Join us early (before 8 am) on Saturday, May 18 for our annual North Country Master Gardener Volunteer Plant Sale! We will be offering a large variety of tomatoes and peppers as well as a pollinator six pack and an herb six pack.

The Herb Six Pack will include our cooking favorites: Thyme, Rosemary, Italian parsley, garlic chives, Genovese Basil and dill.

There is nothing like going out to the herb garden to snip what you need fresh for dinner. Just breathing in the aroma will make you want to create fabulous dishes you've never tried  before.  

You can spice up a plain rice dish with chopped fresh herbs or add them to dumplings, soups or stews. Use fresh dill and garlic chives with sliced cucumbers, vinegar and salt, add to potato salad or to  a tomato salad with red onions and feta cheese. Rub them into your hands and breathe in the fragrance for a quick pick-me-up. Use both basil and rosemary as natural bug repellents in pots on your patio.

This collection of herbs can go into the garden bed after a short hardening off period as they have been grown in a green house. They will need about four days or so to get adjusted to the variable temperatures, sunlight and wind outdoors. How to harden them off:

• When days are mild, set the plants outside out of direct sun and strong wind.
• Leave them out for a few hours to half a day depending on how warm it is.
• Increase exposure until you are leaving them out overnight and increasing the exposure to sun and wind.
• Plant in the garden early in the day and water well.

See you at the sale!

If you’ve been thinking of  growing your own herbs, you should absolutely do it! The next time you want a few leaves of rosemary or basil, you can just pluck them off your plant instead of running out to buy them.

You can get started on your own kitchen garden at our Annual Plant Sale.
New this year is our Herb Six Pack

Annual Plant Sale sponsored by North Country Master Gardener Volunteers, Saturday, May 18, 8:00 -11:00am (or until plants last) at the Station Building, 1035 E. Maple Street (Hwy 70).  For sale:  Heirloom Tomatoes, Peppers, Natives, Herbs, and Cannas


A recipe to try this summer..

No Knead Rosemary Bread
2 1/2 tsp. instant yeast
2 C. of warm water
1 T. sugar
2 tsp. salt
4 C. flour
2 tsp. chopped rosemary
Olive oil
Put the water and sugar in your mixing bowl and stir well.. add the yeast and stir again
Add two cups of flour and stir well then add the other two cups of flour, salt and rosemary mix well with a wooden spoon
Cover with a damp tea towel and  let rise for an hour
With oiled hands divide dough into bread size or form into buns
Let rise
Bake at 375 degrees 30 to 35 min.


Serve with Herb Butter if you missed the recipe click below
www.northcountrymgv.org/blog/herb-butter

One of my favorites and this year's National Garden Bureau's pick for perennial in their "Year of the" program, is Salvia, specifically Salvia nemorosa.

A mint family member, hardy garden Salvia grow into large well contained clumps that will not get out of hand the way other mints such at spearmint or catnip can.

Salvia nemorosa is a hardy and versatile perennial and a beautiful addition to any garden. The purple/blue to pink varieties are striking as accents or in mass plantings and the minty aroma is delightful.

Once established in the garden, Salvias are drought tolerant and take very little care. Amend sandy or heavy clay soil before planting, then a balanced fertilizer applied in the spring and again in the early summer will keep your Salvia healthy and vibrant throughout the growing season. Provide at least six hours of sunlight to encourage profuse flowering.

The spring bloom need not be the only bloom of the season. Cutting the plant back after the blooms brown to one-third the original size will stimulate more blooms four to six weeks later. You can repeat this process throughout the growing season.

Hummingbirds and bees love Salvia, deer and rabbits don't seem to care for them. What could be better in our corner of NW Wisconsin!

To learn more about Salvia nemorosa check out:
https://ngb.org/year-of-the-salvia-nemorosa/

For more information on the National Garden Bureau, check out:
https://ngb.org/about/

We all are getting excited for the growing season.
We start to visit our local greenhouses and nurseries.  We all are ready for green and color!
A Weather Reminder
50 + degrees - annuals are safe outside
40 + degrees - cool weather annuals are safe outside
40 degrees or below - cover up annuals and pull inside

Join us bright and early (before 8am) on Saturday, May 18 for the Annual  North Country Master Gardener Volunteer Plant Sale fundraiser. We will have a large variety of tomatoes and peppers as well as herbs and pollinator plants.

The peppers we offer are especially suited to our shorter  cooler growing season up here in the north country!  Below I have organized our offerings by "Days to Maturity" but keep in mind that many factors can impact when you will actually get fruit. Our pepper plants will give you a head start of about 15 to 30 days depending on the conditions including proper hardening off (to prevent the plants from going into shock--watch for a future post on hardening off your seedlings), soil temp at the time of planting, night time temps, day time temps, sun, wind and moisture conditions, and pest interference.

