Across the Acres

Matt Abdallah

(pictured with his children, Ivy (from left), Levi and Akirra)

Alexandria
Douglas County

Tell me about your garden. We have two gardens in different places, so they mature at different times. The bigger one is 20 feet by 300 feet, and the smaller one is 20-by-50 and includes a large raspberry patch and a strawberry patch. We grow enough for our family and to share with the grandparents.

What seeds do you plant and how much of each? We plant peas, beans, carrots, squash, zucchini, cucumbers and potatoes. Our favorite sugar snap pea varieties are Snowflake and Cascadia. Bush Blue Lake 274, bush Contender and Kentucky Wonder pole are our go-to for beans, and for carrots, we like the Kaleidoscope blend. We plant butternut acorn squash and Black Beauty zucchini. Our favorite is the English seedless cucumber, the Marketmore 76 and the Straight Eight. We plant Yukon Gold and Red La Soda potatoes.

When do you start to plant each variety? We direct-seed the peas, beans and carrots typically May 1. The squash, zucchini, cucumbers and potatoes are planted in seed trays with peat moss and perlite, also around May 1.

When do you transfer those plants to larger containers or outside? By about May 15, we will start transplanting the seedlings into the garden. We like to see rain and modest temps in the forecast before we plant, otherwise, be prepared to water the transplants for the first couple of weeks.

What do you do with the produce? We like to eat as much as we can fresh. We also like to share with my parents, and we freeze the rest.

What is your favorite part of gardening? In the fall, when we get to harvest our fruits and vegetables. Digging the rainbow carrots is probably our favorite; it’s like digging for gold.

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Country Corners Market

(Pictured are Lynette Zimmerman’s daughters Rachel (left) and Melissa) Brooten | Stearns County

Tell me about your garden. We have two greenhouses where we sell to the public; we also offer cemetery pots starting before Memorial Day until after Labor Day. We typically open the end of April and go through the middle of June.

What seeds do you plant and how much of each? We plant a big variety of annual flower seeds and vegetable seeds such as salad vegetables, pumpkins and squash. We also get strawberries plants, beets, potatoes, onion sets and other garden seeds to resell.

When do you start to plant each variety? We start our flower seeds around the middle of February and our vegetable seeds later in March, being they grow so much faster.

When do you transfer those plants to larger containers or outside? We set our strawberry plants outside when the weather warms up, but we keep most everything in our greenhouses. We start transplanting into bigger containers once the plants get their second set of leaves.

What do you do with the produce? We are open to the public and sell all our produce in our greenhouses known as the Country Corner Market in Brooten. We plant another small garden for ourselves, and we freeze and can a lot.

What is your favorite part of gardening? We just enjoy being in the dirt and harvesting the bounties that we can.

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Jim and Kari Soderholm

Osakis | Todd County

Tell me about your garden. Our main garden is 20 feet by 80 feet and our pumpkin patch is 25-by-25. We also have rhubarb plants, a strawberry bed, a raspberry patch and lots of flowers. We don’t sell our produce but love to share with friends and family.

What seeds do you plant and how much of each? For direct sow, we plant green beans, snow peas, carrots, beets, lettuce, radishes, cucumbers, zucchini, corn, pumpkins and squash.

When do you start to plant each variety? We wait until around Mother’s Day to start direct sowing, as long as Minnesota weather cooperates. I think I had to cover seedlings last year to protect them from a late frost.

When do you transfer those plants to larger containers or outside? We have started tomato plants in the house, but we also like to purchase tomato, sweet peppers and jalapeno pepper starter plants from area greenhouses.

What do you do with the produce? Whatever we don’t eat fresh or share with friends and family, we either freeze or can. It’s so nice going down to the basement and having those ingredients on hand in the winter months. It is less money spent at the grocery store, and I know exactly where it came from and how it was grown. We can salsa, tomato juice, spaghetti sauce, stewed tomatoes, green beans, corn, jalapenos, pickled beets and some jellies. We freeze corn, green beans, carrots, zucchini and pumpkin puree.

What is your favorite part of gardening? I love the whole gardening process, from ordering the seeds and mapping out the garden layout for the year, all the way to cleaning it out in the fall. I don’t, however, love tending to the weeds, but that is part of gardening. Gardening is very therapeutic and rewarding.