Lyon County Master Gardeners

06/05/2026

Susan Dwyer Morton

06/05/2026

A huge thank you to the Marshall Area YMCA for hosting our plant sale!

06/05/2026

Lyon County Master Gardeners plant sale is underway on the lawn at the Marshall Area YMCA. Along Marvin Schwan Drive.

05/16/2026

We ate a rainbow this morning and then played with our food!

05/16/2026

https://marshalllyonlibrary.org/lyon-county-seed-library/

05/16/2026

Good news! Lyon County Master Gardeners and the Marshall Lyon County Library have combined their resources and created a seed library! Stop by the Che Out desk at the library and “check” out some seeds.

05/14/2026

05/08/2026

Mai rain good watering and air practices in your tomato
To beds. Excellent article on Epsom Salt myth.

Picture this in your head. Your garden is growing, the tomatoes, squash, and peppers are green, lush, and doing great. You have had blooms for a while, and those first fruits have set and are slowly growing. You check your tomatoes a few days later, after a period of hot days with low humidity, and....

05/08/2026

The bee you're trying to save isn't the one doing most of the pollination in your yard. North America has roughly 4,000 native bee species. One honeybee species gets the campaigns, the bumper stickers, and the documentaries.

Native solitary bees don't live in hives. They nest in the ground, in hollow stems, in tiny holes in old wood. They don't make honey. They don't swarm. Most of them can barely sting. And per flower visit, they transfer more pollen than a honeybee — because they're messier, less efficient collectors, which means more pollen lands where the plant actually needs it.

Mason bees alone can pollinate an apple orchard with a fraction of the numbers a honeybee colony requires. Sweat bees handle low-growing wildflowers honeybees skip entirely. Mining bees work in cooler temperatures when honeybees stay in the hive.

🐛 What's already nesting near you:
- Small metallic-green bees on your flowers are sweat bees — one of the largest native bee families, and they've been showing up every spring without a single headline
- Tiny holes in bare soil patches aren't ant nests — mining bees raise their young underground, one egg per chamber, and they were there before you noticed
- A "bee hotel" houses mason bees and leafcutter bees, but the ground nesters outnumber them and just need a patch of undisturbed dirt

The honeybee got the brand. The solitary bees got the territory 🌿

05/08/2026

https://extension.umn.edu/beneficial-insects/lady-beetles

Quick facts Minnesota is home to more than 50 species of native lady beetles (also known as ladybugs or ladybird beetles), as well as introduced lady beetle species. All lady beetles eat insects, as well as nectar and pollen, making them beneficial insects. Some species of lady beetles are a nuisanc...