How does your garden grow?

Master Gardeners share tips and tricks for a

successful growing season

By Jane Turpin Moore

After the wearying winter Minnesotans endured, it’s understandable that impatient residents can’t wait to splash colorful blooms across their patios, porches, backyards, walkways and decks.

But three wise women — otherwise known as experienced Mankato-area Master Gardeners Diane Dunham, Karen Wright and Barbara Lamson — advise you to hold your hoes.

“To this day, I don’t think about getting out into the garden until after Memorial Day,” said Lamson, 80, a Master Gardener since 1982.

“We’ve had late frosts, and my mother always said, ‘If in doubt, don’t go out.’”

And while Dunham soaks up any warm spring sun while cleaning out flower beds and doing early weeding, she too cautions against jumping the planting gun.

“May 15 is the mean date for final frost in Minnesota so you shouldn’t put out items — especially warm-weather crops — too soon,” said Dunham, 64. “It does no good to stick plants in cold soil, and it’s the soil temperature more than the air temperature that will affect the success of your plants.”

“People are always in a hurry to buy, but some tend to start way too early,” she added. “If you have urges you can’t control, get a bag of potting soil, stick your hand in it and play around awhile.”

That’s the kind of practical, straighttalking advice you can expect from this trio of gardening experts, each of whom has serious cred in the world of plants.

Wright, KMSU’s operations director and host of “Minnesota Morning,” achieved Master Gardener status in 2016 and, with Lamson, hosts the weekly Friday spot “Gardening with Barb and Karen” on the public radio station.

Dunham, president of the Mankato Farmers’ Market, is retired from being a longtime horticulture vocational instructor with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. She’s a Lakeshore Landscape specialist and Woodland Stewardship Master Gardener.

Lamson holds claim to being one of the first three Master Gardeners in the area and has a lifetime of gardening experience from which to draw.

“Here I am, still going strong,” Lamson said. “I’m honored to be part of the Master Gardener group because what we do is so important for our environment and for all of us.”

Better late OR May days

So what’s an eager gardener to do?

The bad news: It all depends on the weather. The good news? You can still take action.

“In March and April, I start seeds inside for my vegetable gardens and for some of my annual flowers,” Wright said.

She places her overwintered Elephant Ear, dahlias and caladiums in pots to help them break dormancy and get a seasonal head start.

“And I work on my landscape plans to figure out where new plantings will go and on my raised garden bed plans to make sure I am rotating the crops,”

Wright said.

One trick Wright reveals: “I take photos from year to year to see what looks good and what needs to be improved. Gardening is like a big, fun, experimental work of art and things can always be redesigned.”

Similarly, Dunham recommends taking notes to keep track of what works — and what doesn’t.

“Maybe you planted a million zucchini and not enough tomatoes, so read your notes before indulging again,” Dunham said.

She suggests paying attention to the effect of wind on your garden plots, reminding that closer-to-the-ground heights stand a better chance of surviving the transplanting process.

“They suffer less in wind than a 2-foot-tall plant, and they can gain strength and develop thicker stems,” Dunham said. “Or put up a wind barrier maybe an open 2-liter bottle — to protect plants from the wind in vulnerable sites.”

Lamson grew up on a farm in northern Minnesota, and that aided her knowledge of cold- vs. warm-weather crops.

“Things like radishes, lettuce, kale and spinach can go in in April — they’ll survive,” said Lamson. “We get so energized when the sun comes out, but annuals need warm soil to thrive.

“You need to stop and think, ‘Is this soil warm enough?’”

Working smarter, not harder, might mean waiting until the first week of June, notes Dunham.

“The plants I put in then grow fast,” Dunham said. “Planting in cold soil can set you back two weeks, or they die and you go buy more. People create a lot of chaos for themselves.”