Chuck Neil tells me that he and his partner Mickey White have the “coldest garden in the lower forty-eight.” Chuck’s great grandparents came from Finland to homestead not far from here. This particular Embarrass farm was home to Chuck’s great uncle George Warho who grew potatoes and hay on these ninety acres. Today, most of it has gone back to forest except for the eleven buildings that survive, the orchard, and the fifty-by-fifty garden in the little valley below the house. The house is a work in progress, starting out as a twenty-two by twenty-four-foot home at the Mesaba Location (now Aurora). When the mine was expanding, they put the local houses on the market. Chuck’s great grandfather dismantled the house and moved it with carts and horses over the Laurentian Divide to this place in the 1930’s. He dug the basement by hand and reconstructed the house.
Over the years, buildings were added, either constructed on site or, like the log barn, moved in from elsewhere. What is now the pump house was a summer kitchen. Of course there’s a sauna. And a “loom shed” where Finnish rag rugs were woven by hand. Many additions have been made to that original house. On the day I visit, we wait out a rainstorm in a newly-added spacious room with huge windows overlooking the log barn, the herb gardens, and the large main garden down the hill.
Chuck grew up in St. Paul and landed here forty-five years ago. Mickey grew up in Boston, but her family came to northern Minnesota in the summer. For two folks who originated in the big cities, they’ve built quite a productive place here. Mickey also forages in the eighty-five acres of surrounding forest—berries of every type, mushrooms, herbs, greens, and anything else that looks useful. The basement stores canned goods of all kinds as well as the end of last year’s kabocha squash—still fresh and edible! The garden is planted with leeks, beets, carrots, parsnips, brussels sprouts, broccoli, kale, collards, chard, lettuces, spinach, potatoes, twenty-one tomato plants, peas, pole beans, bush beans and kabocha squash in three varieties. Herbs and garlic grow farther up the hill. So how do you grow this kind of abundance in such a cold place without a hoop house/high tunnel or a greenhouse?
This is a well-documented process, thanks to Chuck and Mickey’s annual maps and careful notes about the progress of each crop. Half of the fifty-by-fifty plot is planted in buckwheat as a cover crop and the other half bears veggies, with the halves switched each year. Chuck starts seeds in the basement under grow lights about April 15 and puts the month-old plants in the ground, outside, about May 15. Tomatoes are surrounded by “tomato teepees” or “water walls” (see Gempler’s “season starter plant protectors” online for an example). The water-filled heavy transparent plastic cylinder-shaped surrounding withstands frost, keeps the soil warm, and lets in critical sunlight until the last danger of frost has passed. Other cold-tolerant vegetables are planted in a large frame about a foot and a half high, spanning the width of the garden and covered with “row cover” material. They thrive in the protected environment until mid-to-late June when the cover comes off.
You’d think such a lush garden in a little valley would be deer heaven! But they’re not bothered by deer even though the five-foot fence has stood many years. Meadow voles have been the pests who’ve done the most damage this year, eating successive plantings of peas. The mosquitos are out in force when I visit, but we wear mesh bug gear to visit the garden. The teepees and coverings are all off now (July 5) and the tomatoes are already huge, kale leaves are twice the size of my hand, and bright yellow-orange squash blossoms shine in the sun.
There’s a small orchard out in front of the house, and numerous ski trails going every direction for winter fun. The trails connect with other neighbors’ trails to form a large crisscrossing network of paths. Chuck and Mickey are avid birders as are many of the neighbors, so they’re active around the farm in all seasons. Most of the folks who live around here know each other. They barter and exchange what they grow, hunt, fish, and forage so that everyone’s larder is full for winter. Mickey also sells produce at the Tower Farmers Market, a local volunteer effort held every Friday from four to six pm during the summer at the train depot on the edge of town. Check out the market on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TowerFarmersMarket. You can buy local meat and bread there, too.
Don’t let anyone tell you we can’t grow enough to feed ourselves on the Range. If Chuck and Mickey can grow abundance in the coldest garden in the lower forty-eight, we can do it!
