by Noel | Jun 14, 2015 | CobraHead, Gardening
Last year I bought a bundle of 7’ bamboo stakes specifically to build a reliable tomato trellis. I built a beefy structure that performed well, but it had drawbacks. Here is last year’s trellis post. This year I’ve simplified the design. I eliminated the traditional tomato cages. In a well-trellised system, the cages are only in the way. They are hard to weed around and fruit gets wedged in the wires. I’m also using the t-posts that hold up the structure as...
by Judy | Jun 12, 2015 | CobraHead, Recipes
With the abundance of radishes in the garden this year I’m trying something new. We’ve always eaten our radishes raw, right out of the garden, or sliced in our salads. I had heard of cooking radishes but never tried it myself. Noel keeps bringing in radish thinnings (some not so thin) from the plantings used as row markers for the carrots, beets and turnips. The first handful of pea pods were a beautiful and vigorous snow pea called Giant Swiss that we...
by Judy | Jun 8, 2015 | CobraHead, Recipes
Noel has mustard greens growing like weeds in the garden. He planted the mustard along with various lettuces at the edges of the pea patch and also interspersed them with the garlic plants. Some of what doesn’t get eaten will go to flower to attract pollinators and generate more seeds for future crops. Honey bees love the mustard flowers, and so do a wide variety of other pollinators. Any mustard plant that gets in the way of our pea and garlic crops will...
by Judy | Jun 4, 2015 | CobraHead, Recipes
A couple of days ago Noel brought in shiitake mushrooms from our logs at the side of the woods. I had a handful of fresh picked asparagus, some tofu leftover from a stir fry and a few cremini mushrooms in the fridge. Here’s what I came up with for a very satisfying breakfast. Asparagus Mushroom Tofu Scramble 1/2 pound asparagus, sliced in 1-inch pieces 1/4 pound mixed sliced mushrooms – I used shiitake and cremini mushrooms 1/2 pound diced tofu 1/4 cup...
by Noel | Jun 3, 2015 | CobraHead, Gardening
Comfrey (Symphytum officinale L.) reminds me a lot of tobacco, which is grown as a cash crop by farmers here in Cambridge, Wisconsin. I’ve read that comfrey can be smoked as a tobacco, but I have no interest. I grow it as a compost crop and for that purpose, its value is remarkable. I previously posted about using comfrey in compost here. An established growth of comfrey can be harvested up to four times per year. I decided to cut some to use as a mulch in the...
by Noel | May 25, 2015 | CobraHead, Gardening
Inexpensive and easy to erect low hoop tunnels can save the home gardener a lot of work in getting seed starts into the garden. For the past several years I’ve nearly eliminated the tedious chores of carting flats of vegetables outdoors and back inside daily to harden them off. Additionally, I don’t have to pot off seedlings to larger containers. Instead, I merely transfer sprouted seedlings directly to the soil in the bed under the hoop tunnel. There are...
