Remember that delicious spinach I raved about in an earlier post? Well guess what: it survived the mild (for Minnesota) winter and has begun to grow anew!!!! I found it yesterday as I was picking up the weird trash that pops up in the garden occasionally. (A mechanic used to live on our property before we did, and we often find broken glass and rusted pieces of metal lying around in the soil after a rain. We found two abandoned cars out in the woods behind the garden last year, hopefully there aren't any more under the garden! At least the rusty metal adds iron to the soil.)
A couple of romaine lettuces look like they might be coming back as well, and my chrysanthemums, thyme, silver sage, columbines, and even those extremely hardy snapdragons are all sending up new growth as well. I'm so excited to finally be able to have a place to grow food and flowers on a permanent basis. It feels great to finally be able to put down roots (and to offer a place for the plants I love to put down their roots). This early spring we're experiencing up here in the north woods is getting me so excited about this growing season!
I had the day off yesterday so I ran errands in the morning while it rained and then I did some yard and garden work in the afternoon. I cut down several large branches from a ninebark that was growing too close to the garage. I spent another hour or so afterwards cutting off the smaller stems and twigs from it to burn later (perhaps with a wood gassifier/biochar generator...) and creating long, curved poles that I hope to use to make an arbor at the garden entrance. I will post photos when that happens. Have a great weekend!

indoor gardens

My indoor gardens are growing so well and the house is starting to burst with life! I have these saffron crocuses that I ordered from Companion Plants in Athens, Ohio that started sending up shoots as soon as I put them in some dirt. They are starting to flop over a bit though, and I'm not sure why this is happening. I think they might be a little too warm, so I put the worst one outside for today to see if it gets any better. The temperature is in the 50s today, so beautiful and sloppy with melting snow. On the left side of the photo you can see the wild ginger that I purchased as a bare root (also from Companion Plants--such a great company with a really impressive catalog).

Along with the crocuses and wild ginger, there is also a blue cohosh plant (large, light-colored pot--this one hasn't started sprouting yet) and goldenseal. I discovered this morning that the goldenseal is actually blooming already! The flower sort of blends into the rim of the blue cohosh pot, but you can see in the picture it is quite unique and pretty. These are the shade-loving plants, so I'm keeping them in a partially shaded south window for now, until the soil is workable and I can transplant them outside. There are several more sun-loving plants in another south window without blinds. Those are forsythia, vetiver grass (which isn't hardy here and will have to live inside for part of the year), wormwood, valerian, and chocolate mint.

I also have oyster mushrooms growing in the kitchen! I ordered these from Fungi Perfecti at the end of February and they are already producing mushrooms! These mushrooms are growing SO FAST. Four days ago, they were not even visible and today the biggest mushrooms in this picture are about 2 inches long! I am so excited to have them around. According to Fungi Perfecti, this oyster mushroom kit will produce 2 flushes of mushrooms, and then after the second flush I can add the mycelia left inside the plastic bag to some wood chips and straw and create an outdoor mushroom bed to help clean up the gas spill in the front yard between the lilac bush and the white cedar (white cedar is what they call Arborvitae [Thuja Occidentalis] here. It is a sacred and protective plant for the Ojibwes). I am so happy with the results of the oyster mushroom kit and so excited to be a mushroom farmer that I ordered some shiitake and reishi mushroom kits from Fungi Perfecti yesterday. These kits are really easy to use and they come with easy to follow instructions. The oyster mushroom kit cost me $25, and I think the other mushroom kits are around the same price. As long as I continue to feed the mycelia new substrate, I can continue to grow mushrooms indefinitely from this kit!

