by Noel | May 25, 2021 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
May is the month of plants and my busiest month in the garden. I have beds to prepare for seeding and planting, and I’m trying to get as many live plants and seeds into the ground as I can. Like every year, I’m way behind where I would like to be at this time, but I always end up with a decent garden so I just keep plugging along and hoping for the best. Here are a few things I’ve been working on. Pea Trellis Peas and Lettuce The peas are looking very...
by Noel | Apr 27, 2021 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
Sweet Potato Starts Last month I wrote about a failure of my own making with some onion starts. This month the news is much better. I have a healthy and happy box of sweet potato starts that should be large and strong when it comes time to put them in the ground at the end of May. I get my starts from 2 year old sweet potatoes that I’ve allowed to sprout in the basement. I’ve talked about this method before: ...
by Noel | Mar 26, 2021 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
I’m usually pretty good with my seed starting. I’ve got a light and heat setup that I’ve been modifying over the years and I almost always get good starts from my seeds, especially onions. This year I messed up. I had two flats of yellow onions under a grow light and over a heat mat, and I didn’t pay attention for one day. That proved costly. The onions were just starting to sprout, and they got too dry and too hot. I killed off most of them. I wasn’t sure...
by Noel | Nov 23, 2020 | CobraHead, Gardening
I’m ahead of the game! At least for the moment. All my open beds are weeded and shaped up, and I’ve put them to bed for the winter with the thickest leaf covering they have ever enjoyed. I reap huge benefits by covering the garden with leaves. The soil remains softer as the leaves act as an insulator and protector from winter weather. Weed growth is almost non-existent, no sunshine – no weeds. In the spring, many of the beds will be ready to...
by Noel | Oct 26, 2020 | Gardening, Vegetable Growing
Fall Garden Cleanup Putting the garden to bed for the winter requires a little work. If things went perfectly all the beds would get cleaned of weeds and spent plants, compost would get worked in, the beds reworked and reshaped as necessary, and the whole garden covered with a thick layer of leaves. Most years I get most of that done. This year, I’m only a little behind, but trying to catch up. I’ll be planting garlic within a week, but I’m not...
by Noel | Sep 17, 2020 | CobraHead, Garden Tools, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
Potato Bed. Cold and soggy weather deterred gardening for nearly a week. It’s warmer now and drying up, a good time to finish digging up a potato bed that was already mostly harvested. Digging Potatoes. About a third of the bed was left to dig. Harvesting was not difficult, I used a broadfork to loosen all the edges, and then down on my hands and knees with my CobraHead Original to do all the digging. A Seam of Potatoes The potatoes had been planted in...
