Category: Garden How To (Page 2 of 5)

From the ground up. Digging into garden basics and beyond.

Growing ginger in the north, zone 4.

Growing Ginger in the North!

January 20, 2023 / / 2 Comments

Like anything you grow at home, ginger from your garden just tastes better than store bought. And with how much I love ginger’s bold and distinct flavor, of course I grow it. Plus, growing an exotic, tropical plant up in zone 4 is pretty darn empowering.

Then there’s the fact that most ginger sold in the U.S. is imported from China, Brazil, or Thailand…and has been grown without much regulation and then shipped thousands of miles. Add in that it is a beautiful plant that smells amazing, and you’ve got to try growing ginger at least once!

Ginger Botany

Zingiber Officinale roscoe
Classified as an aromatic herb, the part of the ginger plant we most often eat is called a rhizome, the underground stem of a plant. But with homegrown ginger you can enjoy the stems as well. I chop the stems and enjoy them in tea!

Native to Southeast Asia, this plant likes it hot and humid. So if you have a greenhouse, you’re a step ahead, but dedicating your warmest space to this plant should get you a happy harvest too. Growing ginger is an 8-10 month project, so we try to get started at the end of January here in Minnesota zone 4. And yes, these plants will be LARGE before they head outside, so plan for space similar to a tomato and they may even have to stay inside longer.

Here’s a Ginger Growing Timeline

  • Jan 20-Feb 20: Start soaking your rhizomes
  • Jan 27- Feb 27: Pot up into soil, in a tray to sprout
  • March 1-15: Pot up again into deeper pots with ample space
  • June 1-15: Once temps are 65+F outside, you can move to final growing space outdoors

Growing Ginger

Continue reading

Harvesting, Preserving + Using Herbs

August 1, 2022 / / 9 Comments

Filling your basket with fresh picked herbs is one of those  garden routines. It is by far one of the more glamorous parts of gardening (much better than mixing compost or weeding, right!?!) so don’t skip this joyful garden practice.

Whether you are growing herbs for cooking, herbal tea or the medicine chest there are a few tips to harvesting and preserving that I’ve learned along the way…

Favorite Homestead Herbs

Here are a few of my favorite (which also happen to be the easiest) herbs to grow. Watch a recent video of me harvesting herbs growing in my garden HERE on my @forksinthedirt Instagram.

Perennial Herbs

Continue reading

Lessons from the Garden

December 29, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Symmetry within the circle of our season — that’s the overarching lesson from the garden. But just one of the ways gardening teaches me year after year.

It is perfectly absurd to search for a beginning or an end to this cycle; is it when the seeds start forming, when I harvest my saved seed out of the garden, as I store it over winter, or when I plant it next spring that is “the beginning”? Is it when the food emerges, when its ripe, when I harvest, when I eat it, or when I compost the excess that is “the ending”? 

Taking into consideration the piles of compost, continuously added to by our hens, and all the other intertwined inputs and harvests from our little backyard homestead garden- I’m proud to announce that I can I find neither beginning nor end… instead I find a naturally flowing cycle that swallows its own tail year after year. A process without any one formula, rather a myriad of methods and infinite accomplishments along its way.

That being said; we all like to “take stock” every so often. The end of the calendar year, as the garden lays sleeping and frozen under the snow here in Minnesota seems a fitting time as ever. So, I’m taking a look back on this year of growing with you to share what I gleaned from my gardens. Or rather, what lessons my garden unearthed for me. I’ve added links to previous posts at the end of most topics, as it seems the lessons I learned this year are also perennial. But as with gardening- the roots grow deeper and the harvests increase with each passing year. I hope you can take a few of these ideas and let them inspire you to grow and harvest more (veggies, sustainability, peace) from your gardens this upcoming season. Let’s Dig In!

Continue reading
cover crop growing in raised garden bed

Cover Crop Basics

September 1, 2021 / / 4 Comments

Adding a cover crop to the home vegetable garden was a game changer for me, and the garden has been happier ever since.

Planting cover crop seed is an easy and effective way to practice good soil health on any scale. There are a few tips and tricks for having the best luck for home gardeners. Timing and seed selection are key!

General Benefits of Planting a Cover Crop

  • Better Water Retention – soil with root mass holds more water
  • Less Weeding – soil that is covered keeps weed seeds from germinating
  • Reduced Disease – soil life diversity increases disease resistance
  • Less splash up – having a physical barrier between the soil and plants reduces pathogens from infecting plants

There are many different ways of cover cropping, from holding a field for a full year, or part of spring or over the winter. Because I succession plant so much of my garden space (from early spring to late fall), I don’t leave much of my soil bare at any one time. But one of the reasons I have incorporated cover crops is how easy it is to sow the seeds after harvesting a late summer crop.

