(bright pop music) - Hello and welcome to "Farm Connections."

I'm your host, Dan Hoffman.

On today's episode, we visit the hosta gardens of Mona Keehn.

We join a listening session about Minnesota dairy concerns in Zumbrota.

And the University of Minnesota provides us with our Best Practices.

All here today on "Farm Connections."

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(acoustic guitar music) - Welcome to "Farm Connections."

We traveled to the edge of Rochester, Minnesota to meet with Mona Keehn and her beautiful, beautiful hosta garden.

Mona, thanks for having us.

- Thanks for being here.

- Why do you do this?

- Well, it's kind of a passion with us.

It didn't happen as soon as we moved here.

We've been in the house for like 30 years, but I didn't start gardening seriously until 2006, and that's when I first saw my first wooded garden in shade.

And we always tried to garden in the sun with sunny plants and it never worked out very well.

And I would always, I would get things that were for zone seven when I live in zone four.

So obviously those didn't work very well, either.

So anyway, once I discovered hostas, I knew that's what I wanted to do.

- Well, you've been very successful.

We've got a large garden here with wooded, shaded areas, tranquil.

It must be peaceful sometimes to just come out here and enjoy it.

- [Mona] Yeah, it is very peaceful.

Unfortunately, we don't usually take time to sit down unless somebody's in the garden with us because we'll sit down for five minutes and then figure out we had forgotten to do something or see a weed here or there and have to go take care of that, but.

- Mona, you mentioned zone four.

How is that different from zone seven?

- Well, zone seven, you can grow tropical plants.

I mean, obviously in the spring they're not gonna come back if we plant them in zone four, and it's all about the temperature, how cold it gets in the winter basically, so the plants just don't have enough protection.

- And so of course the audience can google plant growing zones.

- [Mona] Yeah.

- We're we're in about four, is that what you said?

- [Mona] We're in four here.

- If you go north of here, it'd be three and further- - Correct, yep.

You don't have to go very far south to get into five, and so we always have zone envy.

I go to conferences like down in Ohio or something, and they're talking about all these plants in zone five and I can't have them, so it's just like, oh, zone envy.

(Mona laughing) - Do the plants need watering and fertilizing?

What kind of care do you give to them?

- Well, hostas like a lot of water, and this year's been a challenge because it's been so dry.

We do have a sprinkler system that we use and we've been running it almost every day.

Fertilizer is early spring, usually 10/10/10 through the garden.

Other than that, just, yeah.

- 10/10/10, NPK, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium?

- Correct.

- Apply it at the roots?

In the soil?

How do you apply it?

- With a fertilizer spreader.

- [Dan] So it's broadcast.

- Broadcast, yes.

- [Dan] Awesome.

- Yep.

- Do the hostas prefer shade or sun or do some prefer different?

- [Mona] Well, they are claimed to be a shade plant, but there are certain ones that really do prefer a little bit more sun.

So you kinda have to gauge that as you go around the garden.

Sometimes I see one that's not looking so good, and I think, well, it might need a little more sun, or might get burned in the sun and need a little more shade.

But basically they're shady.

- [Dan] So do you move it?

What do you do?

- Yeah, I'll move it.

(laughing) It's never ending, you know?

(laughing) - What about companion plants?

- Oh, we have a lot of companion plants.

We have ferns, we have lilies, we have epimedium, we have cimicifugas, and oh, oh.

- What's the beautiful one behind us with red berries?

- [Mona] Oh, that's a baneberry.

I just took that out of the woods and planted it.

It's a native.

- It's awesome.

It really looks nice.

Nice accent, nice compliment.

- [Mona] Yeah, so.

- What advice do you have to somebody that's just beginning to be a gardener or just beginning to appreciate hostas?

- I would say find a hosta society and become involved.

Yeah, just be around gardening people, just kind of absorbing their knowledge as you're walking around.

Through a garden is, walking through a garden with a gardener is one of the best ways to find out information.

- Does the association or society have a website?

- Yeah, it's soghs.org.

It stands for Shades of Green Hosta Society.

- Perfect.

Mona, you talked about the American Hosta Society.

Who might belong to that?

Is it just people in the Midwest, the US?

- No, it's actually international.

There are people from Belgium, England.

Yeah, you can be from anywhere.

- And some of those people from around the world have been here?

- Oh yeah.

Yep.

- What a neat experience.

So you can interface with people from around the world with the common thing of plants and gardening.

- Oh, yeah.

Hostas are very, very popular.

- Do you name each of your plants?

- They already have their names.

They come with names, but I make a sign for each one of them so when people come in they can maybe see a hosta that they would like to have in their garden and they can take a picture of the tag and go buy their own.

- What's your favorite?

- Oh boy, that's tough.

That's a tough one.