Some of these peppers are the traditional bell shape while others are conical.

• 62 days New Ace. Nearly every flower will produce a fruit on this bell shaped pepper plant. Fruit is medium sized and can be eaten green or ripened to red. Well adapted to a cooler climate where other bell peppers may not produce as well. F1 Hybrid.
• 65-70 Ruby King. Heirloom bell pepper (1902!) bears heavy crops of sweet fruit. Open pollinated, which means great for seed saving!
• 70 Healthy. Heirloom sweet, conical, yellow to red pepper 4 " long which produced well in cool summers. Good disease resistance and open pollinated!!
• 70 King of the North. This tall plant will produce 4-6 inch long sweet bell shaped peppers great for stuffing and eating fresh, green to red. Great cool, short season producer. Open pollinated!!
• 72 Giant Marconi, a great producer with huge 8 inch by 3 inch fruit, this F1 hybrid has a sweet smoky flavor eaten green to red.
• 75-80 Wisconsin Lakes, developed at the University of Wisconsin for northern climate, this medium sized thick walled bell shaped pepper is a good producer with thick, juicy, sweet walls eaten green to red. Open pollinated.

We offer one hot pepper:

• 80 days Jalapeno This variety is a big producer of large peppers on a small plant. The green fruit is mild but as it ripens to red it will become hotter. Open pollinated.

For more information on growing tomatoes and peppers in Wisconsin, check out:
https://learningstore.uwex.edu/assets/pdfs/a3687.pdf

Additions to the Pollinator Six Pack ~ Continue to Feed the Bees ~
Why Have a Pollinator Garden?
Butterflies, bees and other insects are attracted to flowers in search of nectar. They brush up against the anthers of a flower, get pollen grains on their body and carry the pollen from flower to flower. A Pollinator Garden is a garden predominately with flowers that provide nectar or pollen for a range of pollinating insects. A pollinator garden can be any size. You might only have a balcony or a small yard, but you can still plant a pollinator friendly flowers there.

Ox Eye Sunflower and Purple Coneflower will be new additions to our Pollinator Six Pack. 

Annual Plant Sale sponsored by North Country Master Gardener Volunteers, Saturday, May 18, 8:00 -11:00am (or until plants last) at the Station Building, 1035 E. Maple Street (Hwy 70).  For sale:  Heirloom Tomatoes, Peppers, Natives, Herbs, and Cannas

The Pleasure of Herbs
Herbs activate all your senses, inviting us to touch, smell and taste them.
They are beautiful.
Make our food come alive.
Inspire new culinary adventures.
They make us happy.

Herbs that are featured in our  Herb Six Pack that you will find at our annual plant sale are the following.

• Thyme
• Rosemary
  
• Giant From Italy Parsley
  
• Genovese Basil
  
• Garlic Chives
  
• Bouquet Dill
  

Annual Plant Sale sponsored by North Country Master Gardener Volunteers, Saturday, May 18, 8:00 -11:00am (or until plants last) at the Station Building, 1035 E. Maple Street (Hwy 70).  For sale:  Heirloom Tomatoes, Peppers, Natives, Herbs, and Cannas

Join us bright and early (before 8:00 am) on May 18 for our annual fund raising plant sale. Select from a huge variety of tomatoes that will dazzle even the tomato connoisseurs out there! We try to have something for everyone from patio tomatoes to paste tomatoes, slicing tomatoes, heirlooms, the works!

We have tomatoes with a very short "Days to Maturity" rating. Since our plants are well started when you get them you will have about a 15 to 30 day  head start on the how long you will have to wait for your first crop depending on a number of variables including how you harden off the plants before planting, what the soil temp is when planting, how much sun, wind and moisture the plant gets, and what the daily high and low temperatures are. Days to maturity is a rating to help us determine what plants are best suited to our zone (3-4) and the limitations that makes on the plants we raise.

Most of the varieties we offer will continue to set fruit until frost kills the plant. Others which are called "determinate" will set fruit until the plant reaches it mature size. Once these ripen the plant will die back. All determinate varieties that we offer are indicated.

The earliest varieties tend to be the cherry and grape tomatoes. We offer:

• Sungold 55-65 days This is an F-1 hybrid that is exceptionally sweet, an orange cherry tomato that will bear right through the season.
  
