by Andy | Sep 30, 2021 | CobraHead
Back in July, I took a day trip with a friend to see the Anderson Japanese Gardens in Rockford, IL. This serene, 12-acre garden sanctuary consists of lush, manicured landscapes, winding paths, streams, waterfalls, Koi ponds, and Japanese architecture and sculptures. The Anderson Japanese Gardens have consistently been rated as one of the best Japanese Gardens in the US. The gardens were founded in 1978 when Rockford businessman John Anderson hired world-famous...
by Judy | Sep 29, 2021 | CobraHead, Recipes
If you have a big garden you’re probably still buried in tomatoes. Along with canned salsa, frozen tomatoes, both roasted and stewed, and spaghetti sauce I’ve been making tomato soup base. We grow a variety of heirloom tomatoes, red, yellow, purple, orange and green striped. The yellow ones especially mellow out the more acidic tomatoes so there’s usually no need for added sugar. You could always add a carrot for a little sweetening....
by Judy | Aug 31, 2021 | CobraHead
Caramelized Squash It’s definitely the year of yellow summer squash and zucchini, for us anyway. We’ve been pretty good about keeping them picked when smaller but they do get away from us. No baseball bats, yet! The yellow squash don’t seem to grow quite as fast as the zucchini but at this time of year it’s eat it or process it and sometimes you just can’t keep up. The first time I made the caramelized squash I had 4...
by Noel | Aug 30, 2021 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
After years of growing half a bed of pole beans and half a bed of bush beans, I’ve given up on bush beans and I’m not going to plant them anymore. This bed was planted about July 16th. It was previously a bed of garlic inter-planted with lettuce. I’ve had very good luck planting a late crop of green beans mid-July right after the garlic is harvested. We don’t grow beans for drying. Organic dry beans in bulk are quite inexpensive, so it doesn’t...
by Judy | Jul 29, 2021 | CobraHead, Recipes
I don’t make a lot of desserts but we have rhubarb and raspberries. We usually eat the raspberries fresh but we’re not into chewing on raw rhubarb, though I remember doing it as a kid. So a cobbler came to mind and I turned to my 50 year old trusty Better Homes and Gardens cook book. I did pop online to check out various recipes so I took some liberties with the basic recipe, including reducing the amount of sugar used. Here goes it....
by Noel | Jul 29, 2021 | CobraHead, Garden Tools, Gardening
On July 14th a thunderstorm flattened our two beds of sweet corn. It was déjà vu all over again. I wrote this post in July of 2009: https://blog.cobrahead.com/2009/07/11/corn-corrals/ I usually prepare for events like this by corralling my corn ahead of time using T-posts and jute twine. If I do this while the corn is still relatively small, the stalks will stand up to even very heavy winds. This year, I didn’t get around to it and paid the...
