by Noel | Oct 3, 2012 | CobraHead, Gardening
With frost forecast for later this week and knowing that I would be out of town, I decided to harvest my sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes cannot tolerate frost, so I did not want to take a chance on losing any of my crop. I had previously put a clear plastic cover over the bed as we had some nippy temperatures a week ago. The leaves under the plastic were already showing black from the previous frost and wilting badly, so I didn’t think I would lose anything...
by Noel | Oct 1, 2012 | CobraHead, Gardening, Recipes
I grew a half dozen Grey Stripe Mammoth sunflowers this year and decided to save some seed for snacks. These monster plants are not the tallest sunflowers one can grow, but they are tall enough, and the mature seed heads are well over a foot across. This seed came from Botanical Interests. Mammoth Grey Stripe is an old, open pollinated variety, so I can save a few of these to grow again, next year. The seeds were just starting to let go from the heads and...
by Geoff | Sep 24, 2012 | Gardening
Earlier this month Anneliese and I had a chance to visit Ecology Action, in Willits, California. Ecology Action is the research farm of John Jeavons, author of How to Grow More Vegetables than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land than You Can Imagine. Given that this book had a huge influence on the way that both Noel and I garden, it was a big deal for me to finally be able to visit the site. John Jeavons wasn’t available, but another John, who is currently...
by Noel | Sep 10, 2012 | CobraHead, Gardening
I could have titled this, “Seed Saving for Dummies”, but I’ve never been a fan of the “For Dummies” or “Idiot’s Guide” list of titles for how-to manuals. How dare they imply that I may not be too smart? Anyone reading our blog posts is obviously very intelligent and I would never insinuate otherwise. There are plenty of seed-saving guides out there and this is not going to be a treatise on complicated seed-saving...
by Noel | Sep 1, 2012 | CobraHead, Gardening
We’ll try to stay lean, but we won’t be looking hungry when we cook up this good-sized Cassius Cauliflower I harvested this afternoon. The fall coles are coming in nicely; cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, and soon Brussels sprouts. Cabbage type crops are great for the northern home gardener. The harvest this year has been super. Cauliflower heads don’t always turn out this flawless, or this large. This one is worth bragging...
by Judy | Aug 26, 2012 | CobraHead, Gardening, Recipes
Several years ago I got this salsa recipe from a friend of a friend who worked at the local post office. (Consider this my plug for saving our little post offices – they’re good for more than just mail…) I make it every year, as long as I have tomatoes, onions and peppers all at the same time from the garden. Garden Tomato Salsa Recipe 9 cups skinned tomatoes, chopped 3 cups chopped onions 3 cups chopped peppers, mix of mostly sweet peppers with hot peppers to...
