Burnsville Garden Club

K&D Gardens in Farmington was a fantastic tour today. It didn’t rain on our parade too much. Karl was our host and shared lots of information on raising lilies!

If you like shopping at different garden centers, this group finds time for that, too! 30% off sale was a big hit! As were the Clematis!

We were inside Burnsville City Hall this morning for the annual Memorial Day Program. A big thanks to the Boy Scout Troop 3471, Catherine Williams, Robin Kutz and Ed Sanders!

Join us at the Memorial Day program at Bicentennial Park, Burnsville, on Monday, May 27, 10 a.m. Brought to you by Boy Scout Troop 3471 from Prince of Peach Lutheran Church, Sweet Sioux Garden Club and lots of assistance from City of Burnsville!

Hmmm...

It would be nice to get those spring days back, but the moisture from the snow is a welcome sight!

Today at Burnsville Bicentennial Garden flags are half-staff in honor of fallen Burnsville Police Officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge, and Burnsville Fire Paramedic Adam Finseth. Our hearts break for this loss to the community. Prayers for their family, friends and neighbors.

Martagon Lily Bulb Sale, Saturday, October 7th, from 9:00 to Noon. 220 Cutacross Rd, Golden Valley, MN. Avg. price $15 - depending on bulb size or variety. Cash Only. 25% of proceeds will be donated to Second Hand Harvest.

We had a terrific visit to Norenberg Gardens last week. All the variety of grasses looked beautiful! Arla gave us a terrific tour and did you know the founder of Grain Belt Brewery left us Norenberg Gardens? Looking for a fun garden club that gets out and about and takes in learning with hands on tours and experiences? Look no further than to our local Sweet Sioux Garden Club a club of Federated Garden Clubs of Minnesota.

It was an absolutely gorgeous night at Tom and Melissa’s West Bloomington water garden. Learned a lot about the dream of this garden, the passion Tom has for the Koi and the environment he developed there in his backyard. Spectacular! Thank you Tom and Melissa Williams for hosting our club tonight!

Interested in being part of our Sweet Sioux Garden Club, Burnsville, where we share passions for plants and the environment with others throughout the community? Let’s connect!!

Ten of us traveled to The Lavender Barnyard in Farmington to learn more from Marie about lavender growing. Want to learn and grow your garden knowledge? Consider joining Sweet Sioux Garden Club. Always interesting, always relevant. Connect here!

It was a beautiful morning at BiCentennial Park! Special thanks to Burnsville Boy Scout Troop 3471 and it’s amazing leaders and parents; Burnsville Mayor Elizabeth Kautz and city employees; and Sweet Sioux Garden Club members Robin, soloist; Catherine, speaker and incoming president of Minnesota Federated Garden Clubs; Jessica, emcee; Pat and Phyllis for creation of the wreath placed at the Blue Star Memorial; Joan and Jo for planting of flowers at the park; Carol, Kathy, Corrine, Ed, and Doris for pre-planning and communication, set-up and participation at the garden!

We’ll be at BiCentennial Park in Burnsville this morning at 10 a.m. for a Memorial Day program featuring Boy Scout Troop 3471 from Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Mayor Elizabeth Kautz and Minnesota Federation of Garden Clubs incoming president Catherine Williams.

Happy Mother’s Day! Mom’s love flowers, even pictures of flowers. Photo taken this spring at Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.

In case you need a few more plants...

What is blooming in your yard? This is my yard in Savage. Looking for a fun and knowledgeable garden group? Let’s connect!

Looking for ways to control those pesky mosquitoes this summer? Plant these!

20 Mosquito-Repelling Plants Looking for a way to rid your garden and outdoor space of mosquitoes without using chemical mosquito repellents or a bug zapper? Outsmart mosquitoes by using plants that repel or confuse them.

Today is Earth Day! And at the Federated Garden Clubs of Minnesota Annual Meeting today our Minnesota chapters provided Wyatt Mosiman, Chanhassen (left) and Nadia Renee Phillips, Silver Bay, (second from right) each with $4,000 scholarships for their education. It was interesting to hear what they are doing with plant research in their fields of study. Also pictured is Liz Genoese, Scholarship Chair and Rene Lynch, (right) President of FGCM.
The orchid and gloves were a gift for incoming officers. Sweet Sioux members were named to the following offices: Catherine Williams, incoming president; Jessica Lamker incoming secretary; and Pat Almsted is staying on as treasurer of FGCM.

