Heather Holm is an amazing author on native pollinators and has an incredible Instagram Page sharing her love of native pollinators, bees, and wasps.

In this episode, we talk about the need for protecting native pollinators, competition from non-native bees, and what we can do for our local ecosystems.

Meg Cowden is the author of Plant, Grow, Harvest, Repeat - an incredible resource for all gardeners. 

We are replaying this episode with Med all about succession planting from our Spring 2022 season. Right now is a great time to be thinking about succession planting and how you can make the most of your food gardens.

You can find Meg at SeedtoFork.com where she has a lot of information and join her gardening club Modern Gardening Guild.

You can check out her book - along with all other books we've featured on Minnesota Gardening Podcast - at our Bookshop.org book store. 

Earlier this month, the USDA released new hardiness maps that made many changes in Minnesota. Author and podcaster Mary Schier shares what we need to know about those changes and how to deal with them.

Learn more at MinnesotaGardening.com.

Apply this weekend to Minnesota's Lawns to Legumes program and get up to $400 in reimbursable grants to plant Native Plants at your home and community.

Learn more at MinnesotaGardening.com!

Professor Tallamy was extremely generous with his time. In Part Two (recently re-discovered after I thought I'd lost the recording), Doug Tallamy discusses his new book, Nature of Oaks, and takes us through a year in one of Mother Nature's most critical trees.

Professor Tallamy's Books

• Nature's Best Hope
• Bringing Nature Home
• Nature of Oaks

This is a great weekend to get your tree wrap on fruit trees, ornamental trees, and young shade trees. This protects trees from bunnies and sun scald.

Minnesota Gardening Club members can watch the new how-to video for everything tree wrap at MinnesotaGardeningClub.com.

Have a great weekend!!

I am beyond honored to re-air this episode with Doug Tallamy as a guest this week on the Minnesota Gardening Podcast. He is a world-renowned entomologist teaching how we can save nature. This episode is full of action items and steps people can take to make the world a better place for birds, insects, and our entire ecosystem.

Show Notes

Professor Tallamy's Books

• Nature's Best Hope
• Bringing Nature Home
• Nature of Oaks

This is a continuation of my rant (?) episode on Tuesday about invasive plants. Minnesota Gardening Club members should work to remove invasive plants in their landscape this weekend. Even if you love them.

Is this a sorry, not sorry moment? I think it is.

It really does suck though. Many plants that we have long known as great landscape plants are becoming invasive due to climate change and other factors. We must remove them from our home landscape. Again...sorry.

In this episode, we discuss what plants you need to remove and why.

November is notorious for temps going up and down and teasing us with the final throes of Fall versus the full on winter months.

There are two things you should do this weekend if you haven't yet:

Plant Garlic

If you haven't planted any garlic yet, I suggest giving it a try. It is definitely one of the easier food garden plants to grow.

How to grow garlic

It is really pretty easy and we have a great podcast episode you can listen to --> Grow Garlic.

Here are the basics:

1. Head to one of the final Farmers Markets in your community of the year and grab some hardneck garlic.
2. Split the head up into cloves.
3. Toss the clove in the ground about 6" apart and ½" deep.

COOOLD

Garlic needs a winter cold period to create a head of garlic for next year. If it doesn't get a cold period, it will just grow as one weird giant clove. The cold gets it to grow in multiple cloves.

However, garlic does not need a cold period to sprout and will toss a new shoot up in the fall if you plant it too early and we have warm weather. So wait until your fingers will be frozen while planting. That is the time.

Hardneck

There are two types of garlic: hardback and softneck. Sometimes - been there / done that - garden stores will try and sneak soft neck garlic on the shelves. It doesn't work great here but some folks have had success. I haven't.

You'll know it is hardback garlic if the head of garlic has a stem sticking up from the center that is hard. Pretty sweet.

Bulbs

Bulbs are awesome. Many folks wig out this time of year because they bought bulbs and forget them on the garage shelf. Go ahead and plant them. They'll be good.

Here's a long post all about spring-flowering bulbs - Bulbs.

Have a great weekend!!!

Brad

PS: Make sure to check out the new Seasons Calendar I released this week. Would love to get your feedback on it.

So excited to have Stephanie Thurow and Michele Bruhn on the Minnesota Gardening Podcast today!

Help your native insect, pollinator, bee, and caterpillar friends survive the winter; don't remove  the leaves and stems that grew on your property this year.

This is going to save you a ton of time!

