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 | 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 Judy | Oct 26, 2020 | CobraHead, Recipes, Vegetable Growing
Galeux d’Eysines a.k.a. peanut pumpkin (pronounced Gal-oh d’zeen), is a French heirloom squash. Our seeds came from the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. They are also available from Johnny’s Selected Seeds and several other seed companies. Peanut Squash Galeux D’Eysines Noel cut the squash in half and the seeds were scraped out, washed, and roasted. We did save a few of the raw seeds for planting. Here’s how we...
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...
by Noel | Aug 22, 2020 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
This small bed has 5 wire grate trellises. It’s planted with cucumbers, smaller squashes, small melons, and tomatillos. The wire mesh is a concrete reinforcing insert which is readily available and not expensive. Like the T-posts to which they are attached, they last indefinitely. Jute Connection Everything is tied together with jute twine which I much prefer over plastic twine or plastic wire ties. Jute twine is inexpensive and biodegradable so there is no...
