The Official Newspaper for Foster County
The Official Newspaper for Foster County
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My family loves watching birds. We love their bright colors, curious movements and lovely songs. Many families invite birds to their yards by setting out bird feeders. Providing seeds for birds is wonderful, but providing a home for birds is even more rewarding. We do that through landscaping. When designing a bird-friendly landscape, we need to understand what birds are looking for when selecting their homes. Birds and all creatures seek food and shelter. It's not quite that simple. There are...
Would you like to grow a special flower in your garden? Something that is eye-catching? Something that is unforgettable? A team of gardeners and I have tested hundreds of annual flower varieties across North Dakota over the last 15 years. This included trials at the Dragonfly Garden in Bismarck. Whenever I provided visitors a tour of the Dragonfly Garden, someone would inevitably walk over to a stunning group of plants that towered like statues above the rest. They would ask, "What is that?" It...
Gardens in North Dakota look great this year. The rains have been plentiful in most areas, and our plants are thriving. Be prepared to protect your garden from insect pests. Swarms of flea beetles will be arriving soon, and I see white moths laying eggs on my cabbage today. Whenever my vegetable garden gets attacked by insect pests, I don't get sad. Instead, I get mad. Then I get even. When I was a farm boy, I sprayed a product called Sevin (perhaps misspelled but very effective) to kill the...
What’s the biggest threat to gardens today in the Dakotas? It is herbicide misuse. Nothing else comes close. Gardeners send me over 1,000 photos of sick plants every summer. The most common photos are of tomato and potato vines that are mysteriously twisted and curled. In many cases, nearby tree leaves are stretched and cupped. These symptoms are caused by herbicide injury. Today’s herbicides are much more powerful and persistent than ever. Lawn clippings may be toxic to garden plants. In the...
Are you looking for a vegetable that is delicious and easy to grow? Think squash. Squash has been a staple of gardens in the Dakotas for centuries. Our native tribes grew and harvested squash. They sliced the young fruits, skewered them through willow sticks and dried them in the sun. Squash was vital for their survival during the cold winters. Squash was one of the crops along with maize and beans in the famous Three Sisters plantings. The squash vines served as a mulch that shaded the soil,...
Gardeners in North Dakota love to grow and eat potatoes. The average North Dakotan eats over 100 pounds of spuds per year, making it our favorite vegetable. The planting season for potatoes is coming. Here are some quick tips on how to get your crop off to a great start. Get your potato seed from garden centers or seed companies. This seed is certified to be free of diseases. Do not use potatoes from the grocery store or stored from last year’s crop. These potatoes may have diseases in them. Pla...
Do you want to make someone happy? Grow them a bouquet of sunflowers. The bright blooms are guaranteed to bring a smile. Sunflower varieties are now available that bloom rapidly. You can grow a bouquet in only 50 to 60 days! It is remarkable! The ProCut series of sunflowers are varieties grown by florists. They bloom fast and are easy to grow. ProCut sunflowers have strong stems that grow 60 to 72 inches high. Each stem has one bloom that is 4 to 6 inches across. ProCut blooms are pollenless. Th...
Deer are very active now. They are moving around, scraping bark and munching on trees in our landscapes and orchards. My epic battle versus Bambi was in a college orchard in Bismarck. Two days after planting 60 trees, our team of gardeners visited the orchard to give the trees a drink of water. It was shocking. Every tree was pruned by hungry deer. Everyone got mad – but not me. I don’t get mad. I get even. When a critter invades my territory, I seek swift justice! The most effective way to sto...
This summer I planted gladiolus flowers in the pots in front of my house. The vertical bladed leaves added height that I was missing in my containers. The gladiolus flowers were from a mixed bag, so it was exciting to see what colors I would get. Not one of the colors, red, pink, coral, white and yellow, were disappointing. Gladiolus flowers are grown from a type of bulb called a “corm.” The term “bulb” can mean any underground plant storage structure. These structures help the plant reprodu...
I love my cherry shrub—but so do the birds. As soon as the fruits begin to redden, every bird in the neighborhood flocks to the shrub. The birds aren’t picky about the sweetness of the cherries, and half of the fruits are eaten before they ripen. Once the fruits ripen, the ultimate battle begins. I chase the birds away and harvest as many of the remaining fruits as I can. The birds fight back, but I act like the fiercest scarecrow, screaming and waving my hands toward them. After my bucket is fu...
Grasshoppers were devastating in Dakota gardens last year. They devoured many plants from top to bottom. Now the pests are coming back again. What caused this? The weather during the past two years has been perfect for grasshoppers. First, grasshoppers love a long, warm summer. This gives the insects plenty of time to eat, mate and lay lots of eggs. Last summer was long and warm. We had huge swarms of grasshoppers to begin with, and they feasted and laid a tremendous number of eggs. One female...