Please be kind to our pollinators.

Corinne, Carol, Doris and Ed (top photo) and Pat and Carol (bottom photo) taking in the Galleria World of Wonder Floral Experience with Bachman’s today. Highly recommend a quick trip to take in the fresh flowers!

Indeed!

Although they are both beautiful and bring joy, in this case the forsythia blooming is your cue to prune or plant roses. It’s a great indicator of the right season to get to work. Pruning roses generally needs three steps: Pruning the dead wood, pruning the crossed canes (where the growth crosses one another and rubs), and pruning out the season’s growth. Check the canes for outside facing buds, and where you see small swellings, you’ll need to cut about 1/8 inch above that at a 45 degree angle, with the higher side of the cut on the side of the bud side of the cane. Another good rule of thumb is to prune suckers and canes over about the size of your little finger, under that they won’t be successful.
You don’t have to do it all at once either, start with the dead wood and give the plant a chance to catch up before checking buds and going further, also climbing roses are a little different. Only go for the brown ends when the forsythia blooms.

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.” The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Our chapter president Jessica got out today to check out the Flower Show at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum! Looking for a fun group to check out flowers and plants with throughout the year? We have several tours lined up in the coming months to do just that! Connect today to learn more.

THEY ARE CALLED WEEDS, BUT MANY HEALTHY FOR US

Did you know that some w**ds we are always worried about in our yards and Gardens are actually good for you, and can be delicious if prepared properly? Be sure to identify the w**ds correctly (The ones described here are easy to spot.) Avoid harvesting from anyplace you suspect pollution — such as from vehicle exhaust, lawn pesticide or doggy business. And remember that edible does not mean allergen-free. Here are 9 good ones:

DANDELION
Dandelion is one of the healthiest and most versatile vegetables on the planet. The entire plant is edible. The leaves are like vitamin pills, containing generous amounts of vitamins A, C and K — far more than those garden tomatoes, in fact — along with calcium, iron, manganese, and potassium.

The leaves are most tender, and tastiest, when they are young. This happens in the spring but also all summer along as the plant tries to rebound after being cut or pulled. You can add them to soup in great abundance. Or you can prepare them Italian style by sautéing with a little olive oil, salt, garlic and some hot red pepper.

You can eat the bright, open flower heads in a lightly fried batter. You can also make a simple wine with the flowers by fermenting them with raisins and yeast. If you are slightly adventurous, you can roast the dandelion root, grind it, and brew it like coffee. It's an acquired taste. You might want to have some sugar on hand.

PURSLANE
If you've ever lived in the city, you have seen good ol' Portulaca olearacea, or common purslane. The stuff grows in cracks in the sidewalk. Aside from being surprisingly tasty for a crack dweller, purslane tops the list of plants with omega-3 fatty acids, the type of healthy fat found in salmon.
If you dislike the bitter taste of dandelion greens, you still might like the lemony taste of purslane. The stems, leaves and flowers are all edible; and they can be eaten raw on salads — as they are prepared worldwide — or lightly sautéed.

You should keep a few things in mind, though, before your harvest. Watch out for spurge, a similar-looking sidewalk-crack dweller. Spurge is much thinner than purslane, and it contains a milky sap, so you can easily differentiate it. Also, your mother might have warned you about eating things off the sidewalk; so instead, look for purslane growing in your garden, or consider transplanting it to your garden from a sidewalk.

Also, note the some folks incorrectly call purslane "pigw**d," but that's a different w**d — edible but not as tasty.

LAMB'S QUARTERS
Lamb's-quarters are like spinach, except they are healthier, tastier and easier to grow. Lamb's-quarters, also called goosefoot, usually need more than a sidewalk crack to grow in, unlike dandelion or purslane. Nevertheless, they can be found throughout the urban landscape, wherever there is a little dirt.

The best part of the lamb's-quarters are the leaves, which are slightly velvety with a fine white powder on their undersides. Discard any dead or diseased leaves, which are usually the older ones on the bottom of the plant. The leaves and younger stems can be quickly boiled or sautéed, and they taste like a cross between spinach and Swiss chard with a slight nutty after-taste.

