About The River

Monday, March 2, 2026

Wisconsin Cotton

 

 

This growing adventure starts back in the winter of 2024, when my friend L gifted me a package of cotton with seeds for my December birthday. She and her husband had gone on a road trip to the South. On her way home to Wisconsin she picked me up my birthday gift. The challenge was, Carla can you grow cotton?

In early June of 2025 I placed the cotton seed ball in to a big pot in my greenhouse. My hope was the greenhouse would replicate enough southern heat to trick the cotton into thinking it was not in Wisconsin, but really in its home of Missouri. 

Look, we have growth. 

 

Cotton Flowers


The excitement of having cotton flowers, oh boy, one step closer to having Wisconsin cotton.

Late autumn was setting in and I needed to button up the greenhouse. I brought in all the plants I planned to try to save during the winter. The cotton was one of them. We still had to make it to harvest.






December 2025, it is looking good, two pods of cotton have formed and will soon be ready for harvest. One for my friend L and one for me.


 Wisconsin cotton boll sitting in my window sill. I started the cotton in early June and harvested two stems in mid December. 

It worked. 

 ♥

Carla 


4 comments:

  1. Wait just a cotton picking minute! This is Amazing!! You must truly have a green thumb! Now, what will you do with all your lovely cotton? Use the cotton balls for removing makeup? Or save them and weave them into something lovely someday? (I know nothing about how to do that, but it sounds good). Thank you for sharing your cotton story with us!! Just don't let those "cotton balls get rotten", or you won't get "very much cotton" in those old cotton fields back home... LOL. Have a lovely day!!

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  2. Well you are definitely gifted in the growing department : ) Just last year I discovered there's a field of cotton growing very nearby us. I'd never seen it in all the years we've been here but it was so pretty. I love the way cotton looks when it blooms. Have a nice week!

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  3. YAY for your success in growing cotton in Wisconsin. Once driving through West Virginia we came across fields of it. It was white everywhere. So cool. Janice

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  4. This is so neat! I love that you grew cotton in Wisconsin!! It's such a pretty flower and the cotton is so cool looking. Great job!!

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High Fives from Wisconsin!