by Noel | Oct 1, 2012 | CobraHead, Gardening, Recipes
I grew a half dozen Grey Stripe Mammoth sunflowers this year and decided to save some seed for snacks. These monster plants are not the tallest sunflowers one can grow, but they are tall enough, and the mature seed heads are well over a foot across. This seed came from Botanical Interests. Mammoth Grey Stripe is an old, open pollinated variety, so I can save a few of these to grow again, next year. The seeds were just starting to let go from the heads and...
by Noel | Sep 10, 2012 | CobraHead, Gardening
I could have titled this, “Seed Saving for Dummies”, but I’ve never been a fan of the “For Dummies” or “Idiot’s Guide” list of titles for how-to manuals. How dare they imply that I may not be too smart? Anyone reading our blog posts is obviously very intelligent and I would never insinuate otherwise. There are plenty of seed-saving guides out there and this is not going to be a treatise on complicated seed-saving...
by Noel | Sep 1, 2012 | CobraHead, Gardening
We’ll try to stay lean, but we won’t be looking hungry when we cook up this good-sized Cassius Cauliflower I harvested this afternoon. The fall coles are coming in nicely; cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, and soon Brussels sprouts. Cabbage type crops are great for the northern home gardener. The harvest this year has been super. Cauliflower heads don’t always turn out this flawless, or this large. This one is worth bragging...
by Noel | Aug 8, 2012 | CobraHead, Gardening
Judy’s good friend Dorothy Davenport lives in a condo but that doesn’t keep her from growing a lot of her own food. Using pots, containers and hanging baskets, Dorothy grows a lot of different vegetables while keeping everything looking pretty by inter-planting colorful flowers. Dorothy makes excellent use of space as you can see by her use of a porch rail to mount a container of green beans. Large containers yield lots of tomatoes. Decorative and...
by Noel | Aug 6, 2012 | CobraHead, Environmental Issues, Gardening
I’ve done battle with the caterpillars of the small white and yellow cabbage butterflies for as long as I’ve gardened. The most destructive caterpillar, known as the Imported Cabbage Worm, is from a white butterfly native to Europe called the Cabbage White Butterfly (Pieris rapae). These insects have only been in North America since the 1860’s, but they like it a lot on this side of the ocean and are a truly destructive pest. The small green...
