I never met a zucchini I didn’t like. I’ll grill them, relish them, pickle them and freeze them all season long. But at least once (or twice) a summer I’ll bake up a storm with them too. And over the years I’ve tried and loved many versions of zucchini breads and desserts- but I think I’ve settled on this as my favorite. Adding some fresh whipped cream and sour cherry sauce doesn’t hurt either…
Cucurbit What? All squash and zucchini are in the Cucurbit family (along with cucumbers, melons, gourds etc.) All zucchini are squash, but not all squash are zucchini…
There are few crops as funky, dependable, and well loved as garlic. For good reasons too! Garlic, and the other bulbs in the Allium family (like onions and shallots), add the base flavor to meals the world over. They’re easy to grow, easy to store, and easy to cook with.
Humans have been cultivating garlic for over 7,000 years! In that time, we’ve selected variations in flavor, size, growth habits to come up with roughly 700 current varieties.
This article will help you grow your own garlic too!
As sunlight hours (if not warmer temps) return to Minnesota, so do the backyard eggs. This gluten free Strata recipe is a beautiful way celebrate the return of spring and fresh eggs. It is also a healthy family favorite, and a great way to sneak in all kinds of veggies.
On Our Suburban Homestead
I love how our chickens help keep us in tune with nature’s cycles. If you’ve been interested in starting a backyard flock of your own, or want to learn where you can buy local farm fresh eggs, I’ve got you covered. This is a family favorite for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Especially when the boys go and collect the eggs then crack them right into the mixing bowl!
Tamarack Nature Center is so many things to so many people!
What everyone can agree on is that spending time in Nature is good for our bodies and our minds.
Tamarack Lake, a short walk from the Nature Center Visitor Center
From gardens and nature play areas to bird watching, maple sugaring and preschool- Tamarack Nature Center (TNC) is a true gem for the Twin Cities nature lover. There are roughly five miles of trails meandering through the 320 acres of widely varied landscapes. You can walk through old growth maple stands, skirt a swamp, round a lake and parade through lots of prairie.
There is also one of the Twin Cities’ largest and most engaging nature play areas, “Discovery Hollow” including a natural waterscape, a log and stick play area, hobbit house and a huge climbing wall with built in caves and sand pit.
No Dig Gardening includes recycling, composting and improving soil all by layering it on! This process is known by a few different names; Hugelkultur, Lasagna Gardening and Sheet Composting, but the ideas are based on “No Dig Gardening”.
Laying out the new beds
Making garden beds this way works with nature’s existing cycles, creating healthy soil, less weeding and happier plants!
This process does NOT need to be created inside a box, just easier to keep layers tidy, I’ve success both in and out of boxes!
Build It and They Will Come!
The idea of setting up a garden bed like this is to let nature do the work for you. You’ll be helping nature create good soil by composting in place- and that requires things for the soil organisms to eat. By giving a diverse group of soil life things to feast on you can create a very active and healthy soil to plant into.
Building Better Soil
Soil biodiversity creates a more resilient garden. I like to equate good soil organisms with good gut health. We’ve likely all heard of pre- and pro- biotics; the helpers of digestion (and so much more). Soil organisms help break things down and make them available to plants in a similar fashion.
Everything from worms and beetles we can see, to bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes and actinomycetes (though I sure couldn’t tell you what those looked like!) have a specific job to do- and many work in relationship with vegetable plant roots to feed them. There is a whole world of info about the soil food web out there, and I suggest watching THIS by Dr. Elaine Ingham if you want to dig a little deeper.
Of course I’m a zucchini lover, I’m a sucker for a veggie that goes overboard and can be used in both sweet and savory ways!
I’ve finally gathered together my collection of recipes and ways I use and preserve Zucchini. I know lots of us vegetable gardeners joke about ‘ding dong ditch’ with these as the season progresses… This is the notorious prolific vegetable. And many get away from me and all gardeners each year (see picture at the end if you want proof of that ;-).
There are so many ways to make use of zucchini! This is such a delicious and versatile veggie. For those of with bounty, or if you just want to savor the sweet summer flavors into winter, read on!
Zucchini Growing Tips
I both start seeds indoors and direct sow- with similar results. I get earlier harvests with the plants started earlier, or more prolific but later with the plants I direct sow. Choose what works for you! They do like lots of compost and can be planted outside a fence, as critters (at least in my area) do not nibble. This is a great news because zucchini plants take up a LOT of space, easily three square feet. A little compost and mulch when planting and you should have oodles of zoodles!
