Forks in the Dirt

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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.

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A Zillion Ways to Zucchini

August 2, 2021 / / 4 Comments
Patty Pan are the cutest!

Are you a Zucchini lover or a hater?

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.
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biodynamic farm Heirloomista

Heirloomista Farm

July 23, 2021 / / 4 Comments

Welcome to the Farm!

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…

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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.

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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 .

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rhubarb shrub

Rhubarb Shrub Love

May 14, 2021 / / 2 Comments
A hand holding a glass of rhubarb shrub in front of a rhubarb plant.

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 Michelle.
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!

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Weather Makes the Garden Grow

April 2, 2021 / / 0 Comments
Peas happy to have a light snow last April

As any gardener knows, Mother Nature and her weather are really the ones in charge of how our gardens grow. We are forever wondering, will we get that April snowstorm…?

Thinking about the weather and how it affects everything from
crop timing, to which insects buzz through it, to how much water we need to supplement is something I respect more each year!

Globally, our weather is also changing at an alarming rate. Both
temperatures and the number of erratic weather events are on the rise. These are but the tip of the melting iceberg of how weather touches every aspect of the garden process.

I hope that as more people dig in to gardening as a hobby and passion,
we’ll reach our tipping point. We’ll both love all kinds of weather AND care for our earth in ways that will leave it in good shape for future generations!

Growing Gardeners

I believe that the way to ensure our future generations take good care of
the earth is to simply get them out into nature so they can fall in love with
it! Let’s get kids exploring, asking questions and simply being outside
in a snowstorm or on a hot steamy day and everything in between…

Sarah Nelson, my dear friend and children’s book author, has recently
released a group of books, I Like the Weather. This set of picture books
introduces children to the joys of different weather with upbeat rhymes and
intriguing back matter. Below, Sarah shares her thoughts on how our relationship
with weather can change us, and our relationship with our gardens for the
better. Enjoy!

Set of "I Like the Weather" picture books by Sarah Nelson.

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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.
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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

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Sausage, Kale + Potato Potage

January 8, 2021 / / 0 Comments

This is my husband’s favorite hearty winter soup; a hearty blend of locally grown goodness that somehow becomes much more than the sum of its parts. Specifically this is a potage; which sounds really fancy but simply means a really thick soup.

I could go on and on about how much I love soups, and I’ve already compiled a few of my other favorite soups in a blog a while back, “Simmering Through Winter: Soup Suite”. It takes you through making “Very Veggie Zuppa Toscana, my take on a Basic Veggie Soup and a Ham + Lentil (way better than your split pea soup!!) plus some tips and tricks to making amazing soups- like getting the herbs and spices you add to “bloom”, stock vs broth, etc.

But back to this amazing simple yet sublime soup.

Sausage, Kale + Potato Potage

  • 1 lb pork sausage (local makes a huge difference here!)
  • 1 large yellow onion, chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 tsp Oregano dried
  • 1-2 tsp Thyme dried
  • 2 tsp Celery leaf dried
  • 2 cups shredded zucchini (I use frozen)
  • 4 small or one huge russet style potato
  • 4-6 Cups torn Kale (I use frozen too)
  • 6 cups chicken stock
  • Fresh parsley for serving (or any microgreens you happen to have)

Instructions:
Sautée Italian pork sausage until fully cooked, can spoon off some of the fat if desired (I find that locally raised pork products don’t have nearly as much fat as commercially raised kinds). Then add onions and sautée a few minutes, then garlic, then herbs.

Let the herbs ‘bloom’; this is when you let the dried herbs cook in fat before adding liquid to the pot – this is soup MAGIC!

Once you enjoy the aromas of all the herbs, add in the ‘wet’ ingredients; kale, zucchini, then potatoes and stock. This simmers only as long as the potatoes need to cook.

Serve with warm crusty bread, adding fresh greens, cheese or roasted squash/pumpkin seeds to the bowl just before serving. Or, you know, eat it right out of the pot…

Enjoy digging in to this hearty potage!

Michelle

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