My husband just completed a five month teaching assignment at Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden. While work and family obligations kept me from joining him, I did manage to visit a couple of times, and we did a lot of travel around Scandinavia and the Baltic. For me, travel often means visiting gardens. We saw several wonderful Baltic gardens and…
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I don’t do a lot of product reviews, but when Duluth Trading Co. contacted me about reviewing their heirloom gardening pants, I said sure! First, it’s a local company. (The company started in Duluth, though it’s now based in Belleville, Wis.) Second, I’m already a customer so I was pretty sure the quality would be there, and I wouldn’t have…
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When early summer hits Minnesota, it’s rhubarb time! And, time for rhubarb bars. While these tart stalks originated in China, where they were used largely for medicinal effects, they are considered the first fruit (vegetable?) of summer in the Midwest. Rhubarb is easy to grow, requiring only sun and a fertile soil. (My patch was planted on top of a…
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Sunday’s gorgeous weather had me outside at last, flinging caution to the wind and raking a few spots in the lawn, cleaning out some of the beds I can reach from the sidewalk and looking for signs of life. The Siberian squill, which have long been one of the plants I measure spring by, are just one day away from…
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I’ve had a mess of garden troubles with critters, most of which are of the burrowing variety. But over the past couple of years, my number one garden enemy has been the rabbit. Or rather, rabbits, since I seem to have an endless supply of them eating vegetables, pulling up bean plants and doing lots of unauthorized shrub pruning. Last…
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