by Noel | Mar 31, 2025 | CobraHead
About 30 years ago I accidentally left some sweet potatoes in the basement well past their one year maximum shelf life. The potatoes were wrapped in newspaper in a relative dry environment. As I unwrapped the potatoes I found they were dehydrating and all the potatoes had put out sprouts, which, for lack of light, were pale pink or red, but were indeed, totally alive little sweet potato vines, feeding off the mother plant. I realized these sprouts would be easy to...
by Noel | Mar 28, 2025 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
I’ve grown food for a long time. I learned a lot about home gardening from my mother who gardened because she had to, as we had little money. I also learned a lot from the neighbor next to us who was a vegetable gardener extraordinaire. Mrs. Martin came from her house in inner Detroit almost daily in growing season to garden a quarter acre plot next to our house in Warren, which borders Detroit on its north side. Rose Martin took a bus route that required several...
by Noel | Feb 28, 2025 | CobraHead, Gardening
I haven’t been thinking too much about my garden in February, and I definitely haven’t done anything outside. The 14 below lows and bitter cold days have kept me indoors. It did warm up this week, so I went to the garden to check things out. The garden fork hits ice between 2 to 6 inches. Our lack of snow cover this winter means the frost is quite deep and will take a little longer to thaw out. I won’t be working the soil anytime soon. Here’s my compost pile. This...
by Noel | Jan 31, 2025 | CobraHead
Here’s a picture of our main garden. There’s nothing going on. That’s okay with me, as winter provides a vacation from most gardening chores. I don’t maintain a greenhouse, so things are pretty easy in December and January. But February brings on the work for the new season. Note the total lack of snow cover. We’ve had almost no snow this winter. In the old weather normal, we could often count on a good snow cover from December through March. And though it...
by Noel | Nov 19, 2024 | CobraHead, Environmental Issues, Gardening, Leaf covef for garden
Years ago we could expect a heavy blanket of snow to cover the garden from December until March. Snow cover is a good thing, but we can no longer count on it. Until this week, November temperatures in southern Wisconsin have been way above historic normals. It’s cooling off, but the meteorologists are predicting little snow cover for this year. Snow or not, I try to cover as much of my garden as possible with leaves. Leaves act as a weed suppressant, they insulate...
