Last spring I told you about cold frames I made using dresser drawers. I’m sorry to report, the results were not as successful as I’d hoped. The bok choi got too warm and bolted before it got any where near mature enough to eat. (Note to self: open up the cold frame on warm or…

Since one of your goals this month is to start gardening, it’s also time to start keeping (or updating) a gardening notebook. Keep a record There’s a saying among scientists: the work’s not done until the paperwork’s done. Like a good scientist, a good gardener will want to keep a record of his/her gardening experience:…

The joke is “Leave your car windows rolled up in the summertime or someone will deposit a bunch of zucchini in your car.” But the truth is, there is no such thing as “too much zucchini.” Honestly, there are so many amazing ways to use zucchini, why would you ever want to give away this…

Compost time! It’s the height of the garden season and an important component to gardening is composting. Don’t let anything go to waste—compost it. Every scrap of fruit and vegetable waste in your kitchen should go into your compost pile. Keep an ice cream bucket or any other container with a lid underneath or near…

As promised, here is my first installment of posts on planning your garden. First things first: tomatoes. It’s the reason God created gardens. I don’t care what else I grow, if I couldn’t grow tomatoes, I would be an empty shell of a person. We love our tomatoes And don’t think just any old tomato…

Last year I experimented growing a new variety (well, new to me, at least) of squash. The catalog said that under ideal conditions this squash would store for a year. That sounded interesting. Who doesn’t want fresh vegetables in the dead of winter or late spring before the garden starts producing? So I decided to…

This week I dug up about 1/3 of my Jerusalem artichokes. The yield was 15 pounds  of tubers. Pretty good for a crop that you plant just once, huh? What’s Jerusalem artichoke? Well, for starters, it’s not at all like an artichoke. It bears no resemblance to the artichoke and is only a distant cousin. The…

I know, I know. After a long winter, you are anxious to get out into the garden and start planting. It’s been beautifully warm for several days, surely it’s time to start gardening. Right? Wrong. I hate to burst your bubble, but you really need to pay attention to last average frost dates for your…

Wait! Isn’t nightshade a poison?!? Well, yes. if we were talking “nightshade” the plant, that is a poison. But today, we’re talking “nightshade” the family of plants. And they are probably among your favorite veggies. Vegetables in the nightshade or solanaceous family include: potatoes tomatoes peppers (both sweet and spicy varieties) eggplant tomatillos You can…

I know, I know. You are itching to start gardening but warm weather is still weeks away. That’s OK–it’s almost time to start your seedlings indoors. Tomatoes are at the top of the list of seeds to start indoors. But that’s not all–here are some other seeds you may want to start early: Eggplant Most…

We love Bergeson’s We just made our anual trek to Bergeson Nursery yesterday. Yes, there are nurseries that are closer and many that are cheaper. So why would we travel 80 miles to go to this one? First: Locally grown. Most of the plants they carry are not only bred especially for our area, but…

I’ve seen some pretty amazing gardens this year and I want to share some of them with you. The first garden we’ll visit is the Rellaford’s, a young couple, Matt, Mariann and their smart little 2-year old son, Henrie.  Matt is a graduate student at NDSU studying agronomy. Urban gardening The Rellaford’s live on the third floor…

I’ve found it kind of hard to harvest chamomile. You either have to cut each flower off one by one or cut the top 1/3 off the plant and then sort through and cut long stems off. Now, granted, all parts of the chamomile are beneficial but I really like just the flowers–they are prettier…

One of the reasons we garden is because we want to make the world nicer. So it only makes sense that we’d want to do what we can to lessen our impact on the environment. The garden is the perfect place to reduce and re-purpose items you might otherwise be throwing away. When you garden,…

What’s a brassica? You’ve heard me talk about brassicas, so maybe you’re wondering what on earth is a brassica? Well, brassicas are a family of plants that are known for being cold-hardy and high in nutrition. They are also known as cruciferous plants. That’s because when they first sprout, their first two leaves (called cotyledons…

I know I said that tomatoes are the reason we garden and that’s mostly true. But the thing I REALLY love about gardening is that we have healthy, chemical-free food year round. The food from our garden is more nutritious, tastier and saves us a ton of money. Our fall harvest Today (October 17) we…