Maybe that taste combination doesn't appeal to you, but lamb's-quarters are ridiculously healthy. A one-cup serving will give you 10 times the daily-recommended dose of vitamin K; three times the vitamin A; more than enough vitamin C; and half your daily dose of calcium and magnesium.

PLANTAIN
Plantain, like dandelion, is a healthy, hardy w**d as ubiquitous in the city as broken glass. You know what it looks like, but you might not have known the name.
Part of the confusion is that plantain shares its name with something utterly different, the banana-like plantain, whose etymology is a mix of Spanish and native Caribbean. The so-called w**d plantain, or Plantago major, was cultivated in pre-Columbus Europe; and indeed Native Americans called it "the white man's footprint," because it seemed to follow European settlers.

Plantain has a nutritional profile similar to dandelion — that is, loaded with iron and other important vitamins and minerals. The leaves are tastiest when small and tender, usually in the spring but whenever new shoots appear after being cut back by a lawnmower. Bigger leaves are edible but bitter and fibrous.

The shoots of the broadleaf plantain, when green and tender and no longer than about four inches, can be described as a poor-man's fiddlehead, with a nutty, asparagus-like taste. Pan-fry in olive oil for just a few seconds to bring out this taste. The longer, browner shoots are also tasty prepared the same way, but the inner stem is too fibrous. You'll need to place the shoot in your mouth, clench with your teeth, and quickly pull out the stem. What you're eating are the plantain seeds.

The leaves of the equally ubiquitous narrow-leaf plantain, or Plantago lanceolata, also are edible when young. The shoot is "edible" only with quotation marks. You can eat the seeds should you have the patience to collect hundreds of plants for the handful of seeds you'd harvest. With time being money, it's likely not worth it.

CHICKWEED
One of the not-so-ugly w**ds worth pulling and keeping is chickw**d. Identified by purple stems, fuzzy green leaves, and starry white flower petals, this w**d is a fantastic source of vitamins A, D, B complex, and C. It also contains minerals like iron, zinc, calcium, and potassium. Chickw**d (Stellaria media) has a cornsilk-like flavor when eaten raw, and tastes similar to spinach when it is cooked. [1]

Chickw**d nourishes the lymph and glandular systems, and can heal cysts, fevers, and inflammation. It can help neutralize acid and help with yeast overgrowth and fatty deposits, too.
Additionally, chickw**d can be finely chopped and applied externally to irritated skin. Steep the plant in ¼ cup of boiling water for 15 minutes, and chickw**d provides benefits similar to dandelion root. Speaking of dandelion…

CLOVER
Other than the occasional four-leafed clover hunt, this common lawn w**d goes mostly unnoticed, even though it is becoming popular as a lawn replacement altogether. Clover is an important food for honeybees and bumblebees, and clover leaves and flowers can be used to add variety to human meals as well. Small amounts of raw clover leaves can be chopped into salads, or can be sauteed and added to dishes for a green accent, and the flowers of both red and white clover can be eaten raw or cooked, or dried for tea.

MALLOW
Mallow, or malva, is also known as cheesew**d, due to the shape of its seed pods, and can be found in many lawns or garden beds across the US. The leaves and the seed pods (also called the 'fruit') are both edible, either raw or cooked, and like many greens, are often more tender and palatable when smaller and less mature. The older leaves can be used like any other cooked green after steaming, boiling, or sauteing them.

WILD AMARANTH
The leaves of the wild amaranth, also known as pigw**d, are another great addition to any dish that calls for leafy greens, and while the younger leaves are softer and tastier, the older leaves can also be cooked like spinach. The seeds of the wild amaranth can be gathered and cooked just like store-bought amaranth, either as a cooked whole grain or as a ground meal, and while it does take a bit of time to gather enough to add to a meal, they can be a a good source of free protein.

STINGING NETTLES
It sounds like a cruel joke, but stinging nettles — should you be able to handle them without getting a painful rash from the tiny, acid-filled needles — are delicious cooked or prepared as a tea.

You may have brushed by these in the woods or even in your garden, not knowing what hit you, having been trained all your life to identify poison ivy and nothing else. The tiny needles fortunately fall off when steamed or boiled. The trick is merely using garden gloves to get the nettles into a bag.

