Spring planting tips from a green-thumbed gardener

CATHY WURZER: So from the Mississippi to getting your hands in the dirt, we're going to talk about gardening right now. As you probably heard Paul Huttner a few minutes earlier in the program, we're going to get a little break this week before we're looking at a lot of rain over the weekend into next week. That means it is the perfect time to kick-start spring planting, if you've not already.

A resident gardening expert is here with tips and some inspiration. Meg Cowden is the author of Plant Grow Harvest Repeat. She is back. I can only-- I can't imagine how busy you've been, right? You're out there. You're digging. You're planting. How are you?

MEG COWDEN: Yeah, the list is longer than the daylight hours I have to get things done. I feel behind, but that's just because I like to push things. So everything will be fine. We've got lots of time to plant. So it's April, for crying out loud. What are we talking about?

CATHY WURZER: I tried to rein myself in by not running out, although I did go to a local garden center, and there were just scads of people out there a couple of weeks ago. And I reined myself in from not buying something yet because I just thought it was too early.

MEG COWDEN: Well, I mean, you could have bought something, Cath. You could have bought some kale seedlings, or there's a lot of brassicas in garden centers right now. But there's also things in garden centers that you shouldn't be planting right now like big, beautiful pots of basil that would totally wither on a night like last night. Anywhere below 40, it gets really crabby. So you've got to know what you're doing in a garden center if you're going to plant stuff this early. You've got to be really discerning about what you pick up.

CATHY WURZER: Maybe some pansies, maybe.

MEG COWDEN: Pansies are great. Yeah, pansies, sweet alyssum if you can find it. I actually planted my little baby sweet alyssum seedlings out yesterday. They can handle-- they'll be in the ground until possibly even November. They just-- yeah, cold hardy. calendula is another great cold-hardy plant, and so are snapdragons for flowers. I totally-- I would not. I've got violas out there that self-seed, and obviously they know what they're doing. They thought it was warm enough. It's still warm enough, and they're fine.

CATHY WURZER: Good. I'm glad to hear that. Maybe I missed the boat on this, but I'm going to go back out.

OK, I'm wondering about the weather, and it would be this windy, windy, windy April that we've had so far this year. Has that done any damage to anything that you're working on in your garden or not?

MEG COWDEN: Not really. I do have row covers, so I have the ability to put up little kind of half-moon wickets, metal structures in my raised beds. And then I cover that with either a plastic or a fabric that they also double as frost coverings. And a couple of weeks ago, when we had really windy 40 or 50 mile an hour winds, I did cover stuff up. But the covers on the ground now, and I'm letting it ride.

I think you know this about me. I tend to trust my plants and be optimistic. What could happen is my young, tender seedlings, if they're not strong enough and they were really leggy as indoor seedlings, they might fall over and snap. That's worst-case scenario. None of mine have done that so far.

But the wind is tricky. You've got to plant things that are strong, and you want to make sure that they have been well hardened off so that they are already exposed to wind. We've talked about this last year too, Cathy. I mean, wind is not going away. I think about it every day when I'm a gardener now, and I didn't used to. So yeah, being willing to support your most favorite flowers. If it's your dahlias or your zinnias, maybe you want to stake them this spring and summer when you get those planted.

Yeah, good idea. Say, when last we talked, we were talking about throwing seeds on top of the snow, and some people do that with grass seeds. Some people do it with native seeds, wildflowers, and that kind of thing. We didn't have a whole lot of snow this year, and I'm wondering, you were talking about just seeing what comes up. Has anything come up at this point when you did some of that seeding earlier in the year?

Well, it looks like we have some weeds that have germinated in our bare area. I haven't really walked it. I'm trying to be just really careful with the soils still because it is bare soil. So I haven't walked it too much. I see a tiny bit of green up, but I'm sure things like the black-eyed Susans in the mix and the anise hyssop and even some grasses are going to be germinating, but not much is germinating yet. I think a lot of what we're seeing is, unfortunately, weed seeds. So yeah, it's OK.

It was a very dense prairie-seed mix that I used, so there was an abundant amount of seed per square foot. So I am, of course, the optimist. It's all going to work out. Let's take a few years.

CATHY WURZER: Everything will be fine. I'm going to get you that T-shirt. I'm fine. We're fine. Everything is fine. I'm going to get you the T-shirt for sure.

Say, what are you looking forward to in your garden this year? You always do something different.

MEG COWDEN: Yeah, weird. I'm trying some grains. I'm going to try and grow wheat this year, which is kind of a silly crop. We've run the numbers, and I think for the amount of sourdough bread that we cook, we would need to plant about a quarter acre in wheat, like an actual quarter acre for our flour needs for the year. So I'm hoping we get a loaf of bread out of this one bed. We'll see what happens. So we're growing Red Fife wheat.

I'm growing flax seed is another thing that we use a lot in our house. And I've never grown flax, and that's a really beautiful flower. And I've got a whole bunch of herbs that I'm trying. I'm growing shiso for the first time. I'm growing fenugreek so for things like Indian, spicing Asian foods. And yeah, I'm trying more spices.

I'm trying more bell peppers. Trying to dial back the tomatoes because we always have pounds, bushels more than we need. It's a hard thing to dial back, though. So yeah.

And I'm also trying to just take it a little easier this year. I'm direct seeding more things. So my canning tomatoes, I haven't even started them yet. I'm actually going to go out after this, and I'm going to direct seed them into our cold frame. I'm not even going to start them inside. So I'm going to let that season--

CATHY WURZER: What?

MEG COWDEN: --be what it is. Yeah, I did this last year, and I had ripe tomatoes that I seeded. I seeded them around this time. They didn't germinate outside until the middle of May, but I had a ripe Brandywine tomato from a seed that I put in the ground in April, and that tomato ripened in August, second half of August.

So you don't have to buy starts. I think this is very liberating for people. And I'm trying to break my own rules in my own book about indoor seed starting and succession planting by trying to see how much I can push it and how much lazier or less controlling I can be.

CATHY WURZER: Oh, Meg, I'm telling you, you make me smile. All right, go out there and do that direct seeding right now because it's a great day to do that. Thanks for joining us.

MEG COWDEN: Thank you, Cathy. Have a great day. Take care.

CATHY WURZER: You too. Meg Cowden is the author of Plant Grow Harvest Repeat.

Yeah, it's a really nice day out there. Sunshine around the region, maybe a tad cool. 37 in downtown Duluth. 57 in Worthington right now. We'll check the local forecast right after this. Thanks for listening to Minnesota Now here on NPR News.