by Noel | Jul 3, 2013 | CobraHead, Gardening
The strawberry harvest is over for this year. There are still a few small berries in the beds, but the days of having to go out morning and night to keep up, and being able to pick quarts at a time are finished. This year’s harvest was good. I’ve done a reasonable job this year of keeping the beds weeded, always a difficult task. I took some pictures of the six weeds that showed up the most this spring. Ranked relative to occurrence and...
by Noel | Jun 2, 2013 | CobraHead, Gardening
Volunteer Salad Greens We’re getting lots of volunteer lettuces and other salad greens this year. I’m transplanting some to the pea bed and elsewhere, but most we are just harvesting the whole plant where they are growing. I talked about letting salad greens bolt and go to seed in a post last September: http://blog.cobrahead.com/2012/09/10/simple-seed-saving/ In addition to some lettuce seed which I saved and scattered throughout the garlic bed, a...
by Noel | May 5, 2013 | CobraHead, Gardening
I try to keep three beds of strawberries in rotation and moving through the garden. Bed one contains the newly transplanted plants. Bed two holds one year old plants, and the third bed, two year old plants. New plants yield little, but the one and two year old plants yield well. Fall transplanting might make for better yields, but I prefer to transplant in spring when my clayey beds are very wet. The strawberries are less susceptible to stress and need very...
by Noel | Apr 29, 2013 | CobraHead, Gardening
Dan Keil is the President of the Stephen Decatur Rose Society in Decatur, Illinois. He has let us know several times that he really likes the Cobrahead Weeder and Cultivator for weeding and maintaining his 460 roses. I’m not a rosarian, but I’ve learned that keeping grass from taking over is a major issue. That’s not much different than for just about anything that’s cultivated, but grasses really mess up roses and Dan does not want to use...
by Noel | Apr 17, 2013 | CobraHead, Gardening
Compost solves everything! Well, not quite, but one can garden in compost alone and you cannot have too much. This year I’m way ahead. I’ve got a pile of ready to apply material (the smaller pile in the picture). And even though it’s still too wet in the garden beds to do much work, I took advantage of two unexpected warm and dry days to turn the pile I had created throughout last year. This is what I started with. The picture was taken in...
by Noel | Apr 9, 2013 | CobraHead, Gardening
Were I growing vegetables for money, I’d make sure I got my seeds started on a very specific schedule. But as a casual home gardener, I don’t have to worry much about getting everything exactly right. I’m just getting most of my seeds started now, and by the rules, some are a little late. That doesn’t bother me a lot. I’ve learned that you have a lot of latitude in growing your own food, and most of the “rules” are...
