Hurray for the Volunteers!

Volunteer Salad Greens We’re getting lots of volunteer lettuces and other salad greens this year.  I’m transplanting some to the pea bed and elsewhere, but most we are just harvesting the whole plant where they are growing. I talked about letting salad greens bolt and go to seed in a post last September: http://blog.cobrahead.com/2012/09/10/simple-seed-saving/ In addition to some lettuce seed which I saved and scattered  throughout the garlic bed, a...

Transplanting Strawberries

I try to keep three beds of strawberries in rotation and moving through the garden.  Bed one contains the newly transplanted plants.  Bed two holds one year old plants, and the third bed, two year old plants.  New plants yield little, but the one and two year old plants yield well.  Fall transplanting might make for better yields, but I prefer to transplant in spring when my clayey beds are very wet.  The strawberries are less susceptible to stress and need very...

Master Rosarian Endorses CobraHead

Dan Keil is the President of the Stephen Decatur Rose Society in Decatur, Illinois.   He has let us know several times that he really likes the Cobrahead Weeder and Cultivator for weeding and maintaining his 460 roses. I’m not a rosarian, but I’ve learned that keeping grass from taking over is a major issue.  That’s not much different than for just about anything that’s cultivated, but grasses really mess up roses and Dan does not want to use...

Plenty of Compost

Compost solves everything!  Well, not quite, but one can garden in compost alone and you cannot have too much.  This year I’m way ahead.  I’ve got a pile of ready to apply material (the smaller pile in the picture).  And even though it’s still too wet in the garden beds to do much work, I took advantage of two unexpected warm and dry days to turn the pile I had created throughout last year. This is what I started with.  The picture was taken in...

Braised Salmon with Mushrooms and Rice with Leeks

Here’s a quick salmon meal using leeks and corn frozen from last year’s harvest.  It’s a great way to use up chopped and frozen leeks, but of course fresh leeks will work just as well. Start the rice first and it will be cooked and ready to go by the time everything else is done.  Start warming the corn on low heat if it’s frozen, then prepare the salmon. Rice with Leeks 1 cup brown rice (I used Lotus brand Volcano Rice) 1 cup chopped leeks 2...

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