Enough With The April Showers
Here's a picture of my garden beds that I took this afternoon. Had I taken it early in the morning there would have been a light layer of snow over the whole area. April has been most cruel, so far. Cold and rain are the norm and it is not expected to be any nicer...
Brand New Bed
It's been a slow start getting the beds ready for spring planting because of the frequent rain. It's not raining right now, but everything is wet and muddy. I did manage to get a brand new bed shaped up for planting last weekend. Its only 12 feet long versus the 21...
Sweet Potato Lasagna
Yes, we are still eating last year’s harvest of sweet potatoes. They are a wonder crop, and if properly stored, will last until the next year’s crop comes in if you haven’t eaten them all. I have previously put shredded carrots in my home simmered spaghetti sauce but...
Belgian Fence
This year CobraHead again exhibited at the Philadelphia Flower Show. While Anneliese, Noel and I spent most of our time in our booth in the vendor section extolling the virtues of our wares to the passing public, in the evenings I would get a chance to take in the...
Cold Frame
I built this cold frame in January with a lot of help from my friend David Peterson who built a duplicate model for himself at the same time. David is retired, lucky guy, and he has put together a really well equipped workshop with lots of woodworking equipment to...
Walnutty Green Beans
On Geoff’s last visit to Wisconsin he prepared some of the family meals. After raiding the freezer for some homegrown veggies he came up with this tasty side dish – tamari flavored ‘walnutty’ green beans. It was his version of green beans amandine, replacing the...
Plant a Heart Garden this year
Over the holidays I discovered that I have borderline high blood pressure, due in part to genetics (Gee, thanks Dad!). Although I already eat a relatively healthy diet and exercise regularly, I’ve been researching what other changes I need to make to reverse the...
Outsourcing Locally
As our little business grows we've had to develop selling aids so the stores who sell our products can display them prominently. Hopefully the displays get noticed and entice people to buy. They are referred to as POP's - Point of Purchase Displays. For the past...
Rough Earth Snake
While planting my asparagus bed the other day, I uncovered a couple of rough earth snakes. This was the third or fourth time that I have found these insect and worm eating snakes in my garden. These two were smaller, but I have seen them get as long as one foot. I...
Planting Asparagus Crowns
I decided to reserve the far bed in my garden for a perennial planting of asparagus and thornless blackberries. I picked up ten asparagus crowns at The Natural Gardener earlier this week and chose UC-72, the variety that they recommend for Central Texas. I have...
2010 Garden Reflections
Gardeners are risk takers. They have to be. Nothing is guaranteed with seeds and plants. Even with the best care failures occur. I tried several new things last year and had some successes and some failures, but as usually happens, what works outweighs what...
Oneida Corn Soup
Last week Ted Skenandore came to Austin for a visit and brought me a bundle of dehydrated Oneida White Corn that he grew at the Tsyuhehkwa Farm on the Oneida reservation in northeast Wisconsin. Ted and I used to work together at Tsyuhehkwa running the farm and...
December Bloom Day 2010
I took a couple of shots today in my east Austin yard for Bloom Day. If you don't know about bloom day, check out May Dreams Gardens
Indoor Ladybugs
In the past when we've encountered ladybugs in the house, they have been treated with disrespect and vacuumed up or tossed outside. With the onset of the Asian variety in the Midwest, these garden friends have become a pest solely because of their exploding...
Saturday’s Sweet Potato Chili – Sunday’s Enchiladas
Sweet potatoes are back! We had another fantastic harvest which will keep us in these orange delights all year. They’ll be making their way into all sorts of soups, stews, roasts, stir fries, curries and who knows what else? Make a double batch of this chili and have...
Grow Lights Grow!
Less than three weeks ago I posted about my new grow light setup. I'm happy to report that things are working out well. We picked our first small salad today. The top picture shows thinnings and cuttings of a salad mix that germinated profusely. The mix can be...
Two great herbs for Austin
This past spring I planted a small herb and ornamental garden in my front yard. Since I live in Austin with its periodic droughts and water restrictions, I look for plants that thrive without a lot of supplemental watering. Two herbs that did well for me were...
Announcing the Young Gardeners Contest Winners!
You may remember that last month we announced an essay contest in which participants were asked to write about a young gardener. Today we are pleased to announce the winning entry was written by Sharon Reed. Sharon chose to write about her nine-year-old grandson,...
Noel’s Grow Light Setup
I started playing with LED grow lights three years ago when I bought three small LED spotlights from a vendor I met at the Cincinnati Flower Show. My initial approach to using the lights was very haphazard. I mainly used the spots to augment natural light from the...
Grape Crabapple Jam
After almost 25 years of living on our 4 acres of partially wooded property Noel ‘discovered’ a crabapple tree. Apparently we were never in that scruffy corner of the woods at the right time or maybe the seed just blew in one year when we weren’t looking and grew...