There are many different benefits of planting cover crops in the garden. One is to build up organic matter in the soil. Another is using legumes to add nitrogen to the soil. A final reason is to help break up compacted heavy soil with plants that have think roots. If left to rot they create wonderful space in the soil for nutrient and water transfer. I see cover cropping as another way of Companion Planting for your garden.

Continue reading

No Dig Gardening + Hügelkultur: Layer a Lasagna Garden

August 19, 2021 / / 2 Comments

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.

Continue reading
Succession planting vegetables.

Succession Planting to Extend Your Harvests

June 23, 2021 / / 4 Comments

Succession Planting Basics

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.

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.

  1. Succession Planting: two or more different crops following each other in the same space
  2. Staggered or Relay Planting: same crop with repeated plantings in the same space
  3. 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 do well when started in summer to mature in the fall. Choosing cool weather plants that can take a slight frost will grow your summer efforts into delicious fall side dishes.

Continue reading

Creating Wildlife Habitat in your Garden

June 2, 2021 / / 2 Comments

Why You Want Wildlife in Your Garden

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 .

Continue reading

Seed Starting 101

February 20, 2021 / / 4 Comments

Seed Starting Tips Step by Step

A handful of Tiger Eye beans.
Tiger Eye Beans

Seeds are nothing short of magic!

You hold this seemingly inanimate object in your hand. Once you place it in soil, give it some water and light it GROWS! And it keeps growing, giving pollinators a purpose and habitat, sequestering carbon, building soil, and giving you food—plus providing its own seeds to continue the process.

Being part of this process ties us back into nature in a way that very few things can. And more of us are feeling that pull back to nature as gardening continues to grow as a hobby and passion across the globe. There are so many ways to start seeds, from Winter Sowing to Soil Blocking here we’ll focus on starting seeds indoors, under lights.

*This post contains affiliate links*

Why Start Seeds?

Slow bolt Napa cabbage.
Slow Bolt Napa Cabbage

On a more practical level, an obvious benefit of growing a garden from seed is major cost savings. A packet of seeds is usually less than the cost of a single small potted vegetable or herb start. Add perpetual savings if you can save the seeds that grow from the plants as well. More about this in my article, Seed Saving Starts Now.  

Remember only open pollinated varieties are recommended for seed saving, as these are the only kinds that will grow back ‘true to type’. Many seeds sold are hybrids, meaning that they took certain traits from two different plants and combined them. Growing seeds saved from those hybrids will likely revert back to parts of their parent plants, sometimes with really funky outcomes!

Tiny plants starting to grow from seeds.
Continue reading

Using the Winter Sowing Technique with Vegetables

January 20, 2021 / / 9 Comments

I’m always looking for ways to stretch my growing season up here in Minnesota, and winter sowing lets me get a jump on starting seedlings—without plugging in grow lights! The trick is in choosing the right seeds to start and when.

Late in January, you can find me thawing out some soil to plant seeds. Not seeds to start under lights just yet, though- I send these earliest planted seeds outside into the elements. This is the art of winter sowing!

Before we get crafting the mini greenhouses that make winter sowing feel sort of like a pre-school art project, let’s go over the basics.

What is Winter Sowing?

Winter sowing is a way to work with Mother Nature to grow plants from seed. You plant seeds in a container and set them outside. They sprout in the containers and are ready to plant out into your garden from there. Trudi Greissle Davidoff was the first to write about the process of winter sowing.

Winter Sowing Jugs planted and outside in February

Continue reading

Growing Microgreens

December 4, 2020 / / 1 Comment

GROW THOSE (micro) GREENS!

Microgreens are so much more than the trendy ‘vegetable confetti’ you see on foodie Instagram accounts!

Beyond being photogenic, microgreens are the poster child for the phrase “Good things come in small packages”.

  • They Pack 10-40 times as much nutrition as their full-grown counterparts
  • They are ready to harvest in 2-3 weeks
  • They don’t require any extra equipment to grow

In case you’re wondering what I’m talking about… Microgreens include a wide variety of edible immature plants. Varieties of greens, herbs, flowers and vegetables lend themselves to being eaten while small. You do not eat the roots like with sprouts. You harvest by cutting above the soil level and eating the stem and leaves.

It is no secret that I LOVE my microgreens… and I want to share with you how easy it can be to grow your own nutritious and delicious micros! So let’s go over the basics of getting started!

Continue reading
« Older posts Newer posts »

Join Our Newsletter

© 2026 Forks in the Dirt

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