The Savings Keep Sizzling at Pahl’s Market!

30% OFF Annuals, Tropicals, Herbs & Vegetables

Buy One Get One FREE 10″ Hanging Baskets

40% OFF All Round-Up Products

Come visit Pahl’s Market for tractor days June 15-16th.  Tractors covering 75 years of family farming history will be on display in our parking lot.  Fun times for the whole family, and great photo opportunities too!

Celebrate and SAVE with Dad at Pahl’s Market.  Still looking for that perfect Father’s Day gift?  We have an amazing selection of pottery, statuary, fountains, gardening tools & more along with beautiful annuals, perennials, tropicals, trees and shrubs – sure to bring Dad much enjoyment – all at 25% OFF on Father’s Day weekend.

Pahl’s Market is lucky to have one of the most creative “gardening with imagination” specialists around!  Jackie Overom will be hosting two spectacular demonstrations on Father’s Day weekend.  Spots will fill up quickly so be sure to call and sign up!

Saturday, June 15th
11 AM  & 1 PM  Container Fairy Garden Demonstration

Sunday, June 16th
1PM  Terrarium Building Demonstration

Hailey and Colton, a couple of our youngest gardening enthusiasts, (who you might remember from M.A. Rosko’s Moss Basket Day spot on Channel 9) are going to have a lemonade stand with all donated proceeds going to St. Judes Children Research Hospital.  Be sure to stop by for a nice, refreshing glass of lemonade!

Grab Dad, grab Mom, bring the whole family to Pahl’s Market 3rd annual Tractor Show!  See you there!

No news from the field in this months newsletter, you probably wouldn’t want to hear it anyway.  Mother Nature is not cooperating, and we have some seriously ornery (rightfully so!) farmers.

Be sure to stay tuned for our July newsletter where Gary will hopefully have something positive to share!

The day begins with you looking out the window at your landscape and wishing you could bring some of the color indoors. You have had flowers in a vase on display in your house and really enjoy them. Time is a little tight and the places to purchase flowers are not close to your home. Maybe it’s time for you to try your hand at growing some perennials and annuals to cut and bring indoors.

The space could be an area for you to slow down, unwind, decompress, and simply relax. You can have your very own cutting garden. The area should get a minimum of 5 hours of sun per day. Placing a garden bench in the space will also give you a spot to take in all the colors and fragrances.

After you have chosen the area for your cutting garden begin with amending the soil (refer to April Landscape Article). Amending the soil will help with drainage and there will be nutrients available to the perennials and annuals for better plant health. Healthy plants have cleaner, fuller foliage, and brighter colors and more blooms. Two other options for your cutting garden would be to make it part of a vegetable garden or spread the cutting flowers throughout existing beds.

Planning will help you to avoid gaps in bloom times. Plant multiple perennials that bloom at the same time throughout the spring, summer, and fall. They should also overlap the spring, summer, and fall seasons. Keep the garden simple by planting in rows. This will help in the cutting, feeding of the plants, and weeding the garden. Remember to have a variety of colors, heights, and textures. This will help you create fun and professional looking arrangements.

The following is a plant list to get you started: Achillea, Anemone, Aster, Campanula, Carnation, Coreopsis, Echinacea, Gaillardia, Hibiscus, Hydrangea, Iris, Liatris, Monarda, Paeonia, Phlox, Rosa, Rudbeckia, Salvia, and Veronica. These plants offer a variety of bloom colors, heights, and textures. Take the list and wander through our greenhouses or visit our website and browse the plant library. This will help you to become more familiar with the plants and get you started on your cutting garden journey.

Once you have prepared the soil and planted. Monitor for problems from critters, insects, and diseases. There are a variety of chemical or organic products to deter or eliminate these problems. When you bring the cut flowers in your home for all to enjoy, just a friendly reminder, you are the creator and artist behind each beautiful arrangement on display.

Jump into June!

“In June as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them.”
- Aldo Leopold

June is truly the month of surprise and renewal in a garden. As Aldo Leopold wrote, buds will be bursting all around. This is a time of growth and of enjoying so many plants as they come into bloom. Perennials are like old friends as they return to us each spring and early summer. We honor them with surprise and smile as they greet us year after year. As I walk through my own gardens I see the familiar irises from my dad, the lovely old scotch rose that once stood at my Grandmothers front stoop, and all those treasured memories come back. June is a good month to appreciate all that is growing.

This year, especially, we will enjoy those warm days that have finally arrived. June jumped in and gave us warmth and sunshine. The gardens know it is their time to come to life with all kinds of new growth. With all of this beauty, we as gardeners must still tend to the business of gardening: The business of caring for our perennial gardens and of planting bright colorful annuals to sparkle all season long among the beds. To each enthusiastic gardener June is the month of beginnings.

Perhaps you are thinking about adding a new garden in your yard. To many of us, more gardens mean less mowing. Not a bad thing in the world of a flower girl like me. A good suggestion is when opening a new piece of garden amend your soil. In Dakota County that means add as much compost as you can. Great organic matter such as compost builds your soil into a beautiful texture for planting. I was once told that you can put a hundred dollar plant into poor soil and it is worth very little. The reverse is true in that if you put an inexpensive plant in great soil you have a treasure. Such wisdom makes for successful gardening. I also go by the old rule of putting the right plant in the right place. That is to know your plants requirements and to put the plant where it has just what it needs to do best. As gardeners, we all learn that plants are very smart about where they really like to be planted. If we learn about them and know what they need we can have success and enjoyment in whatever we plant.

