Category Archives: gardening

2025, Family, Food, gardening, Uncategorized

Brassica Blues

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I was at home yesterday morning making a peach crumble preparatory to going into work, when Husband phoned from the office asking if I wanted to go to Taylor, a little town about 15 miles east of us to get four cabbage plants. I said I would. They had set the plants aside for us.

I started some Alcosa savoy cabbage from seed several weeks ago. We have grown them in the past and they are a lovely cabbage. We usually start seeds under our grow lights in the basement. For a variety of reasons we had the pots in a sunny window upstairs instead. The seeds germinated beautifully, but didn’t get all the light they needed and got too leggy. Many of them got bent or broken off. I planned to grow six cabbages. I ended up with three barely viable tiny plants and planted them on Tuesday. I think they will make it. They look much better now that they are deeply planted. We even have some nifty chicken wire cloches to protect them from bunnies. We had some lovely rain in the afternoon that really helped.

Husband has been worried and fussing over the possibility that we might not have our own garden savoy cabbage. None of the grocery stores here sell it, and none of the greenhouses sell the plants. He says we have a minestrone garden, as opposed to a salsa garden, and need savoy cabbage. I told him I found a place that will send us savoy cabbages in the fall, but he continued with the anxiety about the cabbage plants. When he phoned to say that Taylor Nursery had set aside a red cabbage and three regular green cabbage plants he would be content with, I agreed to go to ease his cabbage anxiety. He is excited to make coleslaw and borscht from these very vigorous plants. I just want the fussing to stop. I just hope he doesn’t get all fussed up about the collard green seeds he plans to plant. I am so happy he isn’t planting kohlrabi.

What is your favorite veggie in the cabbage family? Would you rather have a minestrone garden, a borscht garden, or a salsa garden?

2025, Baboon Achievers, gardening, home, Kids, Uncategorized, work

Young Entrepreneurs

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Husband had just finished mowing the lawn on Monday when two boys, looking to be about 11 or 12, came by offering to mow for us. They had their own mower. Husband explained he had just finished mowing, but they would certainly be welcome in the future to do it for us. Their asking price was reasonable.

I never had a “business” as a kid, unless you count babysitting. Girls in Luverne didn’t hire out to do lawn work back then. The boys who came by on Monday looked energetic and excited. There aren’t as many older people in the neighborhood as there used to be, so I hope they don’t get discouraged if they don’t get as much business as they hoped.

Husband has arthritis in his hands. I am having increased mobility issues with chronic sciatica, probably caused by lumbar scoliosis. I can see us hiring more yard work done in the future.

Did you have a business as a kid? What tasks do you see yourself hiring others to do in the future? If you were 12 right now, what business would you start?

2025, gardening, home, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Take My Stuff…. Please

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The house next door has sold and my neighbors are moving out this weekend.  Just by chance, I was out front gardening on both the days that there was an open house, so I actually got to talk to quite a few folks who had walked through.  The question that almost everyone asked was how it was to live on my street, which is a busy thoroughfare – in fact, it’s a county road as opposed to a city street.

Everybody got the same answer.  I love living on my busy street – it’s easy to get to, easy to get out and around.  During the winter, my street is always clear; the plows start early and are consistent.  Even when side streets are still snowed in, we can always get out. 

The other great thing is that you can get rid of anything by just putting it down on the boulevard.  You don’t even have to put a “free” sign on it – if it’s on the boulevard, it’s fair game.  Two summers ago, the house across the street was almost gutted and their boulevard was like a second-hand store for three or four weeks.  I thought maybe there might be a traffic accident one day because so many people were pulling over to look and grab.  Over the years I’ve put out a lot of items and the only thing that never got taken was a mattress (which makes sense) – but the city took it on trash day anyway.

The surprise this week is that someone stopped during the day yesterday and took all the little logs and all but two of the bundles of sticks that YA and I had put on the boulevard after the first day of our “tree adventure”.   We didn’t put them out because we thought anybody would want them, but because that’s where they need to be for the city pick-up.  But, what the heck – if these little logs and bundles will make somebody’s life better – whoopee. 

