By Connie Nelson

I've been saving bags of leaves to mulch my garden. They're stacked back by the garage, just waiting for the cold. The cold that doesn't seem to want to come.

I know it's best to wait until the ground starts to freeze. (Pesky pests can burrow in the mulch if it goes in too early.) And that the real job of winter mulch is not to keep the cold out, but to hold it in the soil, so the temps don't fluctuate as much. But I'm having a hard time waiting.

I spent last weekend out in the yard, cutting back the last of the plants I plan to cut back (which isn't much). I want to be done. I want to have that feeling when your garden is put to bed for the season. That i'm-all-done feeling. So I'm tempted to go ahead and mulch, temps be darned!

What say you, gardeners of the northland? Are you mulching? Are you waiting? Or are you skipping both?

By Connie Nelson

I never used to roll my eyes when gardeners talked about their compost, describing ttexture and smell of their "black gold."

That was before I turned my first compost pile for the 7th time and found out that I, too, had completed compost, that I had made my own black gold.

It sounds lame to be excited about something like compost. But if you think about it, it's really cool. You put coffee grounds and leaves and rotten celery and the stems from a bouquet in a black bin. And you water, maybe. And you wait. And you get high-quality garden soil.

When you add compost to your garden, grass and around your trees and shrubs, you're helping to improve your soil. But new research shows compost also makes a good natural food. And if you spread your compost around plants once or twice a year, you can reduce or eliminate the need to feed. Cool huh?

If you're on the fence about composting, check out this blog post by the Star Tribune books editor, Laurie Hertzel.

By Helen Yarmoska, guest blogger

I recently went to a Minnesota hort society seminar on the emerald ash borer. My take away? If you ignore it, it WON’T go away.

Dave Hanson, a research specialist at the U of M, delivered the bad news. He said it’s not a question of "if" but "when" most ash trees will be affected by the pest. And the area most likely to be hit hardest is the heart of the Twin Cities.

He urged people within a 15-mile radius of the infestation area in St Paul to examine their ash trees now or have a professional arborist take a look. And a 15-mile radius covers pretty much all of Ramsey and Hennepin Counties.

Hanson said that if you own ash trees, you’re going to have to decide to treat or cut. Leaving ash trees alone isn’t an option, because the borer will get them sooner or later. Treating your ash trees can be expensive and time consuming; because you (or a hired professional) need to do it every year for five to 10 years. Not treating them just gives those bad bugs an opportunity to flourish and to change our landscape even more quickly.

 If you want to know more, check out this link: Do I have Emerald Ash Borer? 

 Then, let us know what you’re going to do. Are you going to cut your ash trees or treat them? What about the city-owned trees?

By Connie Nelson

. . . the only problem is, I don't have a Plan B.

I don't have a ton of tomatoes. I let lots of them go. I just threw them in the composter, vines and all. But I did save a couple handfuls from my heirloom tomato. They were big and juicy and looked like they're ripen given a little time on the counter.

No such luck.

Now I've got to spend my weekend turning green tomatoes into something. I'm not a baker, so green tomato pie is out of the question. My pal Shelly, who's sitting on TONS of green tomatoes, just sent me this recipe for green tomato relish from Mother Earth News.

I made some tomato jam earlier in the season. It was divine, but a little goes a long way.

What are you going to do with your won't-go-red tomatoes?