Thursday, August 13, 2026

Recent VEGarden Posts

Nichols Plum Fruit Dropped
18 Jul 2013
2

Nichols Plum – Fruit Drop

This is kind of sad. Three years ago, we started a fruit guild in our yard, in which we planted one Nichols Plum Tree. We got one fruit from it the first year, and didn’t expect anything the second year. The third year, we had hot March that triggered early blooming on the tree, only to be followed by a late freeze that killed off all of the plum flowers. But this year. This year, our Nichols Plum has more than quadrupled in size. It is the largest tree in our fruit guild, and it was absolutely loaded with fruit in May. Here’s the tree (on the right): And then the plums started to drop. From what I read, this...
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Purslane Garden Bed
14 Jul 2013
0

Purslane

You all have this growing in your garden: It’s called Purslane. It is native in India and Perisia, and has marked its territory as an invasive (edible) weed all over the United States – and all over most of the world. The great thing about purslane is that it can be grown in any soil condition. It can even be grown in the cracks in your driveway! Oh wait…that’s a great thing? Well, I did say that it was edible – so if this is the one thing you would like to grow in your garden, then by all means its hardiness is second to none! Unfortunately, most of us don’t plant gardens with the intention of growing a purslane...
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Ants on Butterfly Weed
11 Jul 2013
0

Myrmecophobia

Those who know me well know that I have a fear of just one thing: Ants. Naturally, four years ago we moved to the Great Anoka Sand Plain, which is basically an enormous ant colony with roads and houses built on top. Asphalt doesn’t stop the ants though – they just plow right through it. Look closely, and see if you can spot the tiny aphid herders on my butterfly weed: I took a break from weeding, hoping to catch another monarch caterpillar on the butterfly weed. After staring at the plant for a few seconds, I noticed that the entire thing was moving. Yes – moving because it was completely covered in ants. My camera was on and I...
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King of the North Grapes on trellis
06 Jul 2013
0

King of the North Grapes

Three years ago, we purchased 100+ grape vines from Great River Vineyard, in an attempt to green our chain link fence. There are a couple of grapes on the fence that are doing very well this year. I planted a few King of the North and Somerset Seedless varieties directly in my garden, and the photo above is of the new grapes forming on one of those vines. They are slowly starting to cover the trellis at the entrance of the garden, too. I’m hoping for wine one day. In a few years, anyway 🙂
Tomatillos
05 Jul 2013
0

Purple (or green?) Tomatillos

I started both Purple and Green Tomatillos in March this year. To be honest, I don’t have the slightest idea which ones survived, and which ones didn’t! We lost a couple of plants…so I guess we just have to wait and see! The first year we moved here, we put in a lot of tomatillo plants. They were all overtaken with slugs and asparagus beetles…to the point that we ripped them out. We haven’t tried them since, but with better soil and garden conditions now I wanted to give them another try. So far, the tomatillos are doing beautifully! I have three plants in my garden, and Chris has a couple in his too. They have outgrown the tomatoes already,...
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June 24th
04 Jul 2013
0

10 days

Just a quick comparison picture: 10 days of growth. June 24th and July 4th. Have a wonderful holiday weekend!
01 Jul 2013
0

Herbs

If there’s anything I can predictably grow well, it is catnip and dill. Plant these in your garden one year, and you will have an abundance of them for the rest of your life. The herb and perennial beds were getting a bit overgrown, so today I chopped down the chives and catnip, and thinned out the dill (which has completely taken over one of the beds). Dill: Catnip: I also have a lot of parsley, sage coming in (that was shaded out by all of the dill!), and a couple of zone 5 English thyme plants that are doing very well and flowering already!
Tomato Sprials
29 Jun 2013
0

Tomato Spirals, Revisited

I first posted about tomato spirals here; you can find a few more entries by searching “spirals” on this site. I finally had some time to prune and tie up my tomatoes this week. I really liked the tomato spirals last year, but this year I am learning that they require a lot more maintenance than we have time for with a six-month-old. If you don’t train tomatoes to grow up a stake and in the spiral early on, the stems start curving every which way…and there’s really not much you can do once they get to be four feet tall and are already sprawled all over the ground! I did my best to tie them up, but I’m not sure how...
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28 Jun 2013
0

Strawberries, Peas, and Broccoli

A fairly random assortment from the garden today. We’ve been enjoying fresh strawberries daily for a few days now. Most of these are from Chris’s garden (his have been there longer), though my strawberry patch is going to explode soon. I wasn’t sure if the peas would work this year. We had a foot of snow still on the ground when we should have planted them, and temperatures have climbed into the 90s already. But they seem to be doing okay! It’s kind of sad picking peas without our garden dog this year. The upside is that Cedar can eat these now, so I hope they keep coming in for a couple more weeks!  
Peppers - June 23rd
23 Jun 2013
0

