Working the Land: KLN employee has been growing things her entire life

For as long as Christine Diers can recall, she has enjoyed working the soil. Diers began growing and tending to plants during her childhood and continues that practice today at her Minnesota home.

Having grown up on a farm, she was always pulling weeds or engaged in some other necessary chore related to growing crops.

Today, her gardening endeavors include growing flowers and vegetables in her yard, and potted plants in her home. She finds joy in tending to her plants and spends as much time as she possibly can in her garden.

The majority of the plants she raises are flowers, which are in large flower beds around her yard. She maintains large flower beds in her front and rear yards.

“I enjoy watching for butterflies and bees,” Diers says of the insects attracted by the flowers.

Winters in Minnesota are long. She uses that time to determine what she will grow in the warmer months. Once the ground thaws — typically in May — she begins planting.

Diers plans to grow more vegetables this year than she has in the past. She has lived at her current home for roughly three years and is in the process of deciding where to create a permanent vegetable garden.

She hasn’t decided which vegetables she will grow this year, but she tends to pick those her family enjoys eating. One food she looks forward to making from the vegetables she plants this summer is salsa, and she also enjoys making homemade pasta sauce.

She also enjoys canning her vegetables, and while she has not done much of that the past two years, she plans to get back into it this summer.

Diers also shares her bounty — both vegetables and flowers — with friends and family. She hopes to one day build a greenhouse so she can grow things out of season. That will allow her to share even more with others, she says.

People interested in starting their own gardens can find a plethora of information online or in the community, she adds.

“YouTube has some good videos, and I ask a lot of questions at greenhouses when I’m buying the plants to start my yearly garden,” she says. “I also advise people to start small.”