by Noel | Sep 5, 2009 | Gardening
The bucket is holding over 28 pounds of Purple Viking and Durango potatoes that I dug yesterday. There are some very large specimens and I’m quite happy with this year’s crop. The entire bed yielded about 55 total pounds of spuds including these, some blue fleshed Adirondack Blue, and a little pinkish fingerling called Rose Finn Apple. I still have most of another bed to harvest, so we’ll be eating a lot of potatoes in the coming months. To...
by Noel | Aug 17, 2009 | CobraHead, Events, Gardening
We continue to do a lot of trade shows, trying get our tools known by the gardening public. We’ve found that small shows can be more attractive than large ones, especially if the ratio of hands-on gardeners to the overall attendance is good. Big shows attended by the general populace are not for us. County fairs, street fairs, and music festivals are now on our “do not even think about it” list. We do well at energy shows that that have an...
by Noel | Jul 30, 2009 | Environmental Issues, Gardening
Funnel Collector Japanese Beetles On A Grape Leaf Japanese beetles only became a pest in my garden four years ago. When they first appeared their numbers were so overwhelming that I pretty much had no choice but to let them go unchecked. They nearly defoliated my raspberries, but I still got an okay harvest. They loved the asparagus fronds, but they did not seem to be doing severe damage there. Their favorite food was the leaves of the wild grapes that grow all...
by Noel | Jul 27, 2009 | CobraHead, Environmental Issues, Events
Judy and I returned to the Kickapoo Country Fair in La Farge, Wisconsin for another show Saturday and yesterday. We did our first show there, last year, which you can read about here. The fair is about farming and smaller organic family farms, versus the corporate factory farms that now dominate world agriculture. The show was noticeably bigger this year than last. More exhibits, more workshops, more vendors and bigger crowds. I think, if they stay on track,...
by Noel | Jul 18, 2009 | Environmental Issues, Gardening
A couple days ago I blogged about flowering edibles in the garden. It was quite hot when I was taking the pictures which included some shots of the multitude of pollinators that collect around the flowers. I commented on how hard it was to photograph the bumblebees because they would not stay still long enough for me to get a good shot. Yesterday and today have been very cold. A high of about 66 both days. For the middle of July, it is not normal. I came home from...
