Wild Violet's Garden Blog

I don't have a photo of a real Tiny House. Here's somebody's Tiny Garden Shed. Just Enough Tiny houses fascinate me. I’m not saying I’m signing up to live in one as I do require quiet space to myself sometimes. Not sure how that would be possible with tiny people, a 3 yr and 6 yr old, in the tiny house scene. What I admire about the concept is the simplicity that would be required in order to fit your life and all its trappings into such a small space. Unloading all of the excess, deciding what to let go of and keeping only what is truly useful and valued and loved sounds like a way to find some peace in the chaos of life. I crave a lack of visual clutter, contrary to what my housecleaning habits may suggest. My husband on the other hand, is a keep everything in case you need it kind of person. You would think he was raised during the Great Depression instead of a few generations removed. And yet, this is not a bad way to be, just different. I have to admit, his...

I meant to start my first seeds on March 1st, buuuuut 3 days late is about par for the course around here. Plus, the snow today is encouraging defiance in me. My eager 6 year old helper and I just planted seeds for: Kale Scarlet Kale Dinosaur Cabbage Greyhound Cabbage Brunswick Onion Southport White Globe Onion Crimson Forest Bunching Broccoli Romanesco Rosemary Lavender Most of these are cool crops that will be transplanted outside in mid April, as they are happy in cooler spring temps. The rosemary and lavender take a while to germinate and get growing if I remember correctly, so I thought I'd try starting them early. Last year my lavender started under the lights didn't grow at all inside. But after I had transplanted everything else outside to the garden, it finally sprouted from it's abandoned flat that just hadn't made it to the compost bin yet. I think it was kept too wet inside. Or was not warm enough. Or just didn't like being looked at or somethin...

This is not an essay about edible flowers, although I am a fan. It is about how a garden’s beauty fills us up in other ways. This sounds like a complete cliché, but I’m trying to sort out my brain, so bear with me. Gardeners want to create beautiful spaces that help people appreciate the outdoors and feel connected with nature. I think many of us feel like it’s our purpose in life to work with the earth to create beauty with plants (and things to eat). But of course non-gardeners also care about beauty. Otherwise, why do people buy fresh flowers grown by someone else (that are just going to die in the vase in a few days)? Why do humans care what our clothes look like? Or what color paint is on our walls? Or what color or model of car we drive? Humans are wired to care about beauty, because consciously and unconsciously, our surroundings influence how we feel.  So I think what I’m getting at is: Flowers are Food. Beauty is necessary nourishment. Everyone should be a gar...

I have not blogged for almost a year. My life and my mind have been in a state of general disarray for the last year and a half, now that I think about it. It has been a time of change and upheaval, but now the downtime of winter has brought me some time for reflection on the craziness. In August of 2014 my husband and I moved our family away from my beloved Wisconsin. We are now what I like to call 'homesteading' (because I feel it makes my crazy-chicken-lady status acceptable) near Hastings, Minnesota on my husband's family farm where he grew up, and his father before him grew up, and his father before him, and maybe one more father before him too; yep, if I remember correctly what I have been told, the family farm has been here that long. And now here we are, raising our kids in the same place. Sentimentality is in my nature, so I can dig it, even with the stress of moving. Creaky/beautiful old farmhouse and all. In January 2015, I offic...

Seeds! Here I am, a stir crazy parent with stir crazy kids, waiting patiently for spring and for the phone to ring with people wanting their landscape designs drawn.  In the meantime, I'm itching to start some seeds to entertain myself and the girls and get us out of our winter funk.  Of course we moved to a new home since last time we did this, so had to dig out all our supplies from various stockpiles stashed around the farm buildings and get re-organized (thank you to my Hubby for helping me get my sh*t together, as usual). In case you are interested in an idea for setting up something for yourself to start seeds, I thought I would share the very basic setup in our basement to show how easily it can be done.  It is right near the utility sink for water, and floor drain for drainage from flats while watering (drainage is important!). Although my upstairs has more natural light, I can only imagine kiddos and dogs dumping out flats of soil and seedlings in my ...

Last week, I was invited to the 2nd grade classroom in my daughter's school to talk about plants. I love getting kids excited about plants and growing stuff. I decided to come up with something to help the students think about where their food comes from, i.e. which plant parts we are eating when we eat our fruits and veggies and how does it grow? Is it a root, stem, leaf or flower? Having just covered plants in science, they were hip to that jive. And I also wanted to leave them with an enthusiasm for growing some edible plants for themselves next spring and summer.  I started with an exercise that had them cut out pictures of plant parts to build a plant of their own design. The handout is from an awesome lesson book called 'Minnesota School Gardens: A Guide to Gardening and Plant Science', which I found through the Minnesota Department of Ag website. Find more info and resources about the MN Agriculture in the Classroom program, click here .  ...

I have been thinking a lot lately about how kids play. Specifically, my brain debates the value of fancy, expensive toys and gadgets versus imaginative, 'simple' play. I could open a whole can of worms here about what I think are the goods and bads of each type of play, but ugh, I just don't want to. That's been done thoroughly by others. I'm not going to claim to be an expert on play, but rather, an observant Mom. I will just say TAKE YOUR KIDS OUTSIDE FOR PETE'S SAKE. There. Now you know where my loyalties generally lie. Last fall I took the Girls to a new park called Whitetail Woods  that has an awesome nature play area. No behemoth metal and plastic play structure here, but instead sticks and rocks, water and sand.  It makes me think of the Late Show with David Letterman bits where he periodically brings in a toy expert to show him the newest and best in toys and gadgets, often lamenting that...