At the Farm is located on Highway 5 in Carver County, Minnesota - 2.5 m. East of Waconia - 4.5 m. West of Victoria - 10 m. West of Chanhassen
Donna Frantz, Proprietor - 8880 East Highway 5, Waconia MN 55387 - imthefarmer@earthlink.net - 952-442-4816

At the Farm Newsletter

Sent May 5, 2010 The blue bells are blooming The rhubarb is red Mother's Day is coming Give thanks and amen! Hello, It's a beautiful May morning! May and June are my favorite months. Someone asked me last week, and yes I write the ditties I start my newsletters with. They just pop into my head as I sit at my 'think tank' in the mornings. My think tank is my kitchen table. The creative juices flow freely first thing in the morning. If all day could be morning, what a life I would have! Take a look at a few of my new baby chicks at right. Aren't they cute!

I have seed potatoes, bulk vegetable garden seeds, onion sets, asparagus roots, onion plants, tomato plants, eggplant plants, pepper plants and herb plants for your gardens now. Also, rhubarb roots, raspberry plants, strawberry plants too. Fresh-picked rhubarb (organic), chives (organic), honey from my farm, maple syrup from East Bay, rhubarb jam and my homegrown popcorn are all available now! Reminder, It's coming in less than two weeks! Saturday, May 15 - Plant Swap and Sale Come to Buy, Swap or Sell Plants, Bulbs, Anything related to Gardening!           And come for the FREE Demonstrations - Classes · 10 am and 1 pm - Vegetable Gardening · 10:30 am - Potted Gardens and Baskets · 11:00 am - Growing Patio Vegetables · 11:30 am - Using Herbs in Cooking with guest chef, Joe Marzano                    (Salads, Main Dishes, Desserts) · 12:30 pm - Planting Raised Beds with Herbs - Make a Snipping Garden      Go to my website for more information on the Plant Swap and Sale Please come! No charge for bringing your items to swap or sell! This is also the 6th Annual Sister Saturday Event in Waconia
Gardening According to Donna, by Donna Frantz , will be a great gift for Mother's Day, Father's Day, birthdays or any occasion! Buy the book especially for beginning gardeners or for yourself, just because you would like to have a copy of your own. My fifty-plus years of Minnesota garden experience fills 72 pages with tried and true vegetable gardening hints. Its compact size makes it easy to carry along to the garden and it is spiral bound so it lays flat. There is an area on most of the pages for you to write your own notes too as you experiment in your garden and learn! It's good to be able to keep track of your progress! Order Gardening According to Donna books now! Just $16.95 each, plus $5.00 shipping. Send a check to: Donna Frantz, 8880 Hwy 5, Waconia, MN 55387 I also have it for sale At the Farm and at Jim Gilbert's Wild Bird Store in downtown Waconia.
Pride and Glory Garden Project is alive and well! Free vegetable seeds, seed potatoes, vegetable plants and gardening advice to unemployed people who come to my farm. Pass the word to those in need! When you care enough to Eat the Very Best, ask Donna! See you soon! Donna

May Gardening Tips You can start to plant warm crops now - herbs, beans, peppers, tomatoes, corn, eggplant, containers of deck vegetables, flowering hanging baskets, flowering bedding plants. Just watch the temp and cover if it will dip low. You can plant all of May and into June. When the soil is warm things grow fast. When planting transplant vegetables, flowers, etc. make sure you wake up the roots. Most of the time they are rootbound in the pot and if you don't pull them a bit the roots will continue to grow 'round and 'round instead of reaching into the soil. Do you know what rootbound is? Take a look at the photos at right! It's when you have a full pot just full of roots. It looks all white and you can hardly see any soil. You can take a scissor or a very sharp knife and cut up each side to the top, then cut 1/8 to 1/4 inch off the bottom also. Or, if the roots are not too solid, you can gently pull on roots to loosen. You can see the asparagus fern in the top photo would be very hard to pull apart so its easier to cut with a sharp knife or scissors. This helps invigorate the root system to grow. The pack of pansies in the photo below are rootbound too. In this case you would take a sharp knife and cut down through soil and roots to separate the individual plants, and cut 1/8 to 1/4 inch off bottom, then you can plant. Tomatoes - pull off the 2 bottom leaves and plant that depth. Peppers - I don't pull off the bottom leaves but plant deeper than the box they are in. I do not pick off vegetable blossoms (tomatoes or peppers) but if pepper plants are too short and set fruit I pick off first small pepper. Flowering Bedding Plants - plant the same depth but wake up the roots if rootbound. Remove flower blossoms to help the plant put energy to the roots at first, not to the blossoms right away. I do not pick off geranium blossoms but I do snip off marigolds and petunias. Don't forget to feed your flower beds. I have fertilizer. Hope to see you At the Farm! Enjoy Planting!