We have been learning more and more about the importance of emulating our natural forests and prairies to protect overwintering insects.

Learn more at MinnesotaGardening.com.

Tim Clemens of Ironwood Foraging joins me for this week's episode of Minnesota Gardening Podcast. Tim was awesome to talk with about foraging in an urban setting .

Tim and I talk about the ethics of foraging, what people need to know getting started, and why foraging is a critical part of our culture.

Learn more at MinnesotaGardening.com.

This weekend is a great weekend to make sure your tomatoes have the support they need and aren't growing too many side shoots that reduce production.

Minnesota Gardening Club members watch the video here --> This Weekend: Prune and Support Your Tomatoes 

Thank you so much to Emma Schultz from the Minnesota DNR for being our guest this week discussing Emerald Ash Borer. I have seen so much damage this year across the metro and state.

What are you seeing in your area?

Check out photos of EAB and learn more at --> MinnesotaGardening.com.

Yesterday, the Twin Cities National Weather Service tweeted a crazy statistic about how dry we have been the last 31 days. So dry that is the is driest May 15 to June 15 that we have had (at the MSP Airport) since 1871!!!

Learn more at MinnesotaGardening.com!

Caterpillars are an important part of the ecosystem and most often aren't doing any harm to your landscape.

Learn more at MinnesotaGardening.com.

We prune lilacs after they are done blooming and then don't touch them again the rest of the year. They bloom on the previous year's growth so any time you touch them, you're cutting off blooms.

Learn more as a member of the Minnesota Gardening Club at --> https://minnesotagardening.com/posts/pruning-lilacs.

Reposted: In this mini-episode, Brad discusses how to handle deciduous shrubs that are looking pretty dead. Do you cut them back? Pull them out?

Learn more at MinnesotaGardening.com.

Elizabeth from our Minnesota Gardening Club had a great question asking what to with spring-flowering bulbs after they are done flowering.

Most bulbs that you plant in the fall are hardy in cold climates and will come back year after year if cared for properly.

After your tulips, daffodils, and any spring-flowering bulb is done blooming, you need to leave the leaves on the plant until they start to turn yellow if you want them to come back the next year.

Do not braid them or tie them back, just let them grow. I like to put bulbs in with perennial and ornamental grass beds so they can be on full display when they are blooming and then hidden by the growing plants as they die back. 

When they start to turn yellow, they are done with that season of growth and you can cut off those leaves at soil level. It is also a good time to dig some up and transplant them if you'd like. Store them in a cool, dark place until fall when you plant them in their new home.

Learn more at MinnesotaGardening.com.

Honored to have Kevin Espiritu of Epic Gardening on for this final episode of the Spring 2022 Season of the Minnesota Gardening Podcast teaching all about Grow Bag Gardening.

Check out his book Grow Bag Gardening: The Revolutionary Way to Grow Bountiful Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits, and Flowers in Lightweight, Eco-Friendly Fabric Pots.

This is a bonus episode for the Spring 2022 Season of the Minnesota Gardening Podcast all about starting seeds and food gardening at MinnesotaGardening.com.

Meg Cowden just released her first book, Plant Grow Harvest Repeat: Grow a Bounty of Vegetables, Fruits, and Flowers by Mastering the Art of Succession Planting, and it is incredible. I highly recommend it for gardeners at any level.

In today's episode, Meg teaches us about succession planting and how to think about your garden and it's food production for an entire season.

Enjoy

Purchase STILL: The Art of Noticing on Bookshop.org

I can't even begin to tell you how much I loved this interview. Mary Jo Hoffman started StillBlog.net with a personal project in 2012 to post one photo of nature each day on a white background.

It was met with resounding praise and she is still going. Having been featured on Marth Stewart, Midwest Living, Better Homes & Gardens and many more, Mary Jo is just a treasure.

In this episode of the Minnesota Gardening Podcast, we explore nature, Mary's process, and - my favorite part - the six seasons.

Enjoy!

Brad

PS: Please subscribe and give us a glowing review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Now is the time to get gardening and I'm so excited to hear how you're doing. Join us at MinnesotaGardening.com to share photos, ask questions, and grow together.

Michelle Bruhn is a wizard at finding ways to extend the seasons and get a longer growing season in the Upper Midwest.

This final seed-starting episode takes you through the final steps in getting your seed babies and toddlers out into the world PLUS a lot of other gardening chat.

This second of three episodes with Kelsey Love is all about growing your babies including what light you need, heat, watering, and what to watch for.

