Green Grown | Mother Earth Gardens

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Mother Earth Gardens Voted Best in the Twin Cities

Mother Earth Gardens has four times been named by Minneapolis' City Pages as "Best Garden Center" in its annual "Best Of The Cities" feature.

2010: BEST GARDEN CENTER

Winner: Mother Earth Gardens

" A Minnesota growing season is akin to a sprint. There's so little time to work with that the virtue of patience is forgotten in the spring rush to get seeds and seedlings into the ground. Sometimes we jump the gun and lose much of our investment to late-season (but, we must admit, predictable) frosts and freezes. Mother Earth Gardens helps us turn our gardening efforts into something more resembling a marathon: In the dead of winter and into early spring, the store offers free classes to get growers thinking and planning, but not actually doing until the time is right. Offerings have recently included Urban Vegetable Gardening, Gardening for Wildlife, and Basic Tree Pruning. And Mother Earth won't sell you plants that have been pumped full of chemicals to get their flashy appearance or abundant yet tasteless vegetables. The staff here is aware that with just a little more effort and knowledge you can grow organically, gazing upon flowers and harvesting healthy produce while keeping your soil in good shape for next year. They carry compostable pots, sustainably produced products, and heirloom seeds. There are gardening books, both for purchase and in a small reference library, that you're not likely to find at other stores. They even have a garden-consultation service: If you don't know what to do with your yard, have an expert come by to look over your space and help you out. This friendly neighborhood shop (which is closed for most of January but otherwise open all year) makes sure its customers get the most out of our brief, precious growing season without collapsing, exhausted, at the autumn finish line."

MN Women's Press 2010: Favorite garden shop.

Mother Earth Gardens
How green is your garden? Mother Earth Gardens is all about sustainable, organic gardening and eco-friendly products. Women owned and managed, it's a neighborly place to take a class or get help to plan your garden. Kids and dogs welcome. You love browse the dazzling annuals, edibles and one-of-a-kind garden décor.

Original Women's Press Article

MN Women's Press 2009: Favorite garden shop.

If your green sensibility matches your green thumb, then do some digging at Mother Earth Gardens. Located in Minneapolis' Longfellow neighborhood, Mother Earth Gardens specializes in organic, sustainably grown plants and eco-friendly garden supplies and gifts. Whether your gardening interest is just sprouting or has taken root years ago, you'll find tools, information and classes to help you love and cultivate the Earth.

Original Women's Press Article

St. Paul Pioneer Press: Minnesotans and millions of other Americans are expected to raise of bumper crop of backyard vegetables this year, by Molly Millett.

A couple of weeks ago, local gardening editor Mary Lahr Schier thought she'd start sprouting vegetable seeds indoors to get a jump-start on the Minnesota growing season...

Mother Earth Gardens Voted Best in the Twin Cities

Mother Earth Gardens has three times been named by Minneapolis' City Pages as "Best Garden Center" in its annual "Best Of The Cities" feature.

2008: BEST GARDEN CENTER

Winner: Mother Earth Gardens

" Dealing with a short growing season and a long winter, a backyard gardener in this part of the country is an efficient and patient animal. One must work quickly when planting time comes, and must wait and wait and wait for it all winter long. It is easy for such an animal to want from its growing season the promise of an uncontested campaign to make seed into bounty. This might explain why nearly every garden store in the Twin Cities is thick with the acrid air of pesticide stock. The organic gardener need only pass through the parking lot of a garden store with window down and nose a-sniffin' to tell whether it's earth-friendly. Outside Mother Earth Gardens, all you can sniff is green. One of the few stridently organic garden supply stores in the Twin Cities, Mother Earth has adapted masterfully to the gardeners it serves. During growing season, you'll find pots, plants, guides, and even consultantsÑof both the contract and informal, neighborhoody variety. Everybody smiles in this place--and it's not clear if it's the staff or the customers who start it. In the winter, there are locally grown Christmas trees and a Santa with a real beard (who seems to have a Ph.D. in being a holiday icon--he was overheard last Christmas talking to a five-year-old about the Roman feast of Saturnalia). More crucially, the store offers seminars, especially during the long winter months of January and February, on getting ready to garden. Attendees make maps and charts and dream anxiously of their bounty to be. Then these efficient and patient animals go home and sit, waiting for the sun to burn through the snow, spade and charts in hand, pesticides be damned."

