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Fall-Apart
Tender Slow Roasted Pork

Cooking meat slowly
at low temps dissolves both fat and connective tissue to produce a tender juicy dish.

1 T paprika

4 T brown sugar

1 � tsp chili powder

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp salt

� tsp cayenne pepper

1 � cups chicken broth

� cup apple juice

3 -4 pound bone-in pork shoulder butt roast

Purchased barbeque sauce

Preheat oven to 400. Sprinkle the meat on all sides with rub. Place in Dutch oven. Add apple juice and chicken broth. Cover. Place in oven. Turn oven down to 300.

Roast for 4 hours (no peeking). Remove meat from drippings and pull apart with two forks. Cover and refrigerate.

Pour drippings into separate bowl and refrigerate overnight. Remove fat crust. Reheat meat. Add enough drippings and barbeque sauce to moisten.

Enjoy!

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Branching Out with Faith Appelquist

Questions, suggestions or comments are welcome.

Contact Faith at (612) 618-5244 or by email

Keeping Up with the Joneses

74,884: the number of people injured
by lawn mowers from 1994-2004.
53%: percentage of households surveyed that

did not follow label directions for pesticides and fertilizers.
7 million: the number of birds that die each year
because of lawn-care pesticides.
17 million: gallons of gasoline spilled each year
in the process of refueling lawn mowers.
11 million: gallons of oil spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster.
178,000: gallons of water a single golf course
in Tampa Florida uses each day.
382,850: acres of land converted to lawn each year.
$ 40 billion: the amount Americans
spend each year on lawn care.

* Source: American Green by Ted Steinberg, 2006.

Ultimately, the perfect lawn, like the perfect body, is a gigantic fantasy founded on two resources our nation is quickly running out of- oil and water. Lawns are hopelessly dependent on fossil fuels. It takes natural gas to produce lawn fertilizer, petroleum to power the mower and oil to keep the blowers buzzing.

Read about the 10 Things your Landscape Company won't tell you.

Ground Covers for Shade

Here's a quick list of my favorite ground covers that will add pizzazz to shady spots or a woodland garden. They are all spreaders and fill in to keep weeds at a minimum. So, if you have freed your woodlot of buckthorn and would like to keep World War III of invasive weeds from vying for the open space, you should give these a try. And the deer won't touch them. I also list some plants that make a poor substitute and are best left at the nursery.

1. Canadian Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense): Wild ginger is one of those rare plants that flourishes in dense shade. Although not related to culinary ginger its fleshy root does have a spicy aroma. Low and spreading, with heart-shaped leaves, it adds beauty to a moist woodland garden. Avoid: The European species (Asarum europaeum)
2. Dead Nettle (Lamium maculatum): Lamium brightens a shady corner with its silver-marked foliage. This groundcover reaches 6-8 inches tall and prefers sun to part shade. It is one of the few plants happy to grow under a conifer. Pretty white or mauve flowers show up in May or June. Bees love it. Avoid: Yellow Archangel (Lamiastrum galobdolon'Variegatum')
3. Pachysandra (Pachysandra terminalis): Japanese pachysandra is an evergreen ground cover for partial to full shade. It produces fragrant white flowers in May and grows to about a foot tall. Great under bushes and in the open dry shade found under evergreen trees. Susceptible to leaf blight, which results from a fungus. Thin out occasionally and don't water overhead. Avoid: Periwinkle (Vinca minor)
4. Sweet Woodruff (Galium odoratum): Plant below trees and shrubs where it's tiny white spring flowers will bloom about the same time as crabapples and will last for several weeks. Reaching only about 6 inches tall, sweet woodruff forms delicate well-behaved clumps of fine foliage on upright stems. Easy to start from seed broadcast directly onto the forest floor. Avoid: Lily-of-the-Valley (Convallaria majalis)
5. Big-Root Geranium (G. macrorhizum 'Bevans Variety'): I wonder how many square miles of this plant I have grown and given away. The Big-Root is so named because it grows from a ropelike rhizome that barely needs to touch the ground to thrive. It grows about 12 inches high, and has attractive foliage and cheery purple flowers in the summer. It is the first to pop up in the spring and the last to leave. Avoid: Snow on the Mountain (Aegopodium)
6. Dwarf Bush Honeysuckle (Diervilla lonicera): Steep slopes are tough sites. Whether the problem is soil erosion or difficulty mowing, bush honeysuckle is a garden workhorse. It is a low-growing, suckering native shrub reaching about 3-5 feet high. It requires almost no maintenance, isn't fussy about soil and is perfectly happy in sun or shade. Avoid: (Diervilla sessilifolia 'Cool Splash')
7. Ostrich Fern (Matteucia struthiopteris):A Minnesota native that is quick to colonize a woodland and give it that 'Jurassic Park' look. New fiddle head babies sprout as much as 3 feet from the parent plant due to rhizome roots. Rich, glossy green fronds can reach about 4 feet high. They prefer dense, moist shade and will look like heck if planted in sun or dry soil.

Thanks for reading. Happy Planting!

Faith

Faith Appelquist

President & Founder