The ladybug is a gardener’s best friend. This beneficial insect is like the sheriff in our gardens, protecting our plants from aphids and other bad bugs. Ladybugs have voracious appetites, too. One ladybug can eat 50 aphids a day and over 5,000 aphids in its lifetime. Although ladybugs are our friends, don’t buy them for your garden. You will be wasting your money. There are dozens of different species of ladybugs (more properly called lady beetles) in the Dakotas. The most commonly sold lad...
The delicate blossoms of an apricot tree can take your breath away. These white and pink flowers burst open in April while other trees are still sleeping. It’s an amazing sight and a sign that spring is upon us. But winters in North Dakota do not go away quickly or quietly. In many years, apricot blossoms suffer frost injury and the tree fails to produce fruits. How can we enjoy both the splendor of apricot blossoms in spring and their golden fruits in summer? We need to delay the blooming as lo...
There is nothing better than eating fresh peas in the garden. You pop open a pea pod and the green pearls inside are as sweet as candy. At North Dakota State University, we have worked with hundreds of families to identify the best peas for our state. The finest pea is Lincoln, an heirloom variety from 1908. I rarely like heirlooms. There is a reason why an heirloom becomes an heirloom. It's called progress. For example, I didn't ride a horse and buggy to work today. I drove a car. It's called...
Are you looking for a fun holiday project? There is nothing easier to grow than paperwhites. Just add some rocks and water, and you can enjoy flowers in a month! Paperwhites are sold online and at garden centers this time of year. You can plant them in a pot with soil, but I like to grow them in glass bowls with water to watch their roots grow. It’s fascinating. The most common variety of paperwhites is Ziva. It grows vigorously and has pure-white blooms. Bulb companies say Ziva has a spicy f...
Nothing can match the beauty of tulips in spring. Their colors are absolutely brilliant! Tulips are easy to grow their first year. They are almost foolproof. Our biggest challenge is to keep our tulips blooming year after year. Many beds of tulips fade away after only a year or two. That’s why I plant the biggest, boldest tulips available: the Darwin hybrids. Darwin hybrids produce the biggest blooms on the sturdiest stems. These hybrids are extremely vigorous. With proper care, Darwin h...
Early fall is the most important time to fertilize your lawn. The key to a beautiful lawn is a strong, deep root system. Your lawn grows most of its roots in fall. Feed your lawn around Labor Day and it will grow stronger, deeper roots this fall. As a bonus, fertilizing in early fall can repair any damage to your lawn caused by the heat of summer, strengthen your lawn for the cold of winter and lead to a quicker green-up in spring. Select a winterizer fertilizer. This fertilizer has the nitrogen...
Do you remember your first job? Maybe you were a babysitter or worked at McDonald’s. Maybe you delivered newspapers. My first job was unusual. I was a trained assassin. A research company trained me to torture and assassinate sunflowers. Every day I grew deadly diseases in the laboratory. Every night I would attack the sunflowers with those diseases. I was taught the key to killing plants was improper watering. I turned on the sprinklers in the field to get the plants wet and then spread the dis...
The prices of gas, groceries and nearly everything else are rising with no end in sight. Where can we save some money? Start with your lawn. Let me preface my comments by saying you can spend your money however you like. There is nothing wrong with spending lots of money on your lawn if you want to. You don’t have to. Start with fertilization. The five-step fertilizer programs sold by some fertilizer companies and lawn care services are not required. You can have a quality lawn by fertilizing o...
Fruit trees are great for landscapes. Their blossoms are dazzling in spring and the fruits are absolutely delicious. Do you have a fruit tree in your backyard? If not, what are you waiting for? When it comes to planting trees, there is an old proverb that goes, “Today is the second-best day to plant a tree. The best day was yesterday!” Don’t keep waiting. Fruit trees take years before they begin to bear fruit. What’s the best fruit tree for a backyard? I highly recommend the Evans Bali sour ch...
What is the fanciest, most exotic food you have ever eaten? I once ate snails. When I was young and single, I used to eat at Wendy's or Taco Bell almost every day. A friend told me that I was missing out on the best things of life. She took me to a French restaurant and ordered escargot for me. I ate the slimy critters, but that was my first and last meal of snails. By the way, I went to Wendy's and had a cheeseburger on the way home. Then I lived in Asia for several years. I ate lots of foods,...
Do you grow beans in your garden? I loved growing beans as a kid. It was easy. The seeds were big and easy to sow. The sprouts popped out of the soil in a week. It was such a rush! A couple months later, the beans were ready to be picked. My mom would give me a basket and I would gather the harvest. It was fun to pick the beans. When I gave the beans to Mom, she would kiss my forehead and thank me. I fell in love with gardening. There are lots of beans you can grow with your family this summer....
