by Noel | Oct 25, 2009 | Gardening
It was a perfect night for burning the brush pile. Thursday’s heavy rains had diminished to a very light drizzle. The pile is a collection of trimmings and fallen branches. This year we had two huge sections of trunk from an old apple tree that I took down in the spring. We had to use some dry cardboard and dry wood from the shed to get the fire started, but there was no danger of starting the woods on fire, which is always on my mind when burning anything...
by Noel | Oct 15, 2009 | CobraHead
We began developing a long-handled CobraHead soon after we introduced our original CobraHead Weeder and Cultivator. It quite honestly was a reaction to older gardeners who at trade shows kept telling us, “that looks great, but I need it on a long handle.” When we got serious about making a long tool, we realized that just sticking the CobraHead blade on a hoe handle was not going to produce a very effective tool. We tested many blade shape...
by Noel | Sep 30, 2009 | Gardening
The cold weather that was delivered with five inches of rain last week dealt me this beautiful flush. The shiitake in my hand is neither the largest nor the smallest. It is one of twenty close to perfect mushrooms I sliced off the plugged logs this afternoon. I have a chance to win even bigger in the next few days. There are at least 27 more on the logs. They’re smaller, and I’m not sure if they are going to fill out as nicely as these. But I will bet...
by Noel | Sep 29, 2009 | CobraHead, Events, Gardening
We attended the Garden Writers Association 61st Annual Symposium in Raleigh , North Carolina, last week. It was CobraHead’s 6th GWA, and our fifth as an exhibitor. Here’s Anneliese putting the final touches on our booth. The symposium includes a trade show, seminars, speakers, tours, dinners, and awards. It is held in a different city every year, and tours of both public and private local gardens are a big part of the trip Pictures from the Sarah P....
by Noel | Sep 18, 2009 | Gardening
I’ve dug two sweet potato plants out early, well ahead of the first frost, which is when they will all need to be removed from the ground. The plant on the left yielded over four pounds of usable tuber. We’ve already eaten one tuber that weighed a little over a pound. The plant on the right will give us just over three pounds. So if our average continues, we could get about seventy pounds of sweet potatoes from 20 plants started in one bed. The...