A lot of people ask what your favorite is, and there are just so many that are beautiful.

There's big ones, small ones, minis, blue, red or blue, not red, blue and yellow, green.

So anyway, I like Key West.

Guardian Angel is one of my favorites.

Abba Dabba Do.

They have some fun names.

- There must be hundreds here.

- Yeah, we have close to 700.

- That's amazing.

And also, you're active in some associations that revolve around hosta.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

- I first got involved with, see, the Green Hosta Society back in 2006.

That's when I was first introduced to hostas.

And then, so I'm the treasurer there on the board and have met so many, so many friends.

Gardeners are always happy people.

I love that.

They're positive people to hang around, and very down to earth like me.

(laughing) And then I'm also involved with American, or the Midwest Regional Hosta Society, which just held their convention here in Rochester last weekend.

And our garden happened to be on tour that day.

So, and also the American Hosta Society, which is the National Hosta Society.

So, yeah.

- Has the American Association been here as well, or American Society?

- Last summer they held their convention in Minneapolis and they bused a couple of buses down here for the alternate day, so.

- That's how special this is.

- Yeah, it was fun.

That's our reward.

When we, you know, we work hard out here.

Everybody asks how many hours you put in the garden, and it's such a hard question to answer.

Of course, in the spring is much of the tedious work, getting rid of all the weeds and whatnot.

But this is our reward is to have people come in and enjoy the garden with us.

- [Dan] What a gift to your people that come by.

This is a very special place.

- Thank you.

Yeah.

- So is it something that you dreamed of doing before 2006 or just kind of happened?

- It's just evolved over time.

I mean, seriously, I didn't know what I wanted to do, and then just being around, going to other people's gardens and hanging around with people that know more than I did, I gradually learned about it and it just has evolved, so.

- [Dan] What's been the largest challenge to the project of gardening?

- Probably all the pests you have to put up with.

Slugs and deer and rabbits and, oh, moles diggin' through.

Squirrels will actually dig in the mulch and make it look awful.

And, you know, just critters.

(laughing) - And then of course, the greatest rewards.

- That's it.

Having people come in and enjoy it with us.

So, yeah.

- So this is a space where people and nature, plants, soil and environment, seem to intersect.

- Yeah.

It's very rewarding.

I mean, it's healthy to be in the garden.

It makes you feel good, gets rid of stress, can make you focus on the garden instead of all your other worldly challenges, I guess.

- Have you ever had a plant talk back?

- (laughing) No, I don't think so.

- They're not sassy?

- No.

- But I bet knowing what I've know about you and what I've seen, sometimes the plants speak to you in some way, don't they?

- Yeah, sometimes they say, "I'm not happy here."

They're not growing real well, so we have to find a new place for 'em.

Or they'll say, "This is great.

It's beautiful here.

I love it."

And they grow just fine, so.

- You've got fire pits, you've got a pond.

- [Mona] We do.

- You've got grills.

You've got tables.

- [Mona] (laughing) Yeah.

Yeah.

- Tell us about an event and how it would happen here if people came to- - Well, we like to have a summer event every year, and depending on the year, how big it is.

But we do like to entertain.

We've had some large groups here, we've had weddings here.

Yeah, it's one of our things we really love to do, so.

- Does food taste different outside?

- Maybe a little, maybe a little.

- So Mona, you've got a lot of work here and a lot of space.

Do you share with your family?

Do they help and make it a better place?

- My husband Rick is definitely a big part of the garden.

He was still working in 2006, so it took him a few years to come around, but he's definitely half or more of the labor in the garden, so definitely a team challenge.

- How about children and grandchildren?

- Well, the grandchildren love all the paths.

They just tear around here like crazy.

We tell 'em, "Just stay on the path and you'll be fine."

So kids, not so much, you know, but the grandchildren love it and they all come here to visit, but as far as actual work, no.

- Well, maybe in the future.

- [Mona] Maybe in the future, yeah.

- You also have paths that look like they have lights that light up at night.

- Yeah, they do.

We have quite a bit of evening lighting.

The pillars that we have around the patio also light up.

And then there's some upfront, as well, to, you know, invite people in, be inviting.

- So you have the seasonal change, and of course in Minnesota we've got at least four seasons, right?

- [Mona] Yeah, I guess so, yep.

- Sometimes those four seasons happen all in one day.

- [Mona] Yeah.

True, true, so.

- But from morning to noon to evening to night, does this space change, especially when you've got lighting?

- Oh yeah, definitely.

I actually like it when it's not so sunny because I think gardens look better in, you know, the shade garden, it really shows well in the shade, so.

I was just gonna mention when you said something about the different seasons.

You know, a lot of people ask how we treat the hostas for cleanup in the fall.

So there's two different theories on that.

Some people wanna take all the leaves off in the fall so that there's not so much cleanup in the spring.

