by Noel | Apr 5, 2015 | CobraHead, Gardening
Open raised beds lend themselves well to home vegetable growing. A trellised pea planting demonstrates their versatility. I try to cover my beds with leaves in the fall. The leaves protect the beds during the hard freeze, slow down weed production, and make it easier to get into the garden early in the spring. This picture shows the leaves raked off and any weeds that did sneak through pulled out. I use the leftover leaves as mulch in the paths or I just sweep...
by Noel | Mar 30, 2015 | CobraHead, Gardening
I like to start my own seeds. I rarely buy started vegetables. Starting your own seed saves lots of money and it gives you access to far more variety than you can find by buying plants started by others. And if you have a larger garden, buying plants quickly becomes cost prohibitive. My seed starting ritual has evolved to a fairly consistent pattern. I try to start my onions in mid to late January. Tomatoes, eggplants, and most brassicas have a March 15th target...
by Noel | Feb 18, 2015 | CobraHead, Gardening
Our daughter Anneliese has a good friend, Jason Weiss, who is a professional cinematographer. Jason and I spent a few days in the garden last summer shooting CobraHead tools in action. Jason then edited the videos and produced eight different titles and a loop for us to use at trade shows. We’re quite happy with the finished product. We’ve got them loaded up on YouTube and our website. If you’d like to spend a few minutes looking at them, it may make you forget...
by Noel | Feb 17, 2015 | CobraHead, Gardening
Here are three flats of onions I planted on February 8th, 9 days ago. Most of the nearly 1,600 seeds are sprouting nicely in flats in the basement. The flats are on a heat mat and lit with various LED grow lights we have accumulated over the last few years. The onions are growing in a commercial potting soil. I used to make my own potting soils, but I’ve found the commercial mixes to be much more reliable in giving me good strong root growth, and they are...
by Noel | Dec 7, 2014 | CobraHead, Gardening
The garden is put to bed. I was diligent about dragging in leaves to cover most of the beds with a thick protective layer. Last year snows and cold weather came before I was ready and the leaf covering ritual was interrupted. That caused me much more work this season than I wanted to do, but I did learn a lot about weeding. Without the leaf cover, weeds emerged sooner and the ground in the beds was not as soft. The extra weeding re-affirmed my belief that we...