A slow start…

If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that having an infant, a full time job, and a vegetable garden is difficult. Especially when I create massive projects with cement blocks for myself. More than a month later than a typical year, the garden is surprisingly looking to be in pretty good shape! The weather did not cooperate in May, so most of this was planted in June. I even have some beans this year that the rabbits haven’t eaten yet. I’m not sure if the concrete beds are deterring them, or if the neighbor’s yard that is in foreclosure has become their new safe haven, as the grass hasn’t been mowed over there yet this season. Speaking of concrete blocks...
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Rhubarb
17 Jun 2013
0

Vegan Rhubarb Cake by VEGarden

One of Chris’s favorite cakes is rhubarb, so for his first Father’s Day, Cedar and I decided to bake him a cake. I didn’t find a great vegan rhubarb cake recipe, so I decided to make my own version. For his birthday, I made this fresh ginger cake (with egg replacer), and it was probably the best cake I’ve made to date. This recipe is inspired by the method used in the ginger cake, and is a bit different from many of the standard rhubarb cake recipes out there. Enjoy! Vegan Rhubarb Cake 2 1/2 cups flour 1 tsp. cinnamon 3/4 cup vegetable oil 2 Tbsp. molasses 1 1/2 cups sugar 1/2 cup water 1 tsp. vanilla 1 Tbsp. fresh...
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Nettle, spinach, kale, cucumber and carrot juice
12 Jun 2013
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Juicing

A couple of months ago, I busted out the old Juiceman Jr. that I got in college and used a record 2 (maybe 3) times. I always wanted to like juicing, but for some reason it always made my mouth itch. I’d visit a juice bar and order a nice fresh carrot-apple juice, and I’d be rubbing the insides of my lips with my tongue for the next 4 hours. Fruit, in general, has always made my mouth itch. It’s hit or miss – but the biggest culprits are (raw) apples, peaches, hazelnuts, and cherries. It wasn’t until fairly recently that I discovered I have something known as Oral Allergy Syndrome – which isn’t exactly an allergy, but a reaction to...
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Niko loves catnip
11 Jun 2013
0

Waiting for sunshine

The skies have been overcast for most of the spring. Good transplanting and seeding weather, but not great growing weather. We’re hoping for a few sunny days to help things along! I finally finished my raised bed project (pictures coming eventually), and have most of the garden seeded. I picked up a few more pepper plants at Gordon’s Greenhouse, as the ones I have in now are *sooo tiny* and I’m not sure if they will grow fast enough this year. I need to finish planting the last two beds, and then sit back and watch it grow! Things we’ve eaten from the garden so far this year: asparagus, chives, nettle, rhubarb. Hopefully strawberries and greens soon. And the cats...
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Crab grass growing in concrete block holes
30 May 2013
6

Covering the Holes

There are a few posts on our blog about the raised beds made with concrete blocks I’ve been putting into my half of garden. The original idea was to plant herbs, strawberries and other plants in the 4″ holes in each of the 4x8x16 commons outlining the garden beds. (Here’s a picture of some lettuce growing in the holes of the beds last summer). Cute idea, and theoretically it would have worked out great. But the holes became serious weeding nightmares. It didn’t take long before they all started to look like this: It is virtually impossible to weed crab grass out of holes that small. The solution? More blocks, of course! I decided to ditch the holes in the...
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King of the North Grapevine
24 May 2013
0

Frost

I woke up at 5:30 this morning and looked out the window…only to see a light white coating of frost on the grass. Of course. Just when it was starting to look like spring…and of course I put the tomatoes and eggplant in the garden last weekend. Chris said he lost two of his tomatoes from the frost…all of mine still look just fine. (I actually pulled a couple of flowers off of one of my San Marzano Roma tomatoes this morning!)  The eggplants suffered a bit of leaf damage, but it looks like they will pull through as well. I finished one complete raised bed this afternoon and planted the whole thing with hot peppers. I have some Purira...
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Concrete Block Garden Beds started
22 May 2013
0

8,988 Pounds

In case you were wondering (you were wondering, weren’t you?) this is what 8,988 pounds (nearly 4.5 tons) of concrete block looks like: 220 – 4″ x 8″ 16″ – 33lb solid concrete blocks plus 180 – 1″ x 8″ x 16″ – 16lb patio blocks. I’m really hoping to finish this project in two weeks. We’ve had nonstop rain since these arrived though, which has delayed the start of the project. I have a pretty good start – I’ve put in 1/6 of the blocks and formed all of the beds, for the most part. I finally got my tomatoes, tomatillos, eggplant, and onions in over the weekend. They are definitely loving this nonstop rain!  
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