by Noel | May 29, 2018 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
The garden is off to a really slow start this year. It’s mostly April’s fault. That month gave us very cold weather right up until the end, so nothing got planted. For the first couple weeks in May we were practically under water and it’s only been the last two weeks that we’ve been able to get a lot accomplished. Here’s some flowering horseradish. I’ve promised to take a little better care of my horseradish this year and it’s looking good....
by Noel | Apr 20, 2018 | CobraHead, Environmental Issues, Garden Tools, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
I first met Mark Highland quite a few years ago, maybe at the Philadelphia Flower Show or at a Garden Writers conference. He already knew Geoff and Anneliese. Mark had just launched his company, Organic Mechanics, to produce high-quality potting soil. Since then, Mark has made a success of Organic Mechanics, and his passion for growing organically has evolved into his becoming a spokesperson for the organic method. Mark is a degreed horticulturalist whose...
by Noel | Apr 16, 2018 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
I’ve been starting my sweet potatoes from sprouted old roots rather than starting from new potatoes for quite a few years, now. It’s a close to fool-proof method. Here are 25 sprouts in a soil box. I removed the sprouts from the mother plants and cut them into handleable sections before shoving them into the soil. Note that many of the sprouts have already leafed out while still attached to the mother root. Some, however, are just pink sprouts that will quickly...
by Noel | Mar 28, 2018 | CobraHead, Gardening
I used to start my sweet potatoes like this, in a cup or jar of water. Now I don’t start them at all. I just let some old potatoes sprout on their own and plant the sprouts. I haven’t started sweet potatoes either in water or soil for quite a few years. After I realized that old sweet potatoes almost always put out viable sprouts on their own after about a year and a half, a discovery of leaving some in storage far too long, I just keep a few potatoes around to...
by Noel | Feb 26, 2018 | CobraHead, Environmental Issues, Gardening
Last week it rained heavily on top of solidly frozen ground. The result was a lot of localized flooding and ice ponds everywhere. The water had nowhere to escape. Our closest large drainage is Koshkonong Creek which runs more like a ditch under Highway 18 about three blocks west of here, then through downtown Cambridge and on its way to the Rock River and the Mississippi. Here’s an ice pond on my property. There are ice ponds everywhere in the area, and...