Of course, I wonder why they didn’t take ALL the bundles.  Maybe they didn’t have room in the car?  Maybe they have just so much room back home to store the bundles?  Maybe there were two of them and they weren’t aligned on whether to take any of them?  Hopefully it didn’t start a fight.  I also wonder if they’ll come back at some point for the last two.  Or will somebody else take them?  Maybe I should just put out a table instead of schlepping things to Value Village and GoodWill?  I could call it Boulevard Freecycle?

Do you live on a busy or quiet street? Have you ever had a great garage sale?

2025, gardening, Health, home, Uncategorized, Weather

Lions & Tigers & Bears

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When I went to bed Monday night, after uploading yesterday’s post, I was doing a mental run-through of things to get done on Tuesday. 

The biggie was the tree so I was thinking about what I would need to bring up to my bedroom: extension cord for the trimmer, the trimmer, a rake to shake loose any bits that get stuck.

Then, because it was dark and I was very tired, my brain went a little sideways.  I thought maybe I should be sure to wear shorts with pockets so I could have my phone on me, in case I somehow fell off the roof.  If my phone were in my pocket I could call for help right away, rather than try to drag my broken body into the house.  

As if that weren’t enough then I started thinking about the chewed up tree that I would be falling onto.  If I skewered myself, the phone probably wouldn’t do much good.  Or what if I hit my head on the way down and bled out while unconscious.  All my neighbors work during the day, so they couldn’t come to my aid either. 

It was at this point, around 11 p.m., that I made the decision to forego climbing out on the roof to trim the tree from above.  Sleep, which had been eluding me while I imagined my gruesome end, came fast at that point.  My decision was solidified when it rained at 5:30 a.m. and then again around noon, and the roof was wet.  If only Mother Nature had informed me sooner I would have had a better night’s sleep!

When have you scared yourself silly?

2025, Family, gardening, home, Nature, Uncategorized, work

Timber!!

24 Comments

YA has lots of opinions about the house and yard.  Granted, she does do quite a bit of work on both, but the bottom line is that I’m still doing a good 80%.  So when she gets a bee in her bonnet, I don’t always jump to attention.

She’s been nagging me for about three years to get rid of the tree in the front of house.  To her credit, it’s in awful shape, and has gotten tall enough that it pretty much blocks all the sunlight to the front porch and some of my room as well.  But I don’t want to have a whole bunch of projects going at once (actually, this drives me to distraction) so I’ve been putting her off.  For two years I was able to use the “not until the front porch is done” knowing full well that the last couple of steps were hers.  Unfortunately she did finally finish her little bits and now I can no longer use the excuse.

Smart people would have hired a tree guy, but I think the last 20 years have shown that we don’t always have smart people at our house.  So we purchased a new chainsaw (the old one died last summer) and got to work yesterday.  For the most part, it went well but as always happens with a big job, it’s much bigger than we thought.  As you can see from the photo below, we still have a chunk to go but after 7 hours, both of us were really running out of steam so we decided to call it a day and go to Dairy Queen.

The good news is that YA and I are truly aligned when it comes to how we like to get things done.  We like to clean up as we go – neither of us likes a big mess at the end.  So each big branch that came down, we chopped it up, filling yard bags and making bundles of little logs and branches.  So as we were getting worn out, we didn’t have a massive amount of clean up to do.  The header photo is what’s on the boulevard for yesterday’s work.

The biggest issue now is finding time to tackle the rest of the job, since the weekend is over and YA has to work this week.  I can work on the ground level and maybe even do a bit of cutting back from the roof outside my bedroom, but the actual cutting of that last two branches will take both of us.  And probably some ropes and rakes to try to get the branches to fall where we want them to.  I’ve had experience with this part going wrong in the past, so I don’t want to attempt it alone.  YA thinks she can get an afternoon off in a couple of days.  Fingers crossed.

What was the last project that really took it out of you?

2025, gardening, home, Nature, Seasons

It’s Not Nice….