HomeLife Magazine: Mother Earth Gardens feature article

Everyone has their own answer to the question “If you could invite anyone to dinner, who would you choose?” Here’s my spin on that intriguing proposition: If I could invite anyone to share a glass of iced tea with me in my backyard, I would choose Paige Pelini and Karen O’Connor, owners of Mother Earth Gardens in Minneapolis.

Two Long Time Friends Put Down New Roots at Mother Earth Gardens

First of all, the close friends (Pelini was a doula for the birth of O’Connor’s son) and current business partners clearly have a genuinely delightful relationship with one another. They joke about being in very different stages of parenting: Pelini, a single mom, is the mother of three teenage girls (and for that reason alone, she would not be faulted for wanting something stronger than iced tea) while O’Connor and her husband are raising two boys, ages five and two, who have recently developed an affinity for the tales of Captain Underpants.

Both women characterize their relatively new business partnership as being very honest and straightforward. “While we do very different jobs here, with some overlap, we trust each other 100%,” says O’Connor. “We communicate so well. And after being in business together for over a year now, we’re still friends!” Business is blooming, so to speak, at Mother Earth Gardens due in large part to an experienced staff, a commitment to quality products, and both Pelini’s and O’Connor’s incredible knowledge about gardening. (That’s the other reason I’d welcome them into my own garden–I could definitely use some advice!).

2005: BEST GARDEN CENTER

"This neighborhood garden center in south Minneapolis is Mecca for garden gurus and novices alike. Here, the botanical-minded can find everything they need to create their very own oasis: wooden wind chimes that won't drive the neighbors batty, unique annuals that will make the same neighbors jealous, a wide assortment of clay pots that are sure to match any decor, and handmade decorations like glass butterflies that will add a signature touch to your labor of love. Plus, this meditative retreat in the center of the city is one of the few places that offer organic gardening supplies. There's no longer any need to kill those persistent weeds using earth-polluting chemicals. Instead, opt for a magical mixture of vinegar and lemon that will make even the thickest thistle shrivel up like it just got dropped into the deep fryer. Plus, the center's beyond-friendly employees are so knowledgeable about how to make a garden grow they could sprout gardenias from their fingertips. In winter."

2002: BEST GARDEN CENTER

"The Cities and suburbs are scattered with greenhouses so jam-packed with lawn ornaments and holiday knickknacks that they might as well be listed under "toys" in the yellow pages--and there's nothing wrong with that. But the smaller neighborhood garden centers often have better service and better doodads. Located in a large lot across the street from the Riverview Theatre, Mother Earth has all of the essential utilities and unessential extras you'll need come spring, from attractive clay pots to kids' gardening items such as tiny rubber Sloggers. The large lot and indoor store are also filled with cool garden decorations, from a giant hand-crafted metal butterfly to a cast-iron tower that looks like an oil well. What's more, as its title implies, Mother Earth is geared toward the gardener who wishes to keep the soil, the earth, and the self healthy--which isn't as tall an order as it seems. There's a broad selection of organic gardening products, including seeds harvested from plants raised without synthetic pesticides. For anyone hoping to make a yard bloom without dumping a vat of chemicals into the neighborhood, this is a good place to start."

Phone: (612) 724-2296
Fax: (612) 724-8463

3738 42nd Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55406 [map]

Store Hours: M-W: 9am-7pm, Th-F: 9am-8pm, Sat: 9am - 6pm, Sun: 10am - 6pm