Mycoremediation

I've been researching mycoremediation lately and I finally started reading a book that a friend recommended a few years ago (Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Save the World), both of which have pointed me in the direction of Paul Stamets. He is the author of the book and a huge proponent of mycoremdiation. When our house was getting set up somehow some gasoline was spilled in the yard. I planted a white cedar in the front yard last fall and the soil smelled really strong of gas. As I filled the hole back in I had to smell each handful of dirt to see if it was contaminated. I didn't really know what to do about it except send the white cedar positive energy, and to spread sawdust around the affected area. As it turns out, oyster mushroom mycelia and straw would have been a better choice. I will be ordering the mycelia from Paul Stamets's website, Fungi Perfecti at www.fungi.com sometime in the near future. Enjoy this Ted talk from Paul. It is fascinating!

Great News

My husband gave me the okay for a beehive! He had been nervous to add a beehive to the minifarm because black bears live in the area and he does not want them getting used to coming here for food. Plus it would be horrible if they destroyed a hive. A colleague's beehives were attacked by a bear in the middle of Duluth! In my internet research I learned that electric fences are the best protection, but that nothing is foolproof. Bears are smart and strong. One major key to successful deterrence is having the fence up when the bear first encounters the beehive, so that means acquiring an electric fence before acquiring the bees. I haven't been shopping much for either yet, but I have been looking at top bar bee hives. Top bar bee hives are an improvement upon the typical white boxes that many beekeepers use, and they are a more natural option. They are trough-like in shape and feature a hinged or removable lid. Removable bars are lined up along the width of the top of the trough. Bees will then make their own honeycombs on each bar instead of using the artificial honeycombs attached to the frames of some of the typical white boxes. Creation of wax is actually an elimination process for bees, so it is good for them. They are exuding waste from their bodies. It does also eat up some energy and time, which is why commercial beekeepers use artificial honeycomb to get the maximum amount of honey. I am planning to buy a handmade top bar hive from Kenny at www.kenny61.wordpress.com.
I will purchase a "nuc" (nucleus colony--a queen and a few of her daughters) of Minnesota Hygienic bees. Minnesota Hygienic bees were bred by the University of Minnesota to be "hygienic"--that is, to groom varroa mites off of their larvae. Russian honeybees also exhibit this behavior and can stand the cold temperatures of northern Minnesota.
I accidentally ordered a Forsythia that is only hardy to zone 6. I live in zone 4, so I will need to plant it close to the house and give it a southern exposure. I will mulch it heavily in the fall too, and hope for the best. It is already starting to come to life in my kitchen.

permaculture

I never mentioned what happened after that emergency harvest. So what happened was most of those lush, beautiful plants turned brown and withered. We put tarps on some plants but it didn't do much good. I dug up the rosemary, lavender, and two of the Thai basils and brought them inside. The rosemary and lavender have been thriving in a large, south-facing window. The Thai basil is still alive but it hasn't grown anything new as far as I can tell. I still have winter squash in my kitchen. And potatoes. Unfortunately, many of the tomatoes and peppers ended up in the compost. The parsley, thyme, leeks, potatoes (below ground), oregano, sorrel, cabbage, kale, and peas all did really well after the temperature dipped into the twenties a few nights in a row. I planted some fall crops by direct seeding, including lettuce, radishes, kale, kohlrabi, peas, cilantro, and spinach. It was too late and none of them got very big. Some animal ate the pea plants, and the grasshoppers got some of the other stuff. The spinach tasted incredible. I ate about 7 leaves of it before it froze to death but it was the best spinach I've ever tasted. Unfortunately, I don't recall the variety and I think I composted the seed package. Oh, here's something interesting: the snapdragons were the last to die! They were so hardy for some reason. The cilantro actually lasted longer and survived lower temperatures than I expected, too.

I am starting to think about the back yard and the plants I want there and how to arrange them. I want it to look nice rather than simply utilitarian, which is how last year's garden looked and felt. I didn't have the time or energy to map things out beforehand, and the tracks left by the tiller were too compacted for easy digging when I began to transplant crops to the garden, so I ended up placing them somewhat randomly from the outside in. I liked the potato spiral, though. I replanted it with onions and garlic as I dug up the potatoes, kept the hill and covered it with the straw mulch.