38 Comments

This year is my fifteenth anniversary of straw bale gardening.  I happened upon this way of growing veggies while I was looking for workable alternatives for growing tomatoes.  In yard wasn’t working (dog and bunny damage), pots didn’t work for me at all (never did figure out why) and one year I even tried something called Topsy Turvy which was more or less a hanging basket for tomatoes.  Believe me when I say that was an unmitigated disaster.

Anyway, in all these 15 years, I planted my bales mostly on Mother’s Day, occasionally a few days later, like this year.  But in all this time I think I’ve gone out and covered my plants due to low overnight temperatures…. maybe five times.   And I’ve never had to cover them more than once in a season when it’s happened.

So I’m not all that happy that with the overnight temps dropping below 45°F the last two nights, I’ve been out there with my assorted “dog towels” and clothespins twice.  And this is also the first year in quite some time that I’ve had six bales, so I had to scrounge up a couple more crappy towels.

I understand that climate change is creating bigger swings in weather but it chaps my shorts that we had three days in the very high 80s last week and now I’m covering plants.  Looking at the forecast, I may have to cover two more nights this week as well.  It makes me think of one of my all-time favorite commercials from decades ago:

My little neighbor Marie came over to the fence as I was draping the towels to find out what I was doing and letting me know that some of towels are funny looking. I have to agree.

Any “special” towels at your place?

2025, Business, Family, gardening, Mysteries

Weekend Dress Code

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Last week YA and I headed off to Bachmans for our veggies and flowers for hanging baskets.  This is an annual ritual and this year we needed flowers for 15 baskets and six bales (although I was pretty sure I would need a trip to Gertens for my favorite dragon wing begonias.

YA was ready sooner than I expected so I had to rush to get ready.  I grabbed a pair of khaki shorts that were sitting on my dresser and then my Pi Day shirt, which was at the top of the drawer. 

I hadn’t thought about this combination until a Bachman’s employee stopped me almost immediately upon entering the store, commenting that I looked like a staff person.  For those of you who weren’t there (or more likely just don’t remember), my Pi Day shirt is purple.  I laughed it off, but she wasn’t kidding.  Person after person tried to ask me a staff question. 

It wasn’t a big deal until the end of our trip.  As we were checking out, it turned out that my bright white petunias didn’t have a code to scan.  Telling the cashier they were bright white petunias didn’t help. She didn’t have a binder full of codes, she didn’t ask anyone else, she certainly didn’t believe YA and I when we said it was the same price as the royal purple petunias.  No – she sent me back to the flower barn to find one with a tag and code.  This week is NOT a good time to hold u p the line at Bachmans, so I was almost running when I headed back to the barn.  Two more people stopped me.  One woman realized immediately that it wasn’t a Bachman’s shirt and backed off.  The second woman felt the need to talk about my purple shirt and how she had mistaken me for staff.  It took me much longer than you would think to extricate myself from her and get back to the cashier.  The lines were pretty long and it was clear some folks weren’t happy.

So my lesson for the week?  Don’t wear purple to Bachmans!

Any businesses where you could make a credible staff person?

2025, animals, gardening, home, Uncategorized

Rabbit Redux

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It is still too early here for much yardwork, although things are starting to green up. Our weather has been volatile, with highs in the 80’s, then snow showers. People have been out mowing lawns.

We worked really hard last summer refurbishing our 20 year old strawberry patch. The plants had petered out and the soil was packed and hard. By last fall there were new plants and new runners coming along very nicely. We had to fence the whole thing due to rabbits eating the strawberry leaves. We had a whole herd of bunnies in the neighborhood. Our next door neighbor trapped and then released about 10 rabbits in the country. There were far fewer rabbits hopping around by the fall.

The fencing fell down over the winter. We planned to put it back up in a couple of weeks. Wouldn’t you know it, the minute the strawberry plants started to emerge and green up, there was a rabbit nibbling them. Husband was out last weekend in pelting sleet laying down a makeshift carpet of plastic fencing to foil the rabbits until we can put up a proper fence when the weather is better and we have more time.

How are your garden and yard plans coming along? Growing any fruits or vegetables this year?

2025, animals, Farming Update, Food, gardening, Kids, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized

Maple-ing. The Ambiance.

