by Noel | Sep 30, 2009 | Gardening
The cold weather that was delivered with five inches of rain last week dealt me this beautiful flush. The shiitake in my hand is neither the largest nor the smallest. It is one of twenty close to perfect mushrooms I sliced off the plugged logs this afternoon. I have a chance to win even bigger in the next few days. There are at least 27 more on the logs. They’re smaller, and I’m not sure if they are going to fill out as nicely as these. But I will bet...
by Noel | Sep 29, 2009 | CobraHead, Events, Gardening
We attended the Garden Writers Association 61st Annual Symposium in Raleigh , North Carolina, last week. It was CobraHead’s 6th GWA, and our fifth as an exhibitor. Here’s Anneliese putting the final touches on our booth. The symposium includes a trade show, seminars, speakers, tours, dinners, and awards. It is held in a different city every year, and tours of both public and private local gardens are a big part of the trip Pictures from the Sarah P....
by Noel | Sep 18, 2009 | Gardening
I’ve dug two sweet potato plants out early, well ahead of the first frost, which is when they will all need to be removed from the ground. The plant on the left yielded over four pounds of usable tuber. We’ve already eaten one tuber that weighed a little over a pound. The plant on the right will give us just over three pounds. So if our average continues, we could get about seventy pounds of sweet potatoes from 20 plants started in one bed. The...
by Anneliese | Sep 15, 2009 | Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, Gardening
About a week and a half ago, I bought a house. It’s my first house, and I have to admit I’m a bit intimidated by it. Just the idea of home ownership and the responsibility that goes with it is intimidating enough, but on top of that I had to go and buy a “fixer upper”. The house needs new windows, new wiring, more insulation, an additional bathroom, new paint in every single room, floor refinishing, and a couple of new basement steps. Did I...
by Noel | Sep 5, 2009 | Gardening
The bucket is holding over 28 pounds of Purple Viking and Durango potatoes that I dug yesterday. There are some very large specimens and I’m quite happy with this year’s crop. The entire bed yielded about 55 total pounds of spuds including these, some blue fleshed Adirondack Blue, and a little pinkish fingerling called Rose Finn Apple. I still have most of another bed to harvest, so we’ll be eating a lot of potatoes in the coming months. To...