Kelsey Love is so much fun to talk with. We recorded three full episodes on seed starting with nearly EVERYTHING you need to know on how to get your babies started. She owns a farm in central Minnesota growing fruits and vegetables on ten acres.

The incredible Crystal Schmidt joins us to talk about how we should be planning for preserving our summer and fall harvests. Crystal is a wealth of knowledge on preservation and many other homesteading topics. You can find her at @WholeFedHomestead on instagram.

Minnesota Gardening Podcast host Brad Tabke talks with you about planning your seed starting and the two types of garden planning people.

John Reynolds of Seed Savers Exchange and I chat about seed starting trends, what has changed in gardening, and what to think about when saving seeds at home.

Dream of Wild Health is doing incredible work. Many native seeds were tragically lost during colonization. I am honored to welcome Dream of Wild Health Community Outreach and Cultural Teacher Hope Flanagan and Farm Director Jessika Greendeer to Minnesota Gardening Podcast discussing native seeds and gardening.

Identifying the connections between our landscape and the future of Minnesota Gardening. Excited for you to join the ride!

You spend hours on your lawn killing weeds, fertilizing, and spending tons of cash. Do you want an easier way that is safe for your kids, saves you money, AND helps the environment?

Embrace MinnesotaGardening.com's Lazy Lawn Care system to use less chemicals, water, and save you time.

Download the free Lazy Lawn Care Guide here -> MinnesotaGardening.com.

The face of gardening is changing. Consumers are expecting more focus on whole gardening, more native plants, and building community. Heidi Highland of Heidi's Growhaus joins me today to discuss consumer trends in gardening.

Oak Wilt is a fungus killing oak trees - particularly Red Oaks - in Minnesota. Fortunately, it hasn't spread through the entire state. Brian Schwingle from the Minnesota DNR joins me to talk all about oak wilt, how to prevent it, and what's happening next.

I am beyond honored to have Doug Tallamy as a guest this week on the Minnesota Gardening Podcast. He is a world-renowned entomologist teaching how we can save nature. This episode is full of action items and steps people can take to make the world a better place for birds, insects, and our entire ecosystem.

I recently finished an amazing book all about mushrooms and other fungi called Entangled Life (affiliate link supporting local bookstores). It was incredible and opened my eyes to the wonders of mushrooms.

Today, Lance Ramm of R&R Cultivation joins me to talk about growing mushrooms at your home. Lance does an awesome job of explaining how they grow mushrooms at R&R and how you can do it at home with one of their grow kits.

Angela Grill, a wildlife biologist from Three Rivers Park District, joins me to talk about the importance of diversity in our landscapes.

Are you looking for something healthy to grow indoors during our Minnesota winters? Matt Arends of Spring Lake Farms joins me today to teach you how to grow microgreens.

Every gardener wants to know our Minnesota winter forecast. Our plants depend on a deep layer of snow to make it through our cold temperatures.

Sven Sundgaard details what we can expect this winter for snow and temperatures here in Minnesota.

Thea Evans from the University of Minnesota Bee Lab joins me this week to talk about overwintering insects in our landscape. We discuss why they are important to protect, how they benefit our ecosystem, and what we can do to support them.

Megan Gilger is the founder of Fresh Exchange and joins us today discussing thankfulness and reflection in our gardening.

Learn how to seed prairie seed, bee lawns, and turf with James Wolfin from Metro Blooms.

Winter is an unfortunately forgotten season in our cold-climate landscapes. Today, Cathy Rees is guiding us on how to best take advantage of winter in our newest episode of Minnesota Gardening Podcast.

Cathy takes us on a deep dive through her new book Winterland and how we can best utilize this wonderful and beautiful season.

Learn more at MinnesotaGardening.com.

Bird feeding is a wonderful Minnesota pastime - especially through COVID. The incomparable Laura Erickson teaches us how to best attract birds, what to feed, and how to feed our back yard birds.

Burr Oak Blight is a fungus affecting burr oaks throughout Minnesota. In this episode, you'll learn what you can do about Burr Oak Blight (BOB). 

John Larson grows garlic at Linden Lars Farms in Miron, Minnesota. He joins us today to talk everything from purchasing garlic to plant, plant, harvesting, and storing. A great episode with a lot of Minnesota-specific info for you.

I decided to switch the garlic episode to next week and this week we are focusing on fall cleanups - and the ethics of what we do in our gardens and home landscape this time of year.