My wife, Cristi, has always been a gardener. She’s spent much of her adult life working in greenhouses, landscaping, and fine gardening. Yet, even with all this experience, she’d never had a garden of her own.
All that changed when we moved to Winona, Minnesota. Within a year of starting our new jobs, we purchased our first home—a 130-year-old Victorian farmhouse. It was old, but it was ours. Best of all, it had a yard.
Winona is on an island on the banks of the Mississippi River. Most homes are built on tiny lots with limited room for gardening. Buildings on narrow, deep lots shade out significant portions of most yards. Add to this the sandy river bottom soil and Winona’s location in Zone 4b, and aspiring gardeners in this area face plenty of challenges.
Getting Started
We closed on our house at the end of June 2021, well into the short Minnesota growing season, and got to work converting the flower bed next to the patio
