Doug McEvers

If it has not been mentioned, we had leaded gasoline in the past. Property next to busy roads may show a higher level of lead. Sulfur is now a needed amendment for some areas as diesel and coal have been scrubbed of this element.

Someone said recently, maybe here, that spring (last frost) seems to come later and the first frost in fall comes later. The records (Fargo) show the first frost in fall is quite a bit later than 20 or 30 years ago. We had 32 degrees on May 20 of this year, colder in some areas. 6 days later we broke a record at 96. For gardening I think you would want to work around the typical frost dates for both spring and fall. I have been planting tomatoes (WI 55, 75 day) later and have had good results. Will put in my transplants this weekend, my latest tomato transplant date. Last year I had to rely on volunteer tomatoes as my transplants were a bust. They were likely just coming up in the middle of June. We had an early frost last fall, September 7, I believe. It did not kill the tomatoes (they produced) but there was frost on the leaves, it did kill the cucumbers a bit farther away from the trees. It was cold as the dew point was very high and the grass was covered in ice. This is where you need to think about Brix and the higher nutrient levels in plants as being kind of an antifreeze.

We may have a shorter growing season in the northern US but we also have some very long daylengths in summer. Garden with this in mind. You can do a lot in a short time with nearly 16 hours of daylight.


THE FARGO HECTOR INTL AP ND CLIMATE NORMALS FOR TODAY
                        NORMAL    RECORD    YEAR                    
MAXIMUM TEMPERATURE (F)   78       101      1893                      
MINIMUM TEMPERATURE (F)   55        38      1927                      


SUNRISE AND SUNSET                                                    
JUNE 12 2026..........SUNRISE   532 AM CDT   SUNSET   922 PM CDT    
JUNE 13 2026..........SUNRISE   532 AM CDT   SUNSET   923 PM CDT

https://blackearth.com/

I use humic/fulvic acid on my garden and farm crops. I have used the liquid in row and use granular for the garden and also on my MN 13 heirloom corn plots. Most of the noted soil experts speak very highly of humates and what they do.

Thekla,

You are correct that conventional wheat is most often sprayed before harvest.

AI Overview              

Wheat desiccation is a pre-harvest practice used to kill the crop and any green weeds, promoting uniform drying and earlier combining. While true desiccants (like glufosinate) are fast-acting, systemic herbicides (like glyphosate) are commonly applied in northern climates to dry down the field and manage perennial weeds.

I do not think wheat has been genetically modified, the reason is explained here.

https://www.mofga.org/stories/farming/martens-farm/

Used to be a lot of purslane in our garden. With soil improvement it has all but disappeared. Not saying it is a poverty weed but it does not seem to flourish in better soil. I believe it favors soil that has little structure, over tilled.

The US corn belt was formerly tallgrass prairie. Farmers are still taking advantage of the fertility the prairie built over those many years, 150 plus years and counting on some of the earlier homesteaded farms. We are at 146 years here since my great grandfather, Christopher settled here. We have declared our farm to be a living, learning, and sharing farm. Slightly under one half of this farm is tillable acres and the balance is in long term grassland, some native and some restored. We started comprehensive soil health testing last fall on our differing land use acres. The native grassland is running between 4 and 5 % organic matter vs the 2 % or less for the tillable acres. It is thought that each percent of soil organic matter (SOM) is equal to about 20 pounds of nitrogen per acre. As we build our SOM on the tillable acres the need for purchased fertilizer will be much less, we are working at growing our own fertility. This will be accomplished with crop rotation and cover crops. A really true balanced rotation would include about 5 years in grassland to maintain long term fertility. Charles Darwin placed stones in a pasture and observed the stones sank 7" into the soil surface after 29 years, nearly 1/4" of topsoil was built each year with help off the grassland and the earthworms.

Getting back to the garden and its fertility. I have learned some in watching the garden and its organic transformation and we are applying this to our production acres. If you saw my garden right now you might say what a mess ! But when you till a bit around the potato plants the earthworms have put out the "do not disturb" sign. So we carefully garden with the grasses and the oats planted a month ago. The garden plants get daylighted and the rest is left to grow and build the soil. I keep the annual grasses from going to seed with an occasional mowing during the summer. I am a member of the Minnesota Soil Health Coalition. Here are the soil building tenants.

Reduce disturbance
Cover the soil
Increase diversity
Keep a living root
Integrate livestock when possible

Apologies if I linked this article before, here it goes again.

https://www.mofga.org/stories/farming/martens-farm/

Klaas Martens talks about non mycorrhizal weeds and why they take off.  The weeds get the all clear signal because the mycorrhizae are not in sufficient numbers to take up the soil nutrients. This is why I try to do a cover crop along with the garden plants, to make the environment less favorable for weeds.  Soil is not meant to be bare; the weeds are indicators of fertility and also sufficient amounts of certain nutrients. Phosphorus and lambsquarters for instance.

As I understand it oats when hayed or grazed will not make grain. Would be interested in spring seeding winter rye as a cover before planting row crops, not a lot of information on this. I am told this is done quite often in the northeast US. Building organic matter is paramount in gardens or on farms. I have oats planted in my garden and will let them grow until they start shading out garden plants and then only cut back what is needed. Hard to preserve the oats in the rows of potatoes as I hill quite extensively. What I do is bury any and all vegetation between the rows when the potatoes are dug, leveling the area.

Kevin Olson,

Your post on winter wheat productivity is quite noteworthy. My neighbors in western MN planted winter wheat the fall of 2024. The stand was very good and they harvested a large crop in 2025. They did an incorporation of the wheat stubble and got a nice volunteer crop in the fall of 2025, made a great winter cover. Now this spring they are working in the green winter wheat to plant corn. They essentially had 4 soil building crops from just one seeding and they also took some straw from the 2025 harvest. Not much winter wheat planted around here and I am not sure why. Will likely plant some on this farm in the fall, I like what my neighbors did.

Hard red winter wheat is much different than hard red spring wheat in terms of straw production. Spring wheat has become very short and does not produce much straw. In the total equation one must include the straw (brown carbon) as part of the yield. Winter wheat is much like winter rye in terms of soil building and biomass. A winner I believe if you are looking to raise your soil organic matter.

Jim,

I would look to nature's way on how milkweed disperses and increases. Common milkweed is a very cool plant with the silk as the wings for the seed. Naturally the milkweed shatters in the fall and the seed lays on the ground over winter. The freeze/thaw cycle is used in many seeding applications, and this helps to integrate the seeds with the soil. Cold stratification is nothing more than mimicking the non-growing season. Common milkweed is quite a large seed, and I would just cover them with a thin layer of soil, they increase by rhizomes. I can't say as to the type soil they prefer but are found in the tallgrass prairie region along with swamp milkweed, a beautiful flower and plant.