Female flower to the left left, male flower to the right.
Things are different by design on this biodynamic farm.
The first difference you’ll notice on this 5 acre farms is the lack of large outbuildings, big machinery or even an old farmhouse. Also, no overhead electric poles. This farm is completely off-grid.
You will see solar panels, an eggplant-colored tiny house, two hoop houses along with rows and rows of beautiful veggies, perennial fruits and pollinator habitat. A moveable chicken tractor and a sun hive round out the ways Kelsey hosts animals on this land. Each piece is intertwined with the next, serves a purpose and plays it part well.
Biodynamic Farming
Biodynamic Farming Defined: a form of alternative agriculture that takes an ecological and ethical approach to farming, food, and gardening.
Things on a biodynamic farm are thought out in wholistic, interdependent ways before anything is implemented. For Farmer Kelsey this means everything on the farm serves a few purposes. And she really does run this as a one woman show. She does most everything by hand enabling her to observe the plants (and critters) on the land more closely and to see changes in real time. She can decide what to do about those issues based on how it effects the whole system of living things on her farm. Sometimes doing nothing is the answer too…
When I harvest I usually already know what will go in this plant’s place
Succession planting is a simple way to harvest more food for longer in your existing garden space! I am constantly blown away by how many times and how much I can plant in my backyard garden beds – YES, even up north in Minnesota!
Succession planting boils down to “out with the old and in with the new.”
It’s the practice of planting one crop right after another is harvested. This practice can keep you eating fresh from your garden all season long, even after frosts.
Spoiler: Successful succession planting has a lot to do with planning and picking the right plants.
There are a few ways to go about this kind of planting.
Succession Planting: two or more different crops following each other in the same space
Staggered or Relay Planting: same crop with repeated plantings in the same space
Interplanting / Companion Planting: when you plant multiple things at the same time in the same space that mature at different times and mutually benefit each other.
For now, let’s focus on the practice of planting different crops one after another in the same space—what most people think of as ‘succession planting’. Many of the same plants that star in our Northern spring gardens also do well when started in summer to mature for fall harvests. Choosing cool weather plants that can take a slight frost will grow your summer efforts into delicious fall meals.
Bringing wildlife into your garden will bring you higher pollination rates, more food, less pest pressure and the joy that comes from watching an ecosystem thrive. The best part about it is that the ways to bring wildlife in are all tied together, kind of like nature itself. This is a great reminder that we and our yards are part of nature and not separate from it!
There are lots of specifics to follow, but it really comes down to diversity, and making all the things you want to live in your garden feel welcome. This is my take on companion planting in general as well. You can listen in on a companion planting conversation of mine on the Grow It Minnesota! podcast.
We started by deciding to not use synthetic chemicals in our garden. This is a first step that is truly the most important! Then we added a bird feeder and a bird bath and luckily had some beautiful mature trees on our property. Since then, we’ve added more wildlife features as we could, from more native plants they feed from, more watering spots and more cover, creating a little wildlife sanctuary. We actually went ahead and made it official with the National Wildlife Federation as a Certified Wildlife Habitat .
In case you haven’t met yet, let me introduce you to THE SHRUB—the kind you drink. This rhubarb shrub recipe is a bright, sweet-tart way to preserve the season and bring a little sparkle to everyday sipping.
Shrub What?
At its heart, a shrub is a sweetened fruit syrup mixed with vinegar to preserve summer flavors. In practice, shrubs are best sipped with friends who are as bubbly and sweet/tart as the flavors flowing from the glass.
The magic of any shrub is how it brings together the sweetness of the fruit with the acid of vinegar—creating a depth of flavor that lays down a perfect base to build on. But typical of true magic, there’s a third part: the health benefits of probiotics and enzymes from the apple cider vinegar complete the trinity.
Stephanie and I before Covid, at a WBL Farmers Market after she taught a fermentation class
When I first made shrubs, I cooked my rhubarb (and other fruits), then strained the juice and added vinegar. But there is a fresher flavor with fermenting. This may seem counterintuitive, but hear me out. When you skip cooking the fruit, you retain some great high notes from the rhubarb. Similar to fresh strawberry jam versus cooked strawberry jam…
Stephanie Thurow, my friend and coauthor of Small-Scale Homesteading, is also a master food preserver at Minnesota from Scratch. She first opened my eyes to fermenting shrubs and I will never go back!