I debated about what to do with the dead plants: whether to leave them where they were and recycle the nutrients back into the soil or pull them all up to prevent the spread of disease and harboring of insect pests. 
I decided to pull them all up and compost them. I figured it was safer to do that, especially since I could still recycle them back into the soil as compost, which is a more beneficial form anyway. One thing I should have done and really, really regret not doing is plant a cover crop. That soil is naked out there (except for the snow), and cover crops are good for erosion control and for replenishing the soil after it was inhabited by heavy feeders like broccoli and tomatoes. Maybe there will be time for cover crops in the spring.

Today I find myself in the strange and wonderful position of having a well-paying garden job in January in northern Minnesota, one that requires me to grow food and medicine on a 1/4 acre demonstration garden, teach workshops, and write a blog about it! I am so blessed and grateful to have that! What I've noticed, though, is my need for an outlet for my spiritual feelings. My employer is an Ojibwe reservation, and there is a spiritual element to my job and to the Ojibwe approach to farming. I respect that spirituality and I want to learn more about it, but it isn't mine and I don't feel comfortable expressing my own spiritual feelings in the arena of my job blog or in the workshops to come. So I'm resurrecting this blog. I guess I abandoned it in the first place since I felt like a failure for not making a living off my farm in the first chaotic year. I'm realizing that's not the point anyway. I would want to have Magic Summer Minifarm in my back yard no matter what.
 

a new direction

So our produce sales at the Fall Feast were underwhelming, but it was a fun experience anyway. I discovered that what my husband lacks in patience for gardening, he makes up for in salesmanship. He did a great job engaging customers.
I just started a new job that I really like and that will likely take up a great deal of my time and energy for gardening, but nevertheless I intend to expand Magic Summer Minifarm this year. I will have a new area tilled that is about the same size as the existing garden bed. This new area is beyond the shadow of the tall pines that begins to shade half the garden by 3 in the late summer. I have ordered an abundance of seeds and plants from Companion Plants, an amazing resource for medicinal, native, culinary, and ceremonial use plants ( www.companionplants.com ) located in my home state of Ohio. I plan to turn the existing garden bed into a perennial bed and use the new one for annuals and fruit bushes. I will put the raspberries closest to the edge of the yard, where there is a forest full of deer, to act as a living fence in case I don't get around to putting up a fence right away. I got lucky last year so maybe I shouldn't push it with the deer any longer than I have to. I must say, though, that I have 2 plants in the yard that are typically considered "deer candy": an apple tree and a white cedar. I did try that new product "Repellex", which is a systemic capsaicin for ornamental plants, on the white cedar, but the apple tree has no such protection. Both plants, as far as I can tell, have not been touched by the deer at all. It probably helps to have neighbors that hunt.

emergency harvest

Yesterday afternoon I harvested almost everything I could before the frost hit last night. I was told last year by a mentor farmer that one shouldn't harvest a green tomato unless it has at least a small splash of color, or else it won't ripen well. I couldn't let all those perfect, beautiful tomatoes go to waste, though. I picked most of the blemish-free green tomatoes in the garden. I also picked all the remaining squash (summer and winter), basil, thyme, sage, patchouli, lavender, oregano, cosmos, snapdragons, peppers, tomatillos, and cucumbers. I have yet to harvest many potatoes. They are still in the ground, but I think they will be okay as long as I harvest them in the next few days. As the hail rained down on me I saw little cilantro sprouts peeking out of the ground where I seeded them a month or so ago. I hope they survived. I haven't been to the garden yet today to survey the damage. I said goodbye to the fair weather plants last night just in case ("See you again next year, if not tomorrow").
I will be participating in a farmers' market next week. On Thursday, September 22 I will be at Fond du Lac reservation's Gitigaan Fall Feast selling squash, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, tomatillos, dried herbs, potted sweet grass, catmint-stuffed cat toys, and possibly some flower bunches. I don't know if anyone in the area reads this blog yet but if so the Gitigaan Fall Feast is at 5pm at the Cloquet Community Center/Tribal Center, 1720 Big Lake Rd.