• The Mexico Midget is also a cherry that is 60-70 days to maturity with red fruit
  
• Midnight snack is a grape tomato that will bring you delicious little red to black fruit in 65-70 days
  
• Juliet is also a grape tomato, this one red fruiting in about 60 days.
  
• Patio Choice Yellow will yield grape size fruit in about 45 days and is ideal for container gardening. Determinate.
  
• Coming in at 75-80 days the Blondkopfchen produces tiny yellow gold intensely sweet fruit.
  

For mid-sized early tomatoes we have:

• Czeck Stupice which is the earliest we offer, it yields mid-sized red fruit in 55 days with good flavor and is a good producer.  Determinate.
  
• Early Girl will give you crimson red fruit in about 57 days with a good tangy taste.
  
• Sweet Valentine, a great container plant, yields mid-sized red fruit in about 60 days. Determinate.
  

Paste tomatoes:

We offer 4 paste tomatoes, these are the plum shaped dense fruit that will cook down into a good tomato paste. Paste tomatoes tend to produce very abundant fruit.

• Amish Paste produces tasty, red, fairly large, plum to strawberry shaped fruit in about 85 days.
  
• Martino Roma yields a dark red smaller plum shaped tomato  good in sauce or salsa in about 75 days and is virtually disease free! Determinate.
  
• Polish Opalka has great tasting red fruit about 4-6" in length in about 85 days.
  
• San Marzano is bright red thin shaped plum tomato with heavy walls that make a great sauce. Fruit is ready in about 80 days.
  

Large slicing tomatoes take longer  to maturity. We offer:

• German Johnson pinky-red fruit can reach up to 1.5 pounds and has few seeds in about 76 days. It is  productive with some disease resistance.
  
• Beefsteak yields bright red ribbed fruit up to 2 lbs in about 80 days. Consistent moisture will help prevent these giants from cracking during ripening.
  
• Brandywine is an heirloom that produces flavorful pinky-red fruit of about half to three-quarter pounds in about 80 days. Again, consistent moisture will help prevent cracking during ripening.
  
• Cherokee Purple if a flavorful dark pink to purple tomato with a sweet aftertaste. Fruits up to one pound in about 80 days.
  
• Yugo Pink produces juicy pink squat-shaped crack resistant  fruit of up to 2 pounds in 80-90 days.
  

Other:

• Chef's Choice is an orange F1 hybrid heirloom (yes, a hybrid heirloom!) with disease resistance which yield tasty fruit in about 75 days.
  

If you have experienced "early blight," watch for our article on early blight and how to avoid it in a coming post.

Subscribe to the NCMGV blog and get updates in your email inbox. Here is how to do it:
https://www.northcountrymgv.org/blog/new-email-subscription-feature

'There are lots of reasons to love snapdragons not the least of which is that 2019 if the National Garden Bureau's Year of the Snapdragon! Here are just a few reasons to love snapdragons and to plant them in your garden!!

• Snapdragons offer a multitude of color and color combinations. Virtually the only color not available is true blue.
• Snapdragons attract pollinators, including hummingbirds, bumblebees and other large bees (not honey bees though as they are a bit tough for them to access).
• Snapdragons are not a preferred food of deer and rabbits which is always a plus!
• Snapdragons offer wonderful fragrance when planted in mass.
• Tall and medium tall varieties can be used for height in the flower garden and are great for cut flower arrangements.
• Shorter varieties make great boarders and planter flowers.
• Like all annuals they will bloom throughout the summer months (hot weather may slow them down though).
• Snapdragons are nostalgic, reminding us of the gardens of our mothers and grandmother!

Like most annuals, snapdragons love the sun but will do fine in some light afternoon shade.

Let's not forget this wonderful old standby when planning our gardens this spring.

For more information on varieties, care and feeding and the delights of the snapdragon, check out:
https://ngb.org/year-of-the-snapdragon/

Who is the National Garden Bureau? From their website, the "National Garden Bureau is a non-profit organization that exists to educate, inspire, and motivate people to increase the use of plants in homes, gardens, and workplaces by being the marketing arm of the gardening industry."

For more information on the National Garden Bureau, check out:
https://ngb.org/about/

Her presentation included the herb gardens at Old World Wisconsin, the Schulz Farm located at Eagle, WI. The
history began with the European settlers arriving in the mid 1800’s, and the herbs they brought with them. Note the German immigrants migrating to Wisconsin in 1900 was equivalent to 34% of the population. The herbs were for medicinal purposes as well as culinary additives for their sustenance with a well rounded German garden containing 34 herbs.
​
If your organization would be interested in this hour long herb presentation, contact the Spooner Agriculture Research Station.
​
Article/Photos submitted by Katie Childs