by Noel | Aug 8, 2008 | CobraHead, Environmental Issues, Events, Gardening
In our ongoing quest to make the CobraHead Weeder famous, we occasionally try new trade show venues. Since I thought there had to be a connection between farming and gardening, we exhibited at a show in Minnesota this week called Farmfest. The show organizers had invited us out as a “green” vendor and we were in a tent with others promoting such things as organic farming, sustainable agriculture, energy issues and land conservation. While I found the...
by Noel | Jul 23, 2008 | Environmental Issues, Gardening
We’ve grown purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) for many years. Once established, it’s a super-easy perennial, really only requiring weeding and occasional separation. It spreads quickly. By chance three years ago, we had some common milkweed (asclepias syriaca) show up in a clump of coneflowers we have growing by the light post in our driveway. Our normal reaction would have been to pull the milkweed out. It grows in some of the wilder part of the...
by Judy | Jul 20, 2008 | Gardening
You could probably call me all of the above right now since I just ate a mouthful of garlic scape pesto pasta! It was a little stronger and hotter than I was expecting probably due to the fact that the scapes were more ‘mature’ than they should have been. I harvested about 2/3 of our garlic yesterday. Noel planted about 100 cloves last October 27th (see his blog). As you can see from the picture they are a good size – that circular spot at the bottom...
by Noel | Jun 27, 2008 | Gardening
Wisconsin has seen some record rainfalls in the past month. We are in the drainage basin of the Rock River, which eventually empties into the Mississippi River by Rock Island, Illinois. The huge rains contributed to flooding of the Rock and its tributary rivers and creeks, a lot of the flooding was extremely severe and damaging. Many of the farm fields around us still have acres of new ponds, three weeks after the worst of the rains. What the rains and floods also...
by Noel | Jun 11, 2008 | Gardening
It’s been gardening on the run for me, this year. Too many garden shows on weekends. I’m late on getting almost everything into the ground. I’m not giving up, however. While you can’t say it’s never too late when it comes to gardening, you certainly can push things well beyond normal guidelines and often get away with it. When I was growing up in Warren, Michigan, an elderly widow named Rose Martin, who lived in Detroit, gardened a...
by Anneliese | May 27, 2008 | Gardening
I took this photo of a couple of green strawberries today. I’m already drooling over what they will become in just a few more days. When it comes to fresh fruits and vegetables, I’ve been a bit spoiled. I simply cannot enjoy a strawberry from the supermarket. Sure, they’re huge compared to the relatively small fruits that grow in our garden, but when it comes to flavor there’s no comparison. Our little strawberries get so red and so sweet,...
