While many gardens fade after mid-August, mine is a September garden that looks better as fall approaches than it does at other times of the year. It’s not something I’ve planned, but a happy accident of having a few fall bloomers, annuals that don’t take off in Minnesota until mid to late summer, and early bloomers that make an encore…
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The berries just keep on coming! Friday, my husband and I picked about 20 cups of raspberries from the canes in our backyard. That’s on top of several cups each of the past few days, some of which we’ve munched and some we’ve given to others. A basket sent to my mother led to a new recipe for using raspberries:…
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This is shaping up to be a fantastic season for fall raspberries. I was busy with a variety of work-related activities during the latter part of last week and, consequently, was away from my little raspberry patch for about four days. When I went out to pick today, the berries were literally dripping off the canes. I picked about 12…
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I had a fun afternoon at the Minnesota State Fair Wednesday, where I worked at the Minnesota State Horticultural Society booth, selling memberships (a heckuva bargain at $55 with lots of perks and goodies) and visiting with fairgoers. The fair really is a great get-together. Not only did I talk with many readers of Northern Gardener — always a pleasure…
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Back in the day, I worked for a large agricultural supply cooperative in Minnesota, which sold seed to farmers. To say that the co-op’s seed guys were fixated on nitrogen fixation—the way plants add nitrogen to the soil— would be an understatement. Nitrogen fixing is the process by which certain legumes take nitrogen from the air (N2) and, with the…
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