We’ve just passed the perfect part of June when it feels like the future is nothing but easy sunshine and mosquito-free lake days, and are now entering the season of “Crap, we overestimated the number of available weekends between now and Labor Day to do everything we planned.”  I would really appreciate an extra month of July – who do I talk to about that?  I mean, someone is playing fast and loose with Daylight Savings Time; let me know if they have an email address or online form or whatever for calendric requests.  I’m lounging on the patio standing by.

When we lived in the country, this was also the point in the year when I started to question the decision to plant a garden.  For those of you who are new to North Dakota Nice (welcome, and thank you for reading!), my husband and I moved our family into Grand Forks two years ago after a decade of living on six acres in rural Thompson.  We bought the acreage in November 2011; by May 1, 2012 Kyle had a giant garden staked out and I had gone full Laura Ingalls Wilder imagining all of the homesteading and nature-ing I was about to do.  “Oh, ha ha, Amanda,” you may be thinking.  “You are full of hyperbole.”  WELL, I BOUGHT MYSELF A BONNET AT LAURA INGALLS WILDER’S HOMESTEAD – so…yeah, I was into it.

That spring, Kyle built a picture-perfect garden fence and installed paving stones, and together we planted, weeded, and harvested fifteen pounds of green beans, dozens of pumpkins and cucumbers, hundreds of radishes, thousands of shucked peas, and exactly four billion zucchinis.  We had so many zucchinis that the president of the University of North Dakota came out to the house (for reasons that are too long to explain) and we basically held him hostage until he agreed to take a box of zucchini – and then he retired from the presidency a handful of months later which probably wasn’t a coincidence.  I later spent two full weekends pickling cucumbers, radishes, and green beans, and made not one, not two, but three pumpkin pies and triple that in zucchini bread.

I moved a little slower, and with a little less gusto, the following year.  For one, our older son was well into toddlerhood and, like his mother, wasn’t interested in picking weeds.  For another, it was a wet spring and everything seemed to be struggling to grow…but only in our yard because our neighbors’ gardens flourished while our zucchinis refused to take root.  That water also propagated an influx of frogs, one of which hopped on my foot while I was grumbling over weeds – and it turned out this Laura Ingalls Wilder (who wore her bonnet for five whole minutes before trading it in for a baseball cap) didn’t appreciate wildlife touching her in any shape or form.  I didn’t pickle anything that harvest, or any subsequent harvest following.  I did, however, eat a lot of pickles, which sort of counts.

By the time we reached what would be our final summer in our country house, 99% of my participation in the garden was to stand at the fence and ask Kyle what he wanted for dinner while he did 100% of the work.  Despite a tremendous amount of effort, that garden produced three sad peas, a handful of cucumbers, and buggy corn.  It was so disappointing that our neighbor brought us over produce from her garden to help us hide our shame.  The only bright spot came from a 100-foot hose that Kyle bought so that he could run two sprinklers at once (When we moved out the next year, that same neighbor came over and said, “We’ll miss you.  What’s your plan for that hose?”).

The other 1% of my participation was in my asparagus plant, which I had picked up a couple of seasons prior and had forced to grow on the edge of the garden fence by sheer force of will.  Asparagus looks like grass and takes a few years to become asparagus-y, and so when we moved I repeated over and over to our realtor, “Tell the new owners that plant is asparagus.  It’s asparagus.  It’s not grass.  It’s asparagus.”  To which he replied, “I will, Amanda, but can you also write some instructions on how to use the hot water heater?”  And then I’d say, “Who cares about the heater!  Asparagus!”

We moved into our new house at the end of July 2021.  The next March, Kyle came home with a series of boxes.

“I’m going to build three garden beds,” he said.

“Are you sure?” I said.

I’m happy to report Kyle’s first-year garden harvested at presidential zucchini levels.  His crowning achievement was three beautiful sunflowers.  I was volun-told to roast the seeds, which was like pickling but waaaay more work and much more nerve-wracking because it’s impossible to bite into a home-roasted seed and not think, “Man, I hope there’s not a bug in here.”  Outside of the sunflower thing, I supported Kyle’s garden efforts by keeping my Non-Laura Ingalls Wilder jinxiness as far away as possible from everything.

His 2023 garden is looking even better than the last.  Since we now have a normal-sized backyard I can’t restart my asparagus plot (in addition to looking like grass, asparagus also spreads like grass), so instead I rescued a dried-out jalapeno plant from a local big-box store and turned it over to Kyle, who has done 1000% of the work to nurse it back to health.  For my part, I’ve eaten one jalapeno.  Maybe I’ll pickle the rest.

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The photo above is of my fella in front of his garden. It was really windy when we took the picture, but if the corn had been straight up and down you could say it would be “Waist-high by the 4th of July.”

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In case you missed it on North Dakota Today this past Monday, I talked about Kevin Duttenhefner, volunteer and chef extraordinaire.  Two things: Kevin is from Dodge, not Mott; and he said his right-hand helper is Helen Jantzer Askim. Check it out! (North Dakota Today)

Former ballplayers from teams spanning 70 years gathered in Inkster to recognize the 1948, 1949, and 1950 champions. (Grand Forks Herald)

Congratulations to all of the athletes who participated in this year’s Special Olympics! (Fargo Forum)

Bismarck’s “Library of Things” is home to all sorts of interesting and useful objects available for check-out, including a North Dakota State Park pass and kids’ life jackets. (KX Net)

Vroom Vroom: 42 flight teams (made up entirely of women) took off from Grand Forks with a destination of Homestead, Florida. (Grand Forks Herald)

Fargo’s Kathy DeWall spends her free time crocheting blankets for the staff at her nursing home. (Valley News Live)

The North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame has seven new faces this year. (News Dakota)

I’m hoping to talk more about The Blue Zone Project and St. Anne’s Guest Home in Grand Forks on a future episode of North Dakota Today. (Grand Forks Herald)

Fargo’s Holly Hassel won twice when she appeared on Jeopardy – first when she took home $10,500, and again when she fulfilled her goal of “not being a Twitter meme.” (Fargo Forum)

Minot’s Kari and Jim Porter will soon have a new roof. (KX Net)

Four cutie friends from Devils Lake spent 42 days visiting all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums across the country. (Fargo Forum)

Live in Fargo?  Keep an eye out for monsters. (Valley News Live)

As a reminder, I’ll be appearing on North Dakota Today on Monday mornings. Tune in, and send me the people and stories that make you go, “Oh, for nice” (and if you have already sent me stories – THANK YOU!).

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