay!

Today I picked up broccoli, tomatoes, celery, sage, green onions, and some impatiens from the greenhouse. Memorial Day weekend! Yay, summer!!

More Vegetable Gardening

2010-05-22T16:23:00.003-05:00

I tilled the remaining section of the vegetable garden today and planted Sugar Ann Snap Peas, beets, dill, Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, and spinach. The I came home and logged two miles jogging on the treadmill after weeding my flower beds. Very tired. I am hoping we'll get some rain soon so I don't have to drag out the sprinklers.

Blooming flowers include:
Tiarella
Columbine
Bleeding Heart (both the old fashioned and fern leafed varieties)
Geum
Forget-Me-Nots
Lilacs (MMMM... they smell wonderful!)

Onions and Carrots

2010-05-22T08:03:00.003-05:00

We planted onions and carrots on Thursday (5/20) and am hoping that rain holds off until this evening so I can till up the rest of the garden and plant peas and beets. I also want to make a trip out to my favorite perennial garden - Glorified Weeds - out in Kettle River to pick up some new plants. I want to add some "Sum and Substance" to my shade garden!

Stomp, plop, pull, POTATO!

2010-05-17T20:25:00.005-05:00

What a gorgeous weekend! We got black dirt spread in the vegetable garden and tilled it in on Sunday before planting three rows of potatoes (about 5 lbs per row). We had quite an assembly line going there. Rita had a potato planter tool and we had all three kids helping us. I'd "stomp" the planter in the ground, Emma or Joey would "plop" a potato in it, Ben would "pull" the lever and when the potato was deposited he'd yell "POTATO!" Hence the mantra "Stomp, plop, pull, POTATO!"

Next I have to get those onions in the ground, and I'd like to plant peas and carrots within the next couple of days as well. Prior to this beautiful weekend we had at least a full week of wet, cold weather, so it feels like I'm a little behind given that we've had an early spring. But it is still just mid-May in northern Minnesota, so I guess we're probably right on schedule.

Heckuva Day!

2010-05-15T20:11:00.003-05:00

What a gorgeous day today! We had highs in the 70's. It really felt like summer.

My Bluestone Perennials order came today, so I planted some Snakeroot, Lady's Mantle, Biokova Geranium, and some Summer Sky Coneflower. I was really impressed with the quality of the plants and how they held up during transport. I will definitely be ordering from them again!

I spread some mulch in my new bed by the bay window. That area is a huge improvement. I'll snap some pics once things fill in a little bit.

We also spread some black dirt in the garden at Rita's. That was quite a job! Tomorrow we'll till that in and hopefully plant potatoes and peas, and maybe some lettuce and spinach depending on how ambitious I feel (and how well I can move tomorrow after all the manual labor today).

Container Gardening

2010-05-12T22:46:00.001-05:00

I just checked out this book P. Allen Smith's Container Gardens: 60 Container Recipes to Accent Your Garden from the Moose Lake Public Library.

I don't do much container gardening - just a few annuals in pots here and there because my kids like to buy annuals in our many trips to local greenhouses, but I think I'm going to actually pay more attention to my containers this year and we'll see what happens. I really like the idea of having some fresh herbs in pots outside of my kitchen door, but I need to put them somewhere where they'll get more light in our shaded lot!

Happy Mothers Day!

2010-05-09T09:18:00.006-05:00

I always associate Mothers Day with spring wildflowers such as trillium and marsh marigolds. When Mothers Day fell later in spring, we would sometimes walk out in the woods and pick a bunch of trilliums for my Mom, and I think she appreciated those as much if not more than the store bought gifts we gave her. Yesterday as we were driving to the greenhouse by my parents' house, we saw the woods full of these beautiful white flowers. So I pulled the van over and we went on a little trek in the woods to pick a handful for my mom. It was evident that I need to get my kids out in nature a little more - they were all hesitant to come with me ("Are we going to get woodticks?" "Will there be wild animals?"). But it didn't take long to pick a nice little bouquet of trilliums and my Mom sure appreciated these flowers delivered by her grandchildren.

Plantslaughter

2010-05-01T19:40:00.002-05:00

Well, my Rhododendrons don't look quite as full of blooms as the picture I posted last week - one only has one lonely bloom on it. I'm hoping that's because I kept them in their containers most of the summer and only got them in the ground in late August. Maybe next year they'll perform better. They do have a lot of new growth on them which is exciting to see, so it seems like it was a good spot for them

An unfortunate casualty of my planting the rhododendrons where I did are these bushes - I think they're a type of ornamental cranberry. I moved them to plant the rhododendrons and I'm afraid they didn't make it. But the upside of that is now I know just where to plant some Russian Sage. This is below the bay window that faces the lake (facing south), and it's pretty dry in that location, which I'm hoping will suit the Russian Sage just fine. I can just visualize it in full bloom against the white of the siding below the window.

PJM Rhododendrons

2010-04-25T23:20:00.003-05:00

My PJM Rhododendrons are blooming! I planted them last summer here, so these are the first blooms I'm getting from them. I'll take a picture when they're in full bloom but for now, here's what they will hopefully look like soon!

Green Girls are back!

2010-04-21T19:48:00.002-05:00

My favorite garden blog, Greengirls, is back! It's produced by writers at the Star Tribune and has great daily advice about gardening. A welcome sign of spring!

On 4/19, the kids and I planted 25 new strawberry plants. I will be diligent about picking all flowers this year, as painful as that may be!

Perennials are growing like crazy here. Still no daffodils or tulips, though.

