The first 18 years of my life were spent on our family’s dairy farm northern Wisconsin. My mother, father and in fact our whole family spent a lot of time producing food for our meals. We had a large vegetable garden, along with an orchard that provided apples, plums, and grapes. We grew strawberries, raspberries, […]
Archive for the ‘Fruit’ Category
Growing Organic Apples
As a new master gardener, I volunteer at the Channel 6 gardens on the north side of Milwaukee to fulfill my commitment to the group. Lead by Sharon Morrisey, a Consumer Horticulture Agent with Milwaukee County UW-Extension, our group meets every Thursday from 10 to noon in the Channel 6 garden. We work on planting, […]
Weird Strawberry Leaf
As an avid gardener, I am always interested in other people’s gardens, especially how the same plants that I have can look different under the growing conditions that exist in their yards. A few days ago, one of sister’s noticed that some of her June bearing strawberry plants had weird leaf stems that looked curved […]
Lasagna Mulch for Strawberries
Strawberries are a rewarding fruit crop that will produce for many years in the home garden. All you need is a small space with sunshine, reasonably good soil and a gardener willing to water when the weather is dry. Strawberries need 1-2 inches of water each week and this is especially important from early […]
Amish Blueberry Patch
If you are a Wisconsin gardener with alkaline clay soil, growing blueberries is quite a challenge. My brother-in-law who lives in the northern Wisconsin had been trying for at least 10 years to grow blueberries with very limited success. He bought blueberry bushes that were hardy in Wisconsin, planted them carefully, then kept them watered […]
Strawberries on Acid!
My childhood memory of picking strawberries, both the wild variety and the ones that grew in our family’s strawberry bed, made me want to grow some in my own yard. I purchased starter strawberry plants and set them into my raised garden. The plants did really well. I got a lot of strawberries and the […]