Rough Earth Snake

While planting my asparagus bed the other day, I uncovered a couple of rough earth snakes.  This was the third or fourth time that I have found these insect and worm eating snakes in my garden.  These two were smaller, but I have seen them get as long as one foot. I like having the snakes in the garden, but I move them over to the brush pile so that I don’t accidentally stab them with a digging fork.

Planting Asparagus Crowns

I decided to reserve the far bed in my garden for a perennial planting of asparagus and thornless blackberries.  I picked up ten asparagus crowns at The Natural Gardener earlier this week and chose UC-72, the variety that they recommend for Central Texas.  I have grown asparagus before in Wisconsin, but the planting guide that The Natural Gardener provided had some useful advice. First, I prepped the beds by digging two trenches in one of my raised beds about...

2010 Garden Reflections

Gardeners are risk takers.  They have to be.  Nothing is guaranteed with seeds and plants.  Even with the best care failures occur.  I tried several new things last year and had some successes and some failures, but as usually happens, what works outweighs what doesn’t. Running two businesses keeps me short on time.  My garden is most always a weedy mess.  It’s gardening on the run.  I’m gone many weekends doing trade shows and while I do get...

Oneida Corn Soup

Last week Ted Skenandore came to Austin for a visit and brought me a bundle of dehydrated Oneida White Corn that he grew at the Tsyuhehkwa Farm on the Oneida reservation in northeast Wisconsin.  Ted and I used to work together at Tsyuhehkwa running the farm and community agriculture program before I moved to Austin. The Oneidas brought this variety of white corn with them when they resettled in Wisconsin after leaving New York State in the 1820s.  It is the same...

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