Summer Treats

Summer Treats

Summer is approaching and we welcoming the anticipated heat with treats! For Father’s Day Weekend 2024, we are doing our first ever Ice-Cream for Dad Day on Saturday. Doug Grimm will be mixing up vanilla ice cream in a 5 gallon, tractor-powered ice cream maker. But besides the ice cream, what are some other outdoor […]

Read More…

Honeyberry – May Plant of the Month

Honeyberry – May Plant of the Month

Honeyberry is our 2024 May Plant of the Month. But what is a honeyberry? Also know as fly honeysuckle and haskaps, honeyberries are small, cigar shaped fruits which grow in colder climates where other berries do not thrive as much. The honeyberry is native to the boreal forests of Japan, Russia, and North America. In […]

Read More…

Fruit Tree Guide – Growing Peaches

Fruit Tree Guide – Growing Peaches

There is almost nothing as wonderful as the taste of fresh, tree-ripened peaches on a warm afternoon. With the sweet juice running down your chin and the buzz of insects around, if you have not experienced this, then you need to plant some peach trees. Here in the Central Great Plains, peaches can be difficult […]

Read More…

What Should the Kansas State Fruit be?

What Should the Kansas State Fruit be?

Kansas is well-known for a number of representative symbols, but we have no state fruit. Other states have a state fruit, but not us. Why is that? Well, for one thing, state symbols are not pressing business within the branches of our government. Just like the Kansas state insect, the honeybee, it is up to […]

Read More…

Growing Grapes in Your Backyard

Growing Grapes in Your Backyard

I have long been fascinated by the beauty and production of a grapevine. Tendrils clinging to each other, supports, wires, and even trees assure that the vines will reach new heights to find sunlight and air circulation. My grandparents kept the old fashioned but wonderful ‘Concord’ growing on two rows of vines in their garden. […]

Read More…

What Will Grow Near a Black Walnut Tree?

Black Walnut trees are wonderful if you are a cabinet maker, eat the walnuts, or leave them as forage for wildlife, or use the husks to make a colorfast dye.  But if you are a gardener, they provide a challenge, to say the least. A toxic chemical, juglone, diffuses from the roots into the soil, […]

Read More…

Edible Plantings: Spice up your edible containers!

Edible Plantings: Spice up your edible containers!

In the last few years, edibles have taken center stage in many gardens as people try to grow chemical free, organic food for their families. Edible landscaping has resurged as a major design addition in many home landscapes. The use of edibles in borders, adding fruit trees and shrubs, and potting up herbs has become […]

Read More…