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...
by Noel | Nov 3, 2014 | CobraHead, Gardening
I try to plant garlic in late October. This year we were a day late and the garlic went into the ground on the first of November. I had previously prepared the bed so all I had to do was soften the soil a little and with a steel rake make three relatively equal ridges running the length of the beds. The garlic was shoved into the top of the ridges until it was just covered. I also scattered a lot of lettuce seeds, salads greens and cilantro along all the slopes...
by Noel | Sep 24, 2014 | CobraHead
Early in July I posted about a heavy duty tomato trellis I constructed with T Posts and bamboo stakes: T Post and Bamboo Tomato Trellis. I’m happy to report the trellis performed exceptionally well. I’m going to build one again, next year and I already know some minor changes I’m going to make. Lacing the tomato stems to the bamboo forces the plants to maintain excellent vertical growth. A lot of the plants are growing well over the 8 foot height of the bamboo...
by Noel | Aug 17, 2014 | CobraHead, Environmental Issues, Gardening, Recipes
Judy made this season’s first salsa yesterday. It’s about as local as you can get. Everything in it is from the garden except the lime. Here’s the recipe: 2 cups chopped cherry tomatoes – red, yellow, orange – most any tomato will work, but the cherry tomatoes, especially the orange Sungolds, give it a particular zing. ¼ c. chopped red onion 3 cloves garlic – chopped finely 1 T. hot pepper (or to taste) – chopped finely ½ c. cilantro – chopped 1 lime –...
by Noel | Jul 8, 2014 | CobraHead, Gardening
I didn’t have the heart to cull out some of my beautiful and healthy tomato starts so I ended up with 78 plants in two beds. My normal planting is 60 plants in two beds so I had to cheat a little on the spacing. I opened up the width across the rows and pushed the plants as far to the edges of the bed as I thought I might get away with. I still came close to a 20″ spacing between plants and that’s close to what I always do. I’d already...
