CobraHead Weeder and Cultivator Featured in New York Times
CobraHead garden tools received their most important single piece of publicity recently with an excellent mention in the New York Times. The article by Bob Tedeschi, who writes for the Times under the byline "The Pragmatist", was titled "Ergonomic Tools that Prune...
Making Native Bee Nesting Logs
Today I finally built some nesting logs for native bees. I got inspired by the frequent postings of Gail Eichelberger about native plants and native polinators on her blog Clay and Limestone. I then used some instructions from the Xerces Society (PDF), grabbed some...
Zesty Lime Grilled Zucchini
Ortolana di Faenza and Raven ZucchiniThis year we are growing two new (to us) varieties of zucchini compliments of Renee’s Garden. One is a dark green zucchini ‘Raven’ and the other is a pale green heirloom Italian zucchini ‘Ortolana di Faenza’. Both are delicious in...
Common Weeds in Strawberries
The strawberry harvest is over for this year. There are still a few small berries in the beds, but the days of having to go out morning and night to keep up, and being able to pick quarts at a time are finished. This year's harvest was good. I've done a reasonable...
Baked Sweet Potatoes and Asparagus Stir Fry
We still have asparagus coming up and lots of volunteer salad greens. While it’s great to have the greens they don’t quite fill you up by themselves. But wait, there’s more . . . sweet potatoes from the 2012 fall harvest. We still have half our last year’s harvest...
Hurray for the Volunteers!
Volunteer Salad Greens We're getting lots of volunteer lettuces and other salad greens this year. I'm transplanting some to the pea bed and elsewhere, but most we are just harvesting the whole plant where they are growing. I talked about letting salad greens bolt and...
Transplanting Strawberries
I try to keep three beds of strawberries in rotation and moving through the garden. Bed one contains the newly transplanted plants. Bed two holds one year old plants, and the third bed, two year old plants. New plants yield little, but the one and two year old...
Master Rosarian Endorses CobraHead
Dan Keil is the President of the Stephen Decatur Rose Society in Decatur, Illinois. He has let us know several times that he really likes the Cobrahead Weeder and Cultivator for weeding and maintaining his 460 roses. I'm not a rosarian, but I've learned that keeping...
Plenty of Compost
Compost solves everything! Well, not quite, but one can garden in compost alone and you cannot have too much. This year I'm way ahead. I've got a pile of ready to apply material (the smaller pile in the picture). And even though it's still too wet in the garden...
Braised Salmon with Mushrooms and Rice with Leeks
Here’s a quick salmon meal using leeks and corn frozen from last year's harvest. It's a great way to use up chopped and frozen leeks, but of course fresh leeks will work just as well. Start the rice first and it will be cooked and ready to go by the time everything...
Starting Seeds – Better Late Than Never
Were I growing vegetables for money, I'd make sure I got my seeds started on a very specific schedule. But as a casual home gardener, I don't have to worry much about getting everything exactly right. I'm just getting most of my seeds started now, and by the rules,...
Tripod Orchard Ladder
I've wanted an orchard ladder for a long time and I finally got one. They are also called fruit picking ladders or tripod ladders, but there are other tripod ladders out there that are not designed specifically as orchard ladders. The better orchard ladders are...
Roasted Red Peppers – Ajvar – with Neufchâtel/Feta Cheese Spread
I first tried canned, or shall I say jarred, ajvar many years ago at a potluck. Since then our friend Michael Ball has developed his own recipe and it is his potluck specialty. This Turkish dish has many versions and can also include roasted eggplant. Served with a...
Stopping Leaf Cutting Ants
Last month I noticed that a two foot section of sugar snap peas had been cut down almost to the ground. I inspected the damage expecting to see evidence of squirrels or some other mammal, but instead discovered that my arch-nemesis, the leaf cutting ant, had...
Interplanting Snap Peas and Chinese Kale
It's January in Austin and already time to plant early spring crops. I took advantage of the tomato trellis that I used last year to support this year's snap peas. While cleaning out the bed, I worked around a lemon balm plant. Once I got the bed cleaned out, I added...
Stove Top Braised Carrots
We still have about 4 or 5 pounds of garden carrots in the refrigerator. Noel started a late crop the end of August and harvested what was left of them mid December. We scrubbed and bagged them in clear plastic bags and found a spot in the refrigerator...
Extra Early Sweet Potato Starts
I had two sweet potatoes left over from last year. I had used them to grow cuttings for last year's garden. They were starting to shrivel up but both had put out numerous long sprouts. The sprouts were rather anemic and one plant had an aphid infestation, but I...
Last of the Leeks
I took the opportunity of a nice afternoon yesterday to harvest the leeks remaining in the garden. I had piled up leaves around them to prevent them from freezing. I could have left them in a while longer, but with rains today and tomorrow, to be followed by some...
Compost Mountains
Geologists tell us that Wisconsin was once a land of huge mountains with crests as tall as the Rockies. That Precambrian topography has since gone through quite a few changes. While the state still has some gorgeous and impressive hills, spectacular snow capped...
Ethnobotanical Garden of Oaxaca
I recently had the privilege of spending the month of November in Oaxaca, Mexico. I was there to work on improving my Spanish, but I also had the opportunity to do a bit of cultural exploration. Right in the heart of the city is the Jardín Etnobotánico de Oaxaca...