by Noel | Jun 27, 2008 | Gardening
Wisconsin has seen some record rainfalls in the past month. We are in the drainage basin of the Rock River, which eventually empties into the Mississippi River by Rock Island, Illinois. The huge rains contributed to flooding of the Rock and its tributary rivers and creeks, a lot of the flooding was extremely severe and damaging. Many of the farm fields around us still have acres of new ponds, three weeks after the worst of the rains. What the rains and floods also...
by Noel | Jun 11, 2008 | Gardening
It’s been gardening on the run for me, this year. Too many garden shows on weekends. I’m late on getting almost everything into the ground. I’m not giving up, however. While you can’t say it’s never too late when it comes to gardening, you certainly can push things well beyond normal guidelines and often get away with it. When I was growing up in Warren, Michigan, an elderly widow named Rose Martin, who lived in Detroit, gardened a...
by Anneliese | May 27, 2008 | Gardening
I took this photo of a couple of green strawberries today. I’m already drooling over what they will become in just a few more days. When it comes to fresh fruits and vegetables, I’ve been a bit spoiled. I simply cannot enjoy a strawberry from the supermarket. Sure, they’re huge compared to the relatively small fruits that grow in our garden, but when it comes to flavor there’s no comparison. Our little strawberries get so red and so sweet,...
by Judy | Apr 30, 2008 | Gardening, Recipes
We have been eating our homegrown shiitake mushrooms for about a week now but April 29th was the first day I picked a few spears of asparagus. They weren’t very tall but who can wait to have that first taste?! We’ll soon tire of the asparagus after 3-4 straight weeks of eating it every day but right now that green stuff tastes wonderful. Speaking of green stuff I also harvested the first of the nettles. They seem to be quite prolific next to the...
by Noel | Apr 29, 2008 | Gardening
I’ve been able to maintain my strawberries continuously for the 21 years we’ve had a garden here. My first berries were starts we got from a local lady who no longer lives in the area, Jan Lewein. They are a June bearing variety, but we have no idea of the name. The second batch was from my son Geoff, who got them from his job at Nokomis Gardens in East Troy, Wisconsin. These are Honeyeye, also a June bearer. Both varieties are excellent and...
by Noel | Apr 28, 2008 | CobraHead, Gardening
I usually clean out my asparagus bed in February. I don’t trim back the mature fronds in the fall as a lot of gardeners do, because I read that leaving them to grow until spring gives more energy to the roots, This year, because we didn’t get our typical February warm spell, the job did not get done. We had heavy snow cover until just a few weeks ago, and because of a hectic weekend show schedule, yesterday was my first real day in the garden. It was a...
