Spring Break Fun in Colorado

 

We had so much fun in Colorado this past week. The weather wasn't as friendly as we wanted it to be for doing outdoor activities but we toughed it out to do biking/hiking/skiing. I got hailed on just a few minutes after I took this picture! I don't remember ever being hailed on while on a hike so I was pretty much laughing on my way back to our rental house.

The mud was just amazing, even being on a mountain hike where it's pretty much gravel or clay. I'm not sure my shoes will ever be the same!

Beaver Creek after 12 inches of fresh powder was perfect! Loveland Pass was closed about 20 minutes after we drove through and I think that kept the traffic down so the mountain skiing wasn't as busy as normal. We barely saw anyone skiing and it was so much fun.

Also, skiing in a blizzard when you don't have proper ski-wear is hilarious. We thought it would be 50 degrees and slushy - as it turns out, no, no it wasn't. It was 25 degrees and a blizzard. I bought a light sweatshirt-ish jacket and didn't bring a shell so I ended up a little damp but it was still super fun.

I think I would definitely do a powder day at Beaver Creek again. Normally it's groomed but we were lucky! The past few days had been extremely dry and melty which means ice to ski on and quite frankly, I wasn't about to ski on ice - I'm at an age where that means a knee replacement and I'm not even close to risking that! However, it was really fun and I'm happy that we ended up with fresh powder. It was a great way to end our trip!

2025 Seed Starting

 Over the last few days I decided to start seeds for a Garden Party in June. My PTO President suggested I host garden party and so that's what I'm doing! I'm going to have everyone put together an herb pot - I think I'm going to collect pretty pots from my Buy Nothing and maybe some plastic ones too. I gave away a few tables from my mom's house that I'm now half regretting - but not by much because everything that comes from her house smells like cigarette smoke (oh, we got paint estimates and it's THOUSANDS of dollars to paint her whole house!). 

So... I started Lavender, Marjoram, Sage, Thyme, and a few other more woodsy herbs - those should be a few inches tall to go into the pots for planting so they should get a good head start for June. And then I will start more Basil, parsley, and cilantro closer to the date so they'll be ready too. 

I'm planning on having snacks and bevvies. I'M SO EXCITED. I can't wait to plan more!

Tough March - My Mom Has Health Problems

 Unfortunately my mom has been having health issues since mid-February. She's in the hospital for a second time since February 8 and it's been really annoying that I can't do garden stuff as much as I would normally. For example - I just started seeds and I didn't have all the tomato seeds I wanted. I don't have sweet pepper seeds. I truly haven't had the time to stop and look through everything and so here I am... making do with what I have. That's how I grew up and I suppose we just won't have large slicing tomatoes this year. That's also fine. I think I saw I might have beefsteak tomato seeds but I'll have to check - I decided to do 10 hybrid Bliss tomatoes and so maybe I will circle back to the beefsteaks. It truly depends on how long I have to stay at the hospital. 

We also moved my mom to assisted living several weeks ago so we're in the process of clearing and selling her house. That is so much work. If you have to clear an elderly person's home that stopped cleaning because they're in heart failure AND a smoker... you have my absolute sympathy and empathy. It's really tough to see and to deal with. And to clean up after. 

AND I'm getting ready to start seeds at school with Kindergarten through 2nd grade.

AND I'm doing a schoolyard garden presentation on Friday.

So at this point... if I start anything else and they live... it will be a miracle. 

But my mom has congestive heart failure and that's what happens after you've been a smoker for 65 years. Today I got to see pictures of her esophogus and stomach for possible bleeding and holy shit. The amount of dark black and brown tar from smoking is absolutely amazing and disgusting and awful and it's a true miracle she's still alive kind of a thing. So I'm happy to be there for her and I love her so I don't mind putting my stuff aside so I can be there for my mom. So just as an FYI - don't smoke and stop smoking because it's not good for you.

I'm going to try and post some photos of the seeds I've been planting and what's happening under my grow lights but I can't be certain of my schedule this week. I'll try my best.

Garden Gatekeeping

 A few days ago I was on Threads and I saw a post about garden gatekeeping. That's when you withhold information. Another post I saw was someone screaming that no one should be gardening unless they have acreage. 

Everyone has different garden goals. Everyone has a different socioeconomic status. Not everyone wants to grow vegetables. Not everyone has a yard. Not everyone has full sun to grow certain plants. Everyone has different access to water. And maybe people only have one good window with a 4 inch shelf on it and they only want to grow a cactus. You can't control everyone's garden goals and you can't make someone else have your same garden goal. 

You can't gatekeep garden knowledge because someone doesn't have the same garden goal as yours. Well, actually you can but then how does that help? Knowledge is power and shared knowledge will help your tomatoes be more resilient to the weather and diseases. 

As a Master Gardener I get questions about what chemicals to use in gardens because people don't want bugs and insects. Or what chemical to use to blanket cover a whole yard because of clover or creeping charlie or crabgrass. And here's my response - what's your gardening goal? what are you trying to achieve with your garden? what have you done so far? can we talk about integrated pest management? can I offer some suggestions that maybe you haven't tried yet? I also get questions about growing vegetable gardens in full shade, trying to grow full shade plants in full sun and vice versa. 

