Sweet Treats Tomatoes
With Anneliese and Geoff off to California this week to represent CobraHead at the National Heirloom Exposition in Santa Rosa, it seems a little odd to be posting about a hybrid tomato. However, I grow hybrids frequently. Hybridizing has been around a long,...
Roasted Green Beans and Cherry Tomato Pasta
Garden meals are the name of the game around here during harvest season. As much as you’d like various items to ripen at different times the inevitable happens. It’s like being a kid in the proverbial candy store…. what do we eat first, next and thereafter? Last...
Roasted Salsa with Papalo
This year I decided to finally grow papalo, Porophyllum ruderale, also known as quillquiña. This herb has a flavor somewhat similar to cilantro, but unlike that plant, it has thrived throughout a summer of triple digit days. Not having cooked with it before, it...
T-Post Tomato Trellis
I finally built a tomato trellis that I'm happy with. I knew this was a good approach years ago, but it was one of those projects I never took the time to complete. I usually grow about 30 tomato plants in three rows in one of my 20 feet long by five feet wide beds. ...
Lao Cucumber Salad
Last weekend I went to a wedding on the Lao side of our family. I took advantage of the trip to learn how to make spicy Lao style cucumber salad from my cousin Kristi’s husband, Sie. Ingredients 3 medium cucumbers 5-6 Asian hot peppers 1 garlic clove 1 ½ tsp sugar ½...
Potato Crusted Broccoli Rabe Quiche
Try this satisfying and tasty quiche. The potato crust takes less time than making a regular pie crust. You don't have to feel guilty about using using a little sour cream in the filling because you're not using a quarter of a pound of butter in the crust. Crust:...
Little John at Kickapoo
Judy and I did a one day show yesterday in La Farge, Wisconsin called the Kickapoo Country Fair. The show is sponsored by the Organic Valley Farmers Cooperative which is headquartered in La Farge. I've mentioned the show several times before. Even though it's a...
Another Spring, Another Fling
Okay, so it's summer, but summer doesn't rhyme with fling. For the past four years, a group of garden bloggers has met up each spring or summer in a different part of the country. I've had the pleasure and privilege of attending all four Garden Bloggers Flings, and...
Fresh Garlicky Pasta
On a busy work day around here it’s not always easy to take time to cook. But if you have some fresh pasta in the fridge and a bulb of garlic you’re most of the way there. And do we have garlic! See Noel’s post about the Great Garlic Harvest. Fresh pasta is not...
The Great Garlic Harvest of 2011
We harvested garlic, yesterday. The bed was kind of weedy this year and I did not do my usual inter-planting with salad greens. However the garlic was just fine and at the peak time for harvesting. Last year we left it in the ground a little too long and the bulbs...
Cleaning an Overgrown Garden Bed — Video!
Noel and I made another video last week demonstrating how he uses a few different tools to help him clean out a totally overgrown, weedy garden bed. As you can see in the video, a few of the beds in the vegetable garden have grown out of control. The daunting task of...
Roasted Asparagus Potato Salad
We have polished off the last of the garden asparagus. I did freeze a couple of containers of blanched asparagus puree with lemon for seasoning. Since I’m always reading recipes I don’t remember where I saw that idea. We’ll see how we like it this winter tossed...
We Meet the Nicest People at Trade Shows
Last weekend Anneliese, Judy and I exhibited at the 2011 MREA Energy Fair. I've posted about this show in previous years because it is one of our favorites. MREA attracts an audience that is far more in tune with the issues of sustainability than the general...
Beautiful and Bountiful Berries
We came home late last night from four days on the road after a trade show. It's the time of the season when we should be picking strawberries twice a day, so we lost a few berries to birds and over ripeness, but we still had a huge amount waiting for us, which I...
Oven-baked Sweet Potato Fries
With all of the sweet potato recipes that we like to cook, we’ve had yet to make sweet potato fries. So last week I had some friends over to test my oven-baked version of this dish. Per tray: Enough Peeled and sliced sweet potatoes to cover tray without touching each...
Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day June 2011
Welcome once again to Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, where garden bloggers around the world share the flowers they're enjoying in their own gardens. You'll have to forgive my pictures for this month. By the time I was able to take photos, the sky was dark and overcast,...
Using the CobraHead Long Handle as a Scuffle Hoe
Noel and I decided to seize upon the nice weather we had today and shoot a few short videos in the garden. Here, he's demonstrating how the CobraHead Long Handle® can be used as a scuffling hoe. Please enjoy! We plan to post more videos as the summer progresses....
A Morel to the Story
People go crazy over morel mushrooms. They can sell for $40 a pound. I found a few yesterday in the woods, but over the years I've never had a major haul. I didn't even realize they appeared on the property until about six years ago. One year I found about 25, but...
Yaupon Tea
This afternoon I made a cup of yaupon tea from the leaves of one of the shrubs that’s growing in my backyard. As I write this I think that the caffeine buzz has begun to hit me. Yaupon holly, a relative of Yerba Mate, is the only native North American plant that...
Banking on Berries
The 200 plus strawberry plants in the foreground are in a very temporary home. They are banked, trenched, or heeled in; a process of laying plants in a trench and covering the roots with soil. Here they can reside until they can be relocated. A few of these...