We actually let everything die down and take care of it in the next spring because the leaves are all dry then and there's a lot less mess.

- At the end of the day, what's the greatest piece of gratification for all this work?

- Just looking back and seeing what you've done for the day.

I mean, cleaning it up in the spring is such a reward because it was such a mess.

And then when it's done you're like, wow, it is starting to come around and look good.

So, yeah.

- Well, thank you for sharing with us, Mona.

- You're welcome.

I'm glad you were here.

- Stay tuned for more on "Farm Connections."

- [Announcer] "Farm Connections" Best Practices brought to you by Absolute Energy.

(upbeat country music) - Hi, I'm Nathan Drewitz, University of Minnesota Extension educator for crops out of Rochester, and this is today's Best Practices.

Today we're gonna talk about alfalfa.

We're gonna be starting to look at fall and winter management, especially looking at how do we prepare our alfalfa stands to overwinter and to help us limit that potential for winter injury.

The first of those four numbers that I look at when I'm looking at overwintering and timing of our last alfalfa cutting is 24.

That 24 stands for 24 degrees Fahrenheit.

That is the temperature at which alfalfa goes dormant.

That is what we also classify as our killing frost for alfalfa.

The next number is 41.

That factors into the growing degree day model.

That is our base temperature for our growing degree model for alfalfa.

The other two numbers also play into that.

So 200 stands for 200 growing degree days, and 500 stands for 500 growing degree days.

Our goal is to time that last alfalfa cutting with either less than 200 growing degree days left in the season, or more than 500 growing degree days left in the season.

Keep in mind that we don't actually have to wait for that frost date before we can take that final cutting.

So in summary, remember our four big numbers here.

24 degrees Fahrenheit, 41 degrees Fahrenheit, 200 growing degree days, and 500 growing degree days.

I'm Nathan Drewitz with the University of Minnesota Extension, and this has been Best Practices.

(gentle acoustic music) - We traveled to a Minnesota Farmers Union meeting in Zumbrota to hear from dairy farmers about some of the challenges happening in that industry.

And with this as an authentic farmer, Emily Tweten from Lewiston, a dairy farmer that can tell us all about it.

Welcome to "Farm Connections."

- Thank you.

- Emily, I know you are passionate about dairy, but you do a lot of things in your community.

But today we're gonna focus on what is happening in dairy that's not so good.

- Yeah, I mean, we've been dairy farming for the last five generations.

I grew up on a dairy farm.

And just as of the last few months we've been just hit really hard with what we call like a perfect storm of events that have created this tragic crisis around our dairy industry.

- That doesn't sound so fun.

What's goin' on?

- So between just trying to sell off spot loads and low milk prices and having nowhere to go with our milk has been not fun.

So my dad, who farmed generations ago, used to say dairy farming was fun.

It used to be fun, and now it's somewhere where I don't know if we wanna encourage or can encourage our kids to wanna be part of this tragedy.

It's just, it's really not fun right now.

- You and your husband Carey farm near Lewiston.

How large is your farm?

- We have 800 cows.

- Is dairy farming hard work?

- Oh, yes.

(Dan laughing) It's the reason he couldn't come to this meeting today, so I am our representative.

My dad and I came to this meeting to represent our farm and our family and hopefully our future in this industry.

- Do you have children you're working with to try and bring into the operation?

- Yes, we have four kids and they all love being on the farm, they all love being part of the farm.

They love the seasonal work, they love working with our team and our cows.

And to see something like our family farm go away is just a true tragedy.

- So you've got two generations on the farm.

Three really.

- [Emily] Three.

- Grandpa and grandma.

- [Emily] Yep.

- You and Carey, and then the four children.

- [Emily] Yep.

- Do you have hired help as well?

- Yes.

Yes, we do.

We have people who help us milk cows.

We help have people help us feed the cows and feed the calves and do all of the harvesting and that kind of thing that needs to be done in order to bring our crop in each season.

- Well, there's a tremendous amount of work to be done and it has to be done at a certain time.

- [Emily] Yes.

- Including milking.

- Oh, yeah.

- What's the biggest problem with that price?

We heard inside the meeting today that, you know, in 2014, farmers could get $20 per hundred pounds of milk.

Today we hear that some farmers are getting less than 10, close to $9 a hundred weight.

- Yep.

- I mean, we've sold milk for $10 under class three price recently, which at the average cost of production being $18, $19, a hundred weight a day, it's just not gonna sustain farmers much longer at that price.

And if we can't sustain farming and if we can't continue producing a good and nutritious product, then we're gonna see the implications happening through the processing facilities and then into the milk, the storage units in the grocery store.

Milk prices are gonna go up because there's going to be less product out there as the cows go out.

- And possibly substituted with products that aren't as healthy and as good for the body as milk.

