by Noel | Mar 20, 2020 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
Starting seeds is critical to my vegetable garden. Buying live plants is cost-prohibitive and only by starting seeds can I grow exactly what I want. The flats above are bottom heated with a heat mat. A sheet of plywood between the mat and the flats mitigates and spreads the otherwise too intense heat of the mat. The mat is connected to a timer, 15 minutes heat on, 60 minutes off. The unit doesn’t have a thermostat so this works reasonably well. The lights...
by Noel | Dec 12, 2019 | CobraHead, Environmental Issues, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
Every garden year is different. Because I grow a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, I can usually be assured that I’ll get some good harvests of most things, even if occasional failures occur. Thirty-three years of growing in the same area also contribute a lot of knowledge of how things work and increase the chance of success. Peppers, Sweet and Hot This year we had a better than average and most bountiful harvest of peppers, both sweet and hot....
by Noel | Aug 16, 2019 | CobraHead, Environmental Issues, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
The year has brought us a lot more rain than we really need. The good news is that I’ve barely had to water. More good news is that water-loving plants like tomatoes, melons, and zucchini are putting out huge crops. Bad news is the tomatoes are splitting from too much water, and leaf blight, always a problem in Wisconsin is rampant again. More bad news is that the weeds love the rain every bit as much as the veggies. Even more bad news is that the mosquitos...
by Noel | Apr 24, 2019 | CobraHead, Garden Tools, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
I took advantage of some really warm April days to set up my low hoop tunnel. Several years ago I stopped doing an additional potting off of my seedling starts and instead I’ve been placing the small starts directly in the soil of a bed covered with a low tunnel. I first had to clean off a leaf covered bed and loosen up the compacted soil with a broadfork. I then added 25 gallons of composted soil. Ready to Plant I had to work in the compost and shape up the bed....
by Noel | Nov 24, 2018 | CobraHead, Garden Tools, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
I planted garlic yesterday, November 23rd (Black Friday). Coincidently, I did this last year, when the Black Friday temperature was 66 degrees and quite pleasant with the soil warm and soft. This year was a different story. The ground froze early, and like last year, I was left waiting for a warm spell. That warming almost always happens in either late November or early December but this year it didn’t happen yet and the forecasts looked bleak. I was faced...
by Noel | Oct 17, 2018 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
We had a great watermelon harvest. This is the last of over a dozen fruits we picked. Among the varieties we grew were Crimson Sweet, Alibaba, Moon and Stars, and Orangeglo. Most were quite a bit larger than this one. Of course, they all ripened at nearly the same time, so we have been gorging on melons for the last several weeks. This one turned out to be close to perfect inside and exceptionally sweet. I’m getting better at judging ripeness, but I still made...