Nettles tastes a little like spinach, only more flavorful and more healthful. They are loaded with essential minerals you won't find together outside a multivitamin bottle, and these include iodine, magnesium, potassium, phosphorous, silica and sulfur. Nettles also have more protein than most plants.

You can eat the leaves and then drink the water as tea, with or without sugar, hot or cold. If you are adventurous — or, you can collect entire plants to dry in your basement. The needles will eventually fall off, and you can save the dried leaves for tea all winter long. Info by Christopher Wanjek

Credit for the Great Identification photo goes to Cook's Illustrated Magazine.

Please visit our THE SEED GUY website when you get the chance. We have 9 of our Heirloom Seed Packages, and all of our Individual Varieties in Stock Now, Non GMO, still hand counted and packaged, like the old days, so you get the best germination, fresh from the New Fall 2022 Harvest, and Good Pricing Now. https://theseedguy.net/15-seed-packages

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Tomatoes! Yellow tomatoes are less acidic than the red ones and quite tasty. Yum!

Here's a fun way to get your hands in the soil while waiting for spring.

CREATE AN INDOOR FAIRY GARDEN
Creating an indoor fairy garden is a fun activity during the winter when you are unable to garden outside.

A Fairy Garden can be realistic or magical, created in miniature as the home of the fairy. Most times, it needs a dwelling of some sort, but the fairy may or may not be present. The garden scene is energized by the suggestion of an action that has happened or is about to happen.

Simple Steps to Create a Fairy Garden:
1. Choose a suitable container with proper drainage.
2. Select plants with the same growing conditions.
3. Plant the plants.
4. Place the accessories.
5. Water as needed.
6. Prune as necessary and replace overgrown/declining plants.

TIP: The key to a successful fairy garden is SCALE (the relationship of one object to another) and PROPORTION (the relationship between amount and quantity of one area to another or to the whole).

Containers: Dish gardens, planters, troughs, and terrariums are usually used.

Accessories: All types may be included: miniature houses, furniture, bridges, gates, fences, steppingstones, small rocks, colored glass, etc. Handmade accessories are all the rage right now – you can make your own. Figures of fairies, trolls, leprechauns, and gnomes are most often used. Children tend to include dinosaurs, action figures, dump trucks and cars, Disney characters, etc.

Plants: A container garden relies on the use of miniature and dwarf plants. Choose ones that will thrive in a container. Remember, “Right plant, right place.” Succulents and houseplants are usually used. Especially important: All plants should have the same growing conditions. They all must have the same sun, soil, food, and water requirements.

Add the focal plantings first: Remove enough potting soil from the container to accommodate a “tree” or two so that, when planted, the tops of the root balls are about an inch from the top of the pot. Gently tease the roots apart, plant, and place the soil firmly around the roots. Then, plant the other plants.

Finally, add the fun items: The house (if you want one), furniture, and décor. Dribble small pebbles onto the soil to make a path. Add blue colored stones for a stream. Add moss or stones to cover bare spots. Add the fairies, gnomes, etc.

To care for your fairy garden, be sure to water it regularly. But do not overwater! Prune any plantings that outgrow their space. If you happen to lose a plant or it is not doing well, gently remove it and replace it with something similar. Remember that these gardens are always growing, changing, and evolving.

Benefits: According to a study published in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology, “Active interaction (like touching and smelling) with indoor plants can reduce physiological and psychological stress.” Children love the activity of creating a miniature world because their imaginations can run wild! For adults, creating a living garden can bring the benefit of nature to any space, however small. Learning about the care of plants, their preferred environment and their cultural needs are additional benefits for old and young garden artists.

Practically everyone, including garden club members, youth groups, and residents of senior living communities and care facilities, will find creating fairy gardens fun and educational. In addition, this is a good time to practice for the Botanical Arts Division of an NGC Flower Show where Container Grown Miniature Gardens (Fairy Gardens) are included in the schedule.

Photo credit: Patricia Clayes
www.gardenclub.org

Even bees need water...Amazing capture! Photo by Fanie Heymans - PhotoPixSA

I've always wanted to try this...maybe this winter I will.