What is this small angular life form on the Russian Sage stem? Several are visible. The ants are interested in them. June 17, 2025. Southern Minnesota. #nativeplants, #minnesota, #zone4b, #growyourown, #prairiesage, #askfedi

June 6, 2025. The cream wild indigo plants are blooming. The bumblebees love these early blooms. They are lovely. We are growing more from the seeds. These are teenagers. None of the next generation is mature enough to bloom. It is good to have habitat for the predators too. #nativeplants, #minnesota, #pollinators, #zone4b

Rock garden! Pussytoes! Native prairie plants! This is a combination of short native plants. The common blue eyed grass has its tiny blooms. And the pussytoes plant has a flower spire. Everyone is close to the ground in this rock garden. The photograph was taken in the evening sun on May 11, 2025. #nativeplants, #Bloomscrolling, #minnesota, #gardening, #pollinators, #zone4b.

Wednesday April 30, 2025. Drama in the compost! The compost pile haa warmed up to 55 F (13 C). This will be the first flip of the pile since the material was covered with the fall 2024 leaves. #gardening, #compost, #minnesota, #zone4b, #growyourown, #sowbug, #centipedes, #Earthworms, #nematodes, #nodig, #allotment.

April 29, 2025 in the rock garden. The ground plums have blooms! Also known as buffalo plum. These are in a rock garden microclimate. The blooms become seed pods of round plum shapes. That will be fun. #nativeplants, #minnesota, #zone4b, #gardening, #pollinators, #growyourown.

@Rihilism The blue eyed grass is this big. The crumpled dandelion leaf is for shown for scale. We started some from seed in spring 2024. The germination and growth were successful. The older clumps can be split successfully as shown by California Mastodon native plants enthusiasts. #nativeplants, #minnesota, #zone4b, #growyourown.

@Broadfork Yes. The new greens of spring are good for the eyes. The rogue nettles are in the lead here, they shared their top four leaves yesterday for soup. And last week they shared leaves for a fertilizer water. Thank you Mastodon for the nettle enthusiasm. #growyourown, #nettles, #minnesota #zone4b, #gardening.

April 20, 2025. A good gardening day. Tomatoes and basil starts were potted up. We moved back leaf mulch and added compost to the onion rows, then planted Ruby Red onions. The Yellow Parma onions were planted yesterday. The free range earthworm numbers are good. The garden has been a no dig garden for 20 years. Southern Minnesota has a forecast of 25 mm of rain overnight. #minnesota, #zone4b, #growyouown, #gardening, #nodig, #compost.

April 17, 2025. We spotted the first pollinators. The Paper Wasps are flying around the eaves. The overwintered, reproductive females are representing the beneficial wasps again for the 2025 growing season. #minnesota, #pollinators, #zone4b, #growyourown, #gardening.

April 14, 2025. The honey berry shrubs started blooming. They bloom a few days after the pussy willow trees. The earliest flying pollinators will have natural food. Native plants with early blooms are good habitat. #minnesota, #zone4b, #pollinators, #growyourown, #nativeplants, #haskaps.

April 12, 2025. Where we are transplanting native plants while a snapping turtle deliberately walks south feet from my feet. These three Dwarf Blazing Stars were grown from seed in spring 2024. The flower spires will be about 12 inches tall. These little plants are not going to take over the world. #nativeplants, #minnesota, #zone4b, #growyourown, #pollinators

April 9, afternoon in which we see two ants, one tree swallow and these lovely Prairie Smoke plants. #nativeplants, #treeswallows, #minnesota, #getoutside, #zone4b.

The afternoon of April 4, 2025. This is a sample of what the garlic space looks like in the vegetable garden. The soil probe is eight inches into the soil. Most of the garlic is waiting for warmer soil before surfacing. These two garlic shoots have experienced freezing temperatures. This is a no-dig garden. #gardening, #minnesota, #zone4b, #garlic, #growyourown, #fermentation

April 2, 2025. It was planting day for the tomatoes. We held ourselves to twenty starts. These tomatoes aspire to be tasty. The soil blocks worked well. The outside world transitioned from snow covered to clear again today as last nights snow gradually melted. #gardening, #growyourown, #minnesota, #Zone4b, #tomatoes, #kasundi.

@mikeswimm The native plant germination and starts process is great for mental health. There are some slow varieties. We started scarlet globe mallow from seed of 2023. One plant made it. It is a very small mallow. The plant was expanding fall 2024. Perhaps propagating from a rhizome will be successful. #nativeplants, #minnesota, #Zone4b.

@colo_lee. The first plants under the grow lights here are various onions. We consider potatoes and sweet potatoes in the winter planning season, then we plan more garlic and peppers for another year. #minnesota, #zone4b, #growyourown.

@HopelessDemigod It’s good moisture. It will melt and soak in over a few days. #minnesota #Zone4b, #nodig, #gardening.

@Wraeth Home grown garlic is wonderful in the kitchen. It is good that you made it to early February with the 2024 harvest of German extra hardy garlic. It’s an excellent vintage and variety. Fermenting some of the harvest as garlic paste can extend your storage season all around the calendar. I speak for fermentation if possible. #fermentation, #garlic, #growyourown, #nodig, #minnesota, #zone4b, #rempah, #sambal, #kasundi.

Saturday February 8. The Dark Times of the feudal tech lords are close. Very close. We are fortunate. We hope we can plant, nurture, and harvest these seeds and others. We hope the climate change doesn’t desiccate them. We will start the Yellow Parma Onion, Ruby Red Onion, and Jaune du Poitou Leek soon. #growyourown, #gardening, #minnesota, #nodig, #compost, #Vermiculture, #zone4b, #solarpunk.

@JaminBogi. The idea the garden seeds represent is hope. Seed Savers is our supplier. This is our year to have better processes for planting the carrots. #gardening, #zone4b, #minnesota.