- Right.

Exactly, right.

- Do you have any thoughts on what can be done about this?

- Oh, there, like I said, this is just a perfect storm.

So whether it's a labor shortage, we've been told that there's labor shortages in the processing facilities, the milk price.

So, you know, selling our spot loads for a very low price, people are taking it right now, right?

But we can't get into a processing facility that's willing to pay us a patronage fee or a patronage price that's worth doing our job.

And that's just, that's just not fair.

Nobody would work for that, right?

Like, it just happens to be our passion in our industry.

We are here to feed the world, but we can't get paid for nothing.

Or we can't not get paid for what we're doing.

- It's unfair to expect you to work that hard for not at least making a profit.

- Right.

And we're not afraid of hard work.

- No, I know that.

- We just need to be paid for what we're doing.

- Let's back up just a little bit.

When you talked about the spot loads of pricing, you're having challenges with finding a place for your milk to be purchased, right?

Or for you to sell it.

- [Emily] Right.

- Can you back up to that and tell us what happened?

- So there's, you know, just different processing.

The processing facility that we were working with was having some issues and they're working to resolve those as fast as possible.

In the meantime, the milk can't be stored there.

And so because the milk can't be stored there, they can't purchase it from us.

And so then we have to figure out where else to go with it.

The ladies don't stop milking for any amount of the day.

We milk three times a day, 365 days a year, and we can't just have nowhere to go with our milk.

And we can't be told, "Hey, wait.

When school starts back up again in the fall, we'll take your milk."

It doesn't work that way.

They milk all of the time and we have a product, a very high quality product to sell all of the time.

And with nowhere to go with our milk, it's an impossible feat.

- And on top of that, a huge investment to get to the point where you were a consistent provider of quantity and quality, correct?

- Right.

I mean, we have three years of National Quality Milk awards sitting on a desk ready to be hung up on our wall.

And it's just, it's really tiring to have to quantify our value to an industry that doesn't value us, doesn't value us, and doesn't value our product that we're trying to contribute and putting into our nutrition system.

- So the buyer of your milk stopped buying it from you.

And it's somersaulted, cascaded down into many problems because now you've got milk that has to be sold daily or every other day, and you've got no place to go with it.

So other producers are coming in on what you call the spot market and saying, "Here's what we'll give you for that load of milk."

And it's not gonna be top dollar.

It's gonna be- - It's a garage sale price at this point.

And it's barely making, I mean, not breaking even, right?

Like, it's just, it's nothing.

I mean, some people are choosing to spread it out onto fields, which we don't like to see milk have to be wasted.

- No farmer likes that.

They've put a lot of energy and time and money and effort into producing a quality product.

They wanna see it nourish people.

- [Emily] Right.

- So what's next?

Where do we go from here?

You're a producer, you're doing a good job producing, the buyer is not buying, you don't really have a good place to go for your milk.

Why isn't the market saying, "We want your milk"?

What's going on?

- I really don't know what's going on.

We've been told that the cheese market is up.

Fluid milk is still selling.

You know, school is out.

We get a lot of excuses, but we really don't understand why it can't go somewhere.

We started a nonprofit three years ago called One Gallon at a Time because we knew that this was a problem.

The processing and the industry was saying, "We've got too much milk, we don't know where to go with it."

And yet I could walk into a local food shelf and there would be no dairy products on a shelf, and those people who need it the most or people who have, you know, are in poverty and needing food, we're not getting nutritious dairy products.

And so for us, we felt that that was a problem, there was a disconnect there.

Why we have no, they're telling us, "We don't need your milk anymore.

We have too much of it.

Stop producing so much."

And yet in our food shelves there's nothing.

So we started a nonprofit called One Gallon at a Time.

In order to raise funds, we would personally take that money to the local stores, purchase dairy products and deliver it to the local food shelves.

We were contributing to the backpack programs and the Food for Families events in our local areas just to move that product, and people were so appreciative of that fresh dairy product.

It was incredible the feedback we got from that.

- Excellent.

Thank you.

Is there any advice you have for the audience on things they can do to help?

- Put more cheese on your pizza, support your local farmers.

The people who are in your town are likely the people who are bringing you the dairy products, so support your local people.

Figure out where your local farmers are taking their milk to and then supporting that brand or that product.

That's super helpful.

- Thank you for that.

You mentioned a blog, you mentioned some programs.

Do you have any websites or blog sites?

- Yeah.

So we share our farm story, our hearty recipes, and our handmade home over on heartysol.net, as well as on our YouTube channel there.

- Thank you.

Thank you for sharing, Emily.

- Absolutely.

Thanks for having me.

- That's it for today.

Take a moment to enjoy all that you have around you and know the struggle is worth the effort.

I'm Dan Hoffman.

Thanks for joining us on "Farm Connections."

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