by Noel | Mar 28, 2025 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
I’ve grown food for a long time. I learned a lot about home gardening from my mother who gardened because she had to, as we had little money. I also learned a lot from the neighbor next to us who was a vegetable gardener extraordinaire. Mrs. Martin came from her house in inner Detroit almost daily in growing season to garden a quarter acre plot next to our house in Warren, which borders Detroit on its north side. Rose Martin took a bus route that required several...
by Noel | Feb 28, 2025 | CobraHead, Gardening
I haven’t been thinking too much about my garden in February, and I definitely haven’t done anything outside. The 14 below lows and bitter cold days have kept me indoors. It did warm up this week, so I went to the garden to check things out. The garden fork hits ice between 2 to 6 inches. Our lack of snow cover this winter means the frost is quite deep and will take a little longer to thaw out. I won’t be working the soil anytime soon. Here’s my compost pile. This...
by Noel | Nov 19, 2024 | CobraHead, Environmental Issues, Gardening, Leaf covef for garden
Years ago we could expect a heavy blanket of snow to cover the garden from December until March. Snow cover is a good thing, but we can no longer count on it. Until this week, November temperatures in southern Wisconsin have been way above historic normals. It’s cooling off, but the meteorologists are predicting little snow cover for this year. Snow or not, I try to cover as much of my garden as possible with leaves. Leaves act as a weed suppressant, they insulate...
by Noel | Sep 30, 2024 | CobraHead, Gardening
As we move into fall, we’re still getting lots of good stuff from the garden. The tomato plants are succumbing to late blight, but it doesn’t matter anymore because we have already harvested all we need and there is still plenty of fruit ripening on the vines. Eggplants and peppers are still producing We have to pick green beans daily. We have a good lettuce crop; the cilantro patch is loaded, and Judy is pleased with the nice sage. Our basil is still nice and...
by Noel | May 31, 2024 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
I let a lot of plants bolt in the garden. Plants bolt when they are ready to produce seeds. They will develop a flowering stem and if left alone will often develop viable seeds. Gardeners often try to discourage bolting. We want leafy greens, not seeds. Bolting stems are often cut away. Plants are planted in cooler temperatures to reduce bolting and bolted plants are often removed. However, there are many instances when allowing bolting is a good thing. Free seed,...
by Noel | Apr 29, 2024 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
The weather here, like everywhere, keeps getting weirder. I’ve been gardening the same plot for over 35 years and the last couple years have really departed from what used to be normal. This year is extremely wet and warm. It’s been hard to get the beds prepped because of the wetness. I did take advantage of some nice dry days last week to get my peas planted. I try to get them in the ground in April. Later than that can get iffy for full production as peas don’t...
