by Noel | Mar 20, 2020 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
Starting seeds is critical to my vegetable garden. Buying live plants is cost-prohibitive and only by starting seeds can I grow exactly what I want. The flats above are bottom heated with a heat mat. A sheet of plywood between the mat and the flats mitigates and spreads the otherwise too intense heat of the mat. The mat is connected to a timer, 15 minutes heat on, 60 minutes off. The unit doesn’t have a thermostat so this works reasonably well. The lights...
by Noel | Dec 12, 2019 | CobraHead, Environmental Issues, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
Every garden year is different. Because I grow a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, I can usually be assured that I’ll get some good harvests of most things, even if occasional failures occur. Thirty-three years of growing in the same area also contribute a lot of knowledge of how things work and increase the chance of success. Peppers, Sweet and Hot This year we had a better than average and most bountiful harvest of peppers, both sweet and hot....
by Noel | Nov 26, 2019 | CobraHead
With a lot of help from Andy, I got my garden beds completely covered with a thick layer of leaves. I do this every year. The effect on the soil is amazing. The leaves suppress weed growth over the winter and continue to be mulch in the paths well into the summer. We almost didn’t get the leaves off the lawn this year. I had raked a few piles, but an early snow followed by lots of rain left me wondering whether I would get leaves into the garden at all....
by Noel | Oct 23, 2019 | CobraHead, Recipes
We had a bountiful harvest of hot peppers so I made a large batch of hot sauce. This year we used an Instant Pot. I’m happy to report it made the task a lot easier. We did the cleaning, cooking and blending outside. Trying this indoors can be suicidal, so be warned. Removing Stems Here’s the recipe we used. Quantities and sauté time will need to be adjusted depending on the amount of peppers you have. 1 ¾ lb. of washed, de-stemmed, hot peppers 1...
by Noel | Sep 19, 2019 | CobraHead, Environmental Issues, Gardening
My gardening interest is in growing food. While I like flowers and ornamental plants, they are not my hobby. I’m definitely not passionate about growing them, learning their Latin names, or keeping up with the latest introductions. I’ve often said “if you can’t eat it, why grow it”, but I’m really not that cold about the beauty or necessity of flowers. We have a lot of colorful plants in the yard, but they are easy-care perennials and the work...