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Although I probably won’t go down again to boil sap, I truly enjoyed the experience.  Part of it was learning all about the process, but a lot was also the ambiance.  Not in any particular order…

The weather was just about perfect.  It started about bright and sunny (I put on sunscreen) and even when it clouded up in the afternoon, the temperature seemed just right for boiling.  Not cold enough that you really felt it but not warm enough that the work made us sweat.  There was a short rain shower after dark, but when it cleared up, the stars in the night sky were amazing.  As a city gal, I never see stars like that.

Before dinner we had tea but instead of plain old boiling water, we used the boiling sap.  Very sweet tea but wonderful drinking it outside.

There was good company while we were working.  Astrid is a big dog with a big deep bark but a big softie; after dark we heard coyotes and while Astrid worked hard to convince us that she was a guard dog, she didn’t move more than 20 feet from us.  Whiskey looks like a cat, but he is really a dog.  He comes when he is called, hangs around most of the day for petting and doesn’t seem to think the rain matters at all.

My godson doesn’t actually “farm” but is embracing country lifestyle.  He was happy to tell me about all the classes he has taken at the local folk school (bee keeping, chain saw safety, how to “manage” chickens, syrup making and to show me all the improvements he’s made to the house and outbuildings. He has some animals: chickens and a mean rooster (I have bruises to prove it) and also a small herd of goats.  He has just acquired a male, so perhaps there will be kids and milk in the future.  I shared with him the wonderful soaps that Barb made when she had goats.

He is also a terrific cook and by the time he went in to make dinner, I had a handle on the boiling so didn’t need to panic.  Several of the borscht ingredients come from their garden and it was delicious.  Just soup and toasted baguettes.  Yummy.

Children.  He has three kids – 7, 5 and 3.  I got to play Legos with the youngest.  Lots of racing “vehicles” and crashing.  The 5-year old was obsessed with arithmetic so we did a ton of “what is ten plus ten” and other combinations.  He hasn’t worked on subtraction yet, so we did some “what is three minus two”, using fingers.  There was a very lively conversation after the 7-year old got home from school concerning the weight of the earth and how you would weigh it.  He’s got a lot on the ball for seven and there was gravity walls/barriers and gravity robot discussion.  My godson brought up the planet-building spheres from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, to which I replied that the weight of the earth is clearly 42.  The 7-year old didn’t get this joke but god son did!

It was just a wonderful trip, even if you don’t count the maple syrup (and a bonus small bottle of their black walnut syrup which I’ve had before and it fabulous).  I can’t imagine how it could have been better!

When was the last time you just really enjoyed something?

2025, Business, gardening, Seasons, Uncategorized

Hunkered Down for Winter

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Bachmans is a fixture in my life.  In addition to the many times I stop by in the spring, summer and fall, it’s also located on my main conduit for when I am out and about.  I go by it five or six times a week.  Last week was the first time I’ve visited the shop in January.

Two things took me there.  I’ve written about the hot sauce bird seed cylinders that I discovered – it turns out they have them at Bachmans.  Also, if you go to visit your mother and forget that you need to mail your Bachmans bill before the trip, you can stop by the store and they will process the payment for you on the spot.  Saves a stamp as well!

I got there right at 10, when they were opening and the gal unlocking the door said she would let me in but that I would need to leave using the gift shop/Patrick’s Bakery door.  As soon as I stepped inside, I saw why.  What I consider the main part of the store was absolutely empty.  No bulbs, no seasonal anything, no shepherd’s hooks, no fertilizers, no merch on the endcaps, nothing.  And looking out the sliding doors towards the back were row after row of empty tables and shelves.  It was the eeriest feeling.

The gal at Customer Service told me they do this every winter; they start to ramp back up towards the end of February.  That’s when people start thinking about seeds and getting started indoors for the eventual return of warm weather. The gift shop is open through the winter – if you need something for Valentine’s (including cut flower bouquets), Bachmans is ready for you.

Luckily the bird seed section on the far wall towards the back is still available.  It’s nice to know I won’t have to drive to St. Paul if I need another hot sauce cylinder before spring!

Do you have any seasonal shops?