I got a chuckle out of yesterday’s gardening column in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, in which garden writer Bonnie Blodgett bemoaned her difficulties getting green tomatoes to ripen indoors. I’ve also struggled with that issue, but am having better than usual luck this year, just lining them up on the counter. Most of the tomatoes shown were picked about…
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I came into gardening through the kitchen door. I loved to cook long before I began gardening, and while my yard does have a lot of annuals, perennials, shrubs and trees, the plants that I feel most attached to are food plants — tomatoes, cherries, green beans, even cucumbers. That is not to say that my vegetable garden is meticulously…
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For many northern gardeners, the recent bouts with frost have come too soon. I don’t want to say good-bye to my flowers yet, and I have dozens of green tomatoes still on the vine. When a light frost struck the garden last night, I decided it was time to take action. The most recent issue of Northern Gardener has an…
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Putting the right plant in the right place is an adage in gardening — and a true one. (Maybe all adages are true?) I’ve written about it before, but more evidence of right plant, right place showed up in my garden this summer. Last year, I removed some shrubs in a back bed that were damaged in a storm and…
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Today marks the fifth anniversary of My Northern Garden. I started blogging in September 2007 at a time when garden blogs were sprouting up like dandelions in May, five years after Kathy Purdy started Cold Climate Gardening, which is probably the oldest garden blog for northern gardeners. While I’ve often written about trends, plants and tips from experts, most of…
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