I love sharing knowledge because I want others to succeed in their garden goals. I want to show my experiments, my failures, etc... because it's important to me to share what doesn't work in my yard and in my small urban garden - I want to know if anyone else has made the same mistakes and maybe even get more information about how to change up what I'm doing. I also want to share what works in my garden so that others can try the same thing in theirs to successfully achieve their goals too. 

It's also important to share information so that we can teach each other from our mistakes. Like accidentally planting mint in the ground or realizing that sage can overtake a whole garden bed or that some herbs that are supposed to be annuals keep coming back or the bounty of volunteer tomatoes. And anything that works to keep out squash bugs. The more you know - the better your garden will be!

Imperial Artichoke Flower

A Wasp in January????!!!!

I found this Thursday morning in the parking lot of my dentist's office. 

So let's talk about entomology and climate change.

This past week I took part in a webinar about pollinators and climate change. One fact that stood out was that insects and bugs come out of hibernation based on temperature. Warmer weather = insects thinking it's spring and so they pop out of hibernation after however many days they are biologically supposed to after a cold period amount of time. Invertebrates life cycles are temperature dependent. When there are higher temperature days, this leads life cycles to speed up. What does this mean for us? It means that we can see more life cycles of insects in one season than before - so maybe multiple rounds of ticks, multiple rounds of Japanese beetles, multiple rounds of wasps, multiple rounds of other pests that can damage gardens, crops, trees, etc... And as we see here from this picture - our growing Zone in the Twin Cities has moved to Zone 5 which means that our average lowest temperature is warmer than before meaning we will absolutely see insects earlier than we have before.

So. Yikes. I'm not looking forward to tick season again this year.

 

Onions & Leek Seed Starting

 

I'm updating here from my Instagram stories. I'm slowly moving back because here I can give more information and better explain myself than in 30 seconds. But alas, I might still share more short gardening stories for my followers. We'll see! In any case, this is a continuation of an experiment. In this combined seed ball that was purchased late last summer - I decided to grow it to test it out and see what would happen. I have two more of these and so I think as long as the main seeds used aren't TOMATOES (which will grow pretty large and shade everything out), I would actually buy these again. I would definitely start it in a 4 inch pot so you can separate out the different plants and put where you need them - whether it be in raised beds, in-ground beds, containers, or pots. Clearly the Pak Choi is growing as well as the Basil but definitely the garlic chives never germinated. 

I started 16 cells of bunching onions, better known as green onions or scallions. I put maybe 10-20 seeds into each cell. Onions are fine growing closely together, when you want to replant you just separate them out and plant. Bunching Onions do not get large like varieties of yellow, red, and white onions so no need to closely watch these - they're ok just giving a little air between plants if you decide to up-pot them. Vents are closed to keep in the moisture. I do not have these sitting on heat mats, if I don't see any germination in a few days, I will get the heat mats out.

Last year I experimented with artichokes and just fell in love with the neon fuchsia flowers. They were gorgeous and actually fairly easy to grow. There's an absolute love/hate relationship with the thistle family for a reason - easy to grow but you don't want certain thistles in your yard! So I did 16 cells with 2 year old seeds; 8 cells have 2 seeds each.

Next is 8 cells of leeks. These take longer than you think in Zone 4 - technically we are now in Zone 5 - but I'm treating the heat and sun loving crops as though we still live in Zone 4. So these are started. I truly want just enough for Potato Leek Soup and maybe 3 batches. I don't need anymore leeks than that!

Onions - Walla Walla is the variety. I did these last year from starts and they were amazing. I think I had around 75 and the majority of them grew. It was easy. And so this year I am apparently starting them from seed which wasn't my true plan but I'll take it! I'll give these a few weeks to get started, if I don't see good growth then I will order starts maybe from Johnny's or straight from Burpee. We shall see!

I did take videos to share on my Instagram stories but I think I'm going to start using YouTube a little more and see what happens. Have a good week! Happy planting!

Seed Starting This Week Zone 5

 Oh, I am so excited!!

This week is the week to start certain seeds in Zone 5. I have onions, leeks, artichokes, and a packet of perennial flowers. 

A few things to note:

Onion family needs to start early because they need as much heat and sun to grow - peppers also need to be started early because they also like the heat and sun. Peppers can get big fairly quickly though so I tend to start those only a week or two before tomatoes. Nightshades in general are heatloving and will need heat mats to start unless in a room that's already fairly warm.

Onions - I will put 15 - 20 seeds into each cell, then spread apart a little when up-potted to 3 inch pots, then separate when I plant them in the ground in late April/May

Leeks - same as above

Artichokes - 1 seed per cell. Last year I planted 6 plants, 6 survived - 3 produced flower heads and I let all 3 bloom. THEY WERE GORGEOUS. This year I want to plant them in my front yard that gets direct sun for 12 hours to simulate their native region. I'm planning on planting out the rest of the packet, so approximately 15 seeds to start.

