Book Review: Savory Sweet: Simple Preserves from a Northern Kitchen
This review originally appeared in the Hot off the Press column in the September/October issue of Northern Gardener. For those of us who are willing to skip lugging bushels of tomatoes, apples and corn into our kitchens and then melting in the steam of a day-long, hot water bath-canning session, the authors of Savory Sweet…
Read MoreFive Garden Classes to Brighten Your Fall
We have a variety of classes this fall to help you decorate your home for the upcoming season, learn new skills and get answers to those nagging garden questions left over from this gardening season. Here are five garden classes to brighten your fall. Explore the Art of Japanese Flower Arranging, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 7…
Read MoreFour Unexpected and Lovely Fall Perennials
Fall can be stunning in the northern garden, with ornamental grasses, sedum and asters taking center stage and complimenting the changing foliage of trees and shrubs. As delightful as they are, it’s the unexpected fall beauties that I’ve been noticing recently. Here are four perennials to consider adding to your garden for fall interest: Amsonia…
Read MoreFall Northern Gardener Available
You can’t miss the September/October 2017 issue of Northern Gardener, which is on newsstands now with big, beautiful, orange dahlias on the cover. The photo, from regular contributor Tracy Walsh, is of ‘Big Orange’ dahlias from Two Pony Gardens, a garden specializing in heirloom tomatoes and dahlias. Tracy profiles the gardens and their owner, Lisa…
Read MorePepper Passion at the Minnesota State Fair
Let’s start with a few facts about peppers: The second bite of a hot pepper is typically hotter than the first. Most of the heat in hot peppers is in the seeds and the flesh near them. Once that hits your tongue, wow! The heat is on. Chile peppers have more Vitamin C than oranges…
Read MoreGarden-in-a-Box Program Thrives in Arlington, MN
In the small town of Arlington, the University of Minnesota Extension and MSHS’s Garden-in-a-Box Program developed a small but sustainable way to connect and support the town’s Latino community through gardening. For years, language and geography seemed to separate the Latino families, many of whom lived in a mobile home park, from the rest of…
Read MoreOur Minnesota State Fair Garden: What’s New?
We always try to add new things to the MSHS demonstration garden at the Minnesota State Fair. This year, lead volunteer Mary Muellner and her crews have been creating more edible spaces, trying a new mulch and continuing the garden’s tradition of being beautiful and pollinator-friendly. Our educational booth this spring is focused on peppers,…
Read More25 Years of Gardening Together!
For 25 years, the Riverview Garden Club has been gardening together to better their community. The Riverview Garden Club was formed in 1992 by neighbors on the West Side of St. Paul to transform a weedy, debris-filled lot at Congress and South Wabasha streets into a garden oasis. Since then, the Garden of Good Hearts,…
Read MoreProfile: Cook County Pollinator Garden
“Without funding to help with the infrastructure, the pollinator garden at Sawtooth Elementary School wouldn’t have been possible,” says Diane Booth, director of the Cook County Community Center and Extension. With the help of Minnesota Statewide Health Improvement Partnership, Arrowhead Electric Round-Up Grant Board and Cook County Extension grants, Cook County Master Gardeners built the…
Read MoreHot Off the Press: 10 Plants That Changed Minnesota
As gardeners, we think about plants a lot. But often, we are thinking about a specific plant or plot or problem that is right in front of us. Most of the time, it’s just personal. In Ten Plants that Changed Minnesota, Mary Hockenberry Meyer and Susan Davis Price help us think about how plants and…
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