Bluestone Perennials Order

2010-04-18T12:13:00.003-05:00

I placed a Bluestone Perennials order today: I ordered some Lady's Mantle, Summer Sky Echinacea, Biokovo Geranium, Black Snakeroot (aka Bugbane), and a Butterfly Bush. The thing I'm most excited about, however, is the Innocence Mock Orange (pictured here). It reminds me of the first house my husband and I lived in. Next door to us was a charming old woman with a beautiful garden that happened to serve as a border between our two lawns. In the spring, the scent from her Mock Orange was just heavenly. Wherever you are, Mrs. Winchester, the Mock Orange will always remind me of our little place in Moose Lake and our lovely neighbor!

Busy Saturday

2010-04-17T21:48:00.004-05:00

Well it was a busy day here today! I expanded the raspberry bed. I'm pushing the limit in terms of how much sun the expanded area will get but we'll see what happens there. I planted some lettuce, and we tilled up the gardens at Rita's house. We'll order a load of black dirt to add to the gardens there since they haven't been used for a few years. Em and I dug up our strawberries and planted them at Rita's, readying our bed for the new plants that are to arrive any day now. I also was able to get a wheelbarrow full of compost from my makeshift compost pile from last year to add to the strawberry bed. I'm so proud of that - makes me want to really get serious about composting this year. I may have to look at actually purchasing a compost bin if that's the case.

Gotta love spring!

First bloom

2010-04-15T22:54:00.002-05:00

I have flowers in bloom! The pulmonaria is in bloom, and I have one purple and yellow viola cheerfully announcing that spring is here! Almost everything has come up already, even the hostas, which are slow to arrive, are starting to appear. Astilbe hasn't shown its face yet nor has the liatris, but otherwise everything else has broken through the ground.

I still don't have any daffodil or tulip blooms yet. They usually bloom later here - I don't have them by the house and they just don't get enough sun. But hopefully next week we'll see some spring bulbs in bloom.

Strawberries - Change of Plans

2010-04-11T11:09:00.002-05:00

Ah, the best laid plans... I went to order my strawberries today and they were sold out. So I'm ordering Earliglow, which should be ok, they're just a little less hardy than Glooscap so I'll need to remember to put a good thick bed of straw over them this fall after the ground freezes.

More on Strawberries

2010-04-04T21:31:00.002-05:00

After talking to my brother about how lovely his strawberries perform every year in his garden south of the Twin Cities, I decided that I'm going to grow strawberries come hell or high water! After researching the University of Minnesota Extension Service site for information on strawberries, I decided to pull up my strawberries and start over. I think I planted ever-bearing plants there four summers ago and made two mistakes: 1) I let fruit form the first year and should have pulled the flowers, and 2) I shouldn't expect high yields from ever-bearing plants. So I'm going to order some Glooscap plants this year from Indiana Berry & Plant Company, which I found from a simple Google search. I did some research on a site called Dave's Garden. This site is incredibly useful as it provides feedback on mail order sites. So I'm going to order 25 of these babies, pull the flowers this year, and see what happens next year. If I don't get fruit next year, the strawberries are coming out and will be replaced by raspberries, which do very well here!

Pretty Much Picasso petunia

2010-04-03T08:51:00.004-05:00

I've seen this 2010 new variety petunia in the Minneapolis Star Tribune and in Better Homes & Gardens. Hopefully some greenhouses in our area will have some. I don't have many spots in my yard that get full sun, but I always plant some petunias in hanging pots that are facing the lake and these will be just gorgeous there!

Easter Weekend

2010-04-03T08:15:00.002-05:00

What a beautiful week it's been. We've had temps in the low 70s, all the snow and ice has melted (even on the lake!) and we're almost done clearing out the leaves. We have a heavily wooded, large lot, so it takes the equivalent of two weekends of my husband and I both working out there to get it done. I'll save some leaves to chop up for mulch on the garden as it helps reduce weeds and when I till them into the soil in the fall, it adds some organic material.

I was at Rita's the other day measuring away to plan the vegetable plots. Exciting!

On a flower note, most everything except hostas, astilbes, lilies and peonies have started to grow.

Now to think about what to do with those strawberries - give them another year to see if anything happens, or pull them out to plant something else. Wish I knew a strawberry expert!

Be Out There Pledge 2010

2010-04-02T07:59:00.001-05:00

Brrr!!

2010-03-27T16:45:00.001-05:00

Of course, spring in Minnesota means crazy temps. Last week we had 60 degrees, and today it's barely above freezing. The daffodils have about an inch of stem peeking up out of the ground. Rhubarb is actually making an appearance, as are some of my asiatic lilies. I'm just hoping it really hits 70 degrees next week as is currently forecast. Wouldn't that make a nice spring break.

There is still a lot of raking to do in the lawn. As I was out there today (freezing, I might add!), I was thinking about how to expand the shade garden by the road. I read a great article about martagon lilies in Northern Gardener this month. Too bad they're hard to find and take even longer to come to bloom. But in ten years I'll have wished I had taken the time to plant some now. It seems from my little research that they're fall planting bulbs. I would love to connect with some Minnesota gardeners who have had success with these flowers.

It's time!

2010-03-21T21:45:00.003-05:00

I was able to get out in the gardens a little this weekend and clear out the leaves that I used to cover everything for the winter. I cut back old growth as I had left everything as is (except for the lilies) for the winter so birds could find some winter seeds. I discovered the following already peeking up to say hello:
daffodils
creeping yellow sedum
geum
pink mallow
bee balm
evening primrose
jacobs ladder
Autumn Joy sedum
bachelor button
rudbekia

Tomorrow I'm hoping to get in the shade garden to see what good stuff is coming along there. So much fun!