Packet of perennial flowers - received from MN Dept of Ag. Claims to be all native perennials, however, when reading the varieties that are included I have dealt with 3 in my yard that became invasive and wanted to take over. I will do 1 seed per cell to separate out what I don't want in my yard. Those plants will go to the hill at the school garden where they can take over and hopefully choke out Canada thistle and the weird non-native grasses.

Winter Weather

 So far we've had a fairly mild winter but we did have a white Christmas which my kids were super excited about - though it was WARM and I was able to walk the dog for over an hour (and I got hot!). It's even rained over the last day.

However, last year we changed into Zone 5a instead of Zone 4. This is dependent upon our lowest average temperature. Zone 4 is designated down to -30 while Zone 5 is designated down to -20.

I find this to be true in the past few years. Taking the Master Gardener course we got to see many different science tables that have taken data from over the 30-75 years to look at weather patterns. Our area has consistently been warmer and I won't be surprised if in the next 5 years, the whole of southern Minnesota will be Zone 5. 

There are positives for gardeners - we can grow new plants like lavender and fig trees. But the negatives are pretty swift - insects and bugs that we have not seen before in our area, algae, new plant diseases, bacterias, viruses, plants not being able to survive the warmer weather. But I don't think the general public sees warmer weather as a bad thing - especially here in the upper Midwest where we have cold weather and it can be pretty harsh. So ah, you know, dumpster fire for the Earth. 

Hopefully people will care and we can repair some of the damage that has been done. I'm hopeful. 

Fall into... Fall??

 Wow. Now that my year is coming to a close... I really haven't updated this much at all! This year I've really been more of a "doom scroller" but watching all the gardening and cleaning videos. I haven't been making many of my own. Mostly that's because I was SO BUSY THIS YEAR.

I did the U of MN Extension Master Gardener course. I volunteered 50 hours - in elementary schools, at info booths, at a plant sale, farmer's markets. It was so much fun! And not only did I do the whole course, I also ended up doing an extra 12 hours of continuing education - mostly regarding vegetable gardening and also teaching grades K-5 gardening and plant science. It was really fun and I'm so happy that I applied and was accepted. I really enjoy volunteering in the garden world and I have really loved meeting so many other garden nerds like myself.

So now that the hard part is over and I'm not constantly reading about biology, pesticides, how-to grow books, and identifying problems, I'm so ready to get back to sharing what I'm doing! I'm usually good about sharing Stories on Instagram but I've noticed people migrating over to TikTok and I'm not sure I can get myself over there. At 41, I'm feeling like I still belong on my blog and on Instagram.. LOL

So stay tuned. I'm going to start planning my garden for next year with a whole new breadth of knowledge and I will be so happy to share!

End of Summer

 Wow, boy did I ever forget about this thing. 

Actually, this year has been incredibly busy and the U of M's Master Gardener program took me a long time to fulfill all the requirements. I wasn't exactly in top blogging mode but alas, I'm not sure who blogs anymore when there's Instagram and TikTok. Apparently only the Xennials. HA.

This summer was an odd one. We had a very chilly and rainy start to the season - which meant that it took the pollinators a heck of a lot longer to wake from their slumber or make their way up from Mexico. Their trip from Mexico was thwarted by rains and cooler temps, which means that they weren't active or leaving their Mexico wintering spots (there's three main locations). By August my flowers are filled with caterpillars and butterflies but the Monarchs just started showing up in the past week. There were 10 on one of my liatris yesterday. It's fun to see! I didn't get a good look at their body sizes - usually a bigger body means the last generation before they make the flight to Mexico. Because they are so late this year, their journey may be cut short - and hopefully they'll have the instincts to turn back soon before the winter hits.

The cooler weather also meant that my peppers didn't fully grow and mature - I have only two plants that were able to make it through to the warmer July and August. I harvested maybe 7 jalepenos before a trip to Cuyuna. I saw there's about 7 more. I'll chop and freeze those for chili this winter. This year's peppers were so unlike last year - last year I had peppers coming out of my ears and couldn't use them fast enough. 

This year my high achievers were: cucumbers, finally (after rabbit fencing) 3 lacinato kale plants, the potatoes came back with around 80 total potatoes (so about 8-10 meals), and Sungold tomatoes. My Mr. Stripeys are also doing great after a week of cool night temps, they taste pretty delish and I will grow again. 

I also grew artichokes this year - 3 are blooming. Next year I'm going to move those down to the street for passersby to see. The artichokes are members of the thistle family and I quickly realized that they don't mind if you forget about them. They're bred to grow in the northern climate so I'm hoping they bloom through September. These are also added to the list to grow again. 

We started getting cool temperatures at night a few weeks ago. The cooler temps will ripen tomatoes but also tell your squash plants that it's time to be done. Your peppers will start turning red and orange if you haven't harvested them yet. Basil and maybe your second succession of cilantro is probably bolting. The weather is indicating that it's a season change. 

Happy September!