Click on photo to learn more about growing rhubarb!

Good News: No frost last night!  It didn’t even come close! 

Yesterday afternoon was beautiful–mild temperatures, bright sun and light winds!  Today is also starting out beautiful and is quickly warming up!  It looks like this weekend will feel more like the middle of July than the middle of May!  By the way, today the sun doesn’t set until 9:00PM and it will continue to set after 9PM until August 7th!

RHUBARB PLANT SALE TODAY!!

Buy 3 pots for only $20! (Originally $12 each!)

WHAT WE ARE SELLING TODAY:

We will be having trees, shrubs, and perennial and annual plants including:

Apple trees: Honeycrisp, Jonafree, Jonagold, Liberty, Gala, etc.

Peach trees: Early Red Haven

Blueberries: Bluecrop, Jersey, Elliot, and Aurora

Red Raspberries: Latham

Seedless Grapes: Reliance

Rhubarb: Victoria — SALE!! — 3 pots for $20 — SALE!!

Everbearing strawberries: Fresca (white flowers), Frisan (pink flowers!)

Tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, eggplant, yellow and red sweet onions

Pawpaw trees

Ostrich ferns

Redbud trees

White pine trees

Lilac bushes

Beauty bushes

Hydrangea

Hollyhocks: O’Hara, Chater’s Double, and Queeny Mix

Foxglove: Excelsior

Coral Bells/Heuchera

Sedum Groundcovers

Sempervivum

Vinca Minor

Cactus (thornless houseplants)

Morning Glory

Angel Trumpets

Dianthus

AND MORE!

Sunset today May 14 is 9:00PM  Sunrise tomorrow is 6:20AM

Right now it is raining–that’s right RAINING–thru much of Minnesota even some northern parts of that state!  Despite this there is still a fair chance of having a white Christmas here since it looks like our rain will turn to snow late on Christmas Eve.  While we will likely then have a couple of weeks of typical cold January weather, it seems like we will have an early January thaw starting in mid-January instead of the end of January which is more typical.  Those who have been calling for a severely cold winter should think of revising their forecast soon.

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, tomorrow Tuesday December 23 will be the last day we will be open all day until next spring sometime.  Right now we plan on closing things up on Wednesday unless the weather looks too bad on Wednesday and then we will likely close up for the season tomorrow!  Right now we still have a good supply of a variety of nice crisp, naturally chilled apples as well as sweet onions and red potatoes.

Oh yes, that headline teaser…while the average distance from the earth to the sun is 93.24 million miles, on January 3 this distance is only 91.65 million miles.  On July 4 the distance increases to 94.82 million miles!

It wasn’t really that long ago, say just a month or so, some solar scientists were saying they believed the sun’s 11 year sunspot cycle was over and they were wondering why the sun was so inactive when, according to past cycles, it should be quite active.  What does this show?  Don’t rely on any long range (earth or solar) weather forecast!  It’s hard enough to forecast what’s coming up tomorrow!  The forecast of a month from today is nearly worthless.  Right now the sun has become so active so fast one wonders what is going on.  Solar scientists think right now huge rumblings are taking place deep, deep within the sun since huge flares have shot up from the sun in areas  100,000 of miles apart–at the same time!

Getting back to earth…we have been asked numerous times when we will be closing.  Our policy, which has been in effect for several years, is to state we are committed to being open through Halloween, October 31.  Then how long we stay open depends upon the weather.  We close any day there is enough snow to make the roads hazardous and we close any day the temperature isn’t expected to rise above 34F.  This year, no matter how nice the weather is, we will be closing for the season on November 27, which is the day before Thanksgiving.  However, we may close earlier because of weather, low supplies of produce or for any other reason we decide upon.  We plan on notifying the readers of this blog, at least the day before we close for the season.

As many of you know, while we have an excellent crop of apples this year, our winter squash crop, except for the spaghetti squash, was rather poor. (We had an exceptional spaghetti squash crop–both in quantity and quality).  Our acorn, Heart-of-Gold and our Celebration squash was less than half of last year, our butternut was poor and our buttercup was basically a crop failure–we didn’t get enough buttercup to pay for the seed! As you would expect, our supply right now, compared to other recent years, is low.  However, at present we are continuing to sell our acorn, Heart-Of-Gold and Celebration squash at the special price of $6 a half bushel. We might withdraw this special price after Halloween and only sell the squash at individual prices of (50 cents each for small, 75 cents each for medium and $1 each for large.)

While we have had a killing frost, we are still picking our cherry tomatoes that are in our high-tunnel (which is basically an unheated greenhouse with 12 foot high ceiling).  Also, we have very limited supplies of slicing tomatoes since we picked them green and are ripening them on our special ripening bench.

When we open at 10AM we will still have slicing and cherry tomatoes, green and colored bell peppers, Ancho and Jalapeno peppers, sweet onions, acorn squash, Heart of Gold Squash, Celebration squash (see Special 1/2 bushel price for selected squash types and green peppers below), spaghetti squash, butternut squash, blue Hubbard squash, broccoli, carrots, pie pumpkins (Learn how to make your own pumpkin puree for pies and all sorts of baked goodies HERE: How to Make Pumpkin Puree Info Paper), Asian pears, Royal Riviera Pears, and apples including: Honeycrisp, Gala, Cortland, Stark Jumbo, Red Delicious, Mutsu/Crispin, Golden Delicious, Spartan, Jonathan, Splendor, Empire, Golden Russet, Tolman Sweet, Kandil Sinap, Jonagold, RedGold, Jonagored, Northwest Greening, Idared, Roman Beauty, Calville Blanc D’Hiver, Hawaii and samplings of Jonalicious, King David, Court Pendu Plat, SunCrisp, and Ashmead’s Kernel. Large selection of pumpkins from miniature to giant, including many different colors such as white, tan, yellow, green, and of course orange! A large, colorful selection of Indian Corn, dried corn stalks, as well as nice quality straw bales made from oat straw for $5 each and dried corn stalks. Find all three in our greenhouse to the left of the parking lot.

Watch our newest YouTube video about Fall and Giant Pumpkin harvesting!
SPECIALS (WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!)

Sweet Green Bell Peppers — half bushel $10 (that’s about 79 cents a pound). Watch our YouTube video to learn how to freeze peppers!

Limited Time Special — Jonathan and Cortland apples 1/2 bushel $6

Limited Time Special — three pints of cherry tomatoes (red Jasper and/or SunSugar) for $6.

Jalapeno Peppers — 1/2 peck for $6

Spaghetti Squash– half bushel $5, whole bushel $8 (that’s about 16 cents a pound!)

Acorn, Celebration and Heart-of-Gold Winter Squash — half bushel $6 (that’s about 20 cents a pound!) –– Watch our YouTube video to learn how to cook squash then read our info paper by clicking the link below!

Learn how to keep winter squash for a year by reading our info paper: “How to Freeze Winter Squash.”

Freshly Dug Carrots — half bushel $8