I also think of June as the month my hardy shrub roses truly love. This is the time they begin their heaviest bloom and their fragrance fills the air. How can something that looks like a dead stick all through the winter come to life with such enthusiasm? That’s June for roses! If you have a good sunny area in your garden, give hardy shrub roses a try.
As June eases her way into summer your gardens will be in full glory. This is truly the month of the biggest changes in most gardens. In June we make our way from cool to warm, from small to big, and from green to a rainbow of color. Each garden is as unique as each gardener. Aren’t we lucky to enjoy all those changes June brings to our world? I say, get ready and “Jump into June!”

Hardy Kiwi Fruit: The New Fruit on the Block

Our customers who are home gardeners frequently ask us to carry the most disease resistant and flavorful small fruit cultivars for their back-yard gardens.  This year we have selected the hardy kiwi (Actinidia arguta) ‘Issai’ a perennial shrubby vine native to Japan and East Asia. 

The kiwi fruit is the best-known member of a small number of deciduous clambering and twining shrubs closely related to camellias.  ‘Issai’ produces an edible, grape-sized fruit similar to kiwi fruit in taste and appearance, but are green and hairless.  Often sweeter than the fuzzy kiwi fruit, hardy kiwi fruit can be eaten whole and need not be peeled. Thin-walled, its exterior is smooth and easy to eat.  Kiwis can be eaten raw or made into juices, jellies and jams and are much liked for decorating other dishes, usually sweet but occasionally savory.  They contain an enzyme that breaks down gelatin, so should not be used to make dessert jellies. 

Kiwi fruit were not known in the West till the end of the nineteenth century, when they were introduced from Japan, more for their use as decorative climbers than for their fruits.  Though now commonly known as kiwi fruit, they are not native to New Zealand, but were introduced there in the early years of the last century and became more popular as a fruit when greenhouse growers needed to look for alternate crops to their oversubscribed tomato market. 

When planted, Hardy kiwi vines should be pruned back to four or five buds.  From these a main stem should be selected and staked to grow to the top of an arbor or trellis, usually seven-feet in height.  Hardy kiwi needs a sunny location with some wind protection.  They have a life expectancy of more than fifty-years and take two to five years to produce fruit. 

Employee Name:  Pat McCormick

Number of years of service at Pahls:  3 Years

Briefly describe your job duties at Pahl’s:
Market Support – I mainly deal with the non-plant stuff (Pottery, Fountains, Statuary, etc.) I’m also the handyman for the Market

What is the most rewarding part of your job? 
When my co-workers come to me to solve problems or do the odd jobs.

Tell us about your family:
Married 30 years, I have a son who’s 20 and a daughter who is 25.

What is your favorite time of day?
Nap Time

What is your favorite indoor/outdoor activity?
Refereeing Lacrosse, it’s a Zen thing. For 1 to 2 hours all I think about is the game. I forget about work, money, family etc.

What is the farthest you have been away from home?  Tell us the most unique experience from that trip?
Spain, I went on a walking tour of the Basque country. Sitting in a Tapas Bar watching multi generations interacting: Grandmas playing cards at one table, teens at another, families at another, kids just being kids. The Tapas Bar is the community center for the Basque people

What are three things on your “Bucket List” ?
1. Retire and hike the Appalachian Trail – I did it in 2010, hiked from Georgia to Maine, 2200 miles, 6 months.
2. Work in a greenhouse – Doing it. Started at Pahls in 2011
3. Turn 65 and hike the Appalachian Trial again.

What do you miss most about being a kid?
Only living for today

If you could learn to do anything, what would it be?
To Draw

What was the first thing you bought with your own money?
45 record of the Jackson 5 “Rock Around the Clock” My Dad made me return it, our Hi-Fi was broken.

If you could choose anyone, who would you pick to be your mentor?
No One, everyone has something to they can pass on.

If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you would do?
Move, change my name. Then claim the prize. Then I don’t know.

What is your all time favorite movie?
Princess Bride

What song do you play the most often?
In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, live version

What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?
After graduating from college (I lived at home). I moved to Indianapolis. I didn’t know anyone or anything about the town.

Check out Pahl’s very own Master Gardener and Fairy Godmother Jackie Overom talk about the latest trend in Fairy Gardening, TERRARIUMS, on KSTP Channel 5.

This is the latest spring we have ever not gotten into the field.  Yes, records are for one thing and one thing only, to be broken.  Patience has definitely been tested around here and we are trying to hold a positive spin on things.  With everything ready to go we count the days until we run about 20 hours a day for as long as the body can take it.  Our plans have somewhat changed in the order of what we are going to do, remember about plan B, well we are on plan D.  With the time-frame of getting something of everything in the field right off the bat we are changing some of the fields that we were going to be planted later to earlier and vice versa.  This is all done to alleviate some travel time and logistical issues being spread out over 20 miles.  Our first priority is to be planting Sweet Corn, Cabbage, Green Beans and Nappa Cabbage.  Once those crops are in, the sweet corn planter will plant the Indian Corn and Field Corn.  If all goes right, we will move the cabbage crew (10 people) to transplant our pepper plants regarding that the weather has taken a turn for the better.  I will keep you posted on the progress next month, hopefully we are more back to normal and warmer temperatures prevail.

I was going through some field notes over the past few weeks and a couple have stood out in my mind that surprised me:

April 30^th 1951 – Blizzard in southern Minnesota

May 1^st – 5^th 1965 – Cold and rainy

April 30^th 1984 – Snowed 6 inches

April 22^nd 1988 – Cabbage transplants were covered up with snow, remember this was the drought year and one of the hottest on record.

May 6^th – 11^th 2002 – Rain all week and high of 50 degrees.

We survived these years, we will survive and learn to adapt this year.  Good Luck!