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...
More True Life Adventures
I was digging horseradish roots out of the compost area when I uncovered a little spotted salamander. They seem out of place here. I would expect them in much wetter areas, but I come across them frequently so I guess they like the garden surroundings. Judy was...
Garlic 2010
Yesterday, two weeks past my target October 24th plant date, I got my garlic into the ground. That's a lot better than being six months late, and with the very warm fall we are having, I'm sure the garlic will do just fine. Here in Wisconsin, garlic does best when...
Madison Herb Fair
Saturday was a beautiful day to be out in Southern Wisconsin. It was sunny and crisp with a high temperature of about 47 degrees. For the first week of November it was quite pleasant. Our fall has been a lot warmer and drier than normal. As nice as it was outside,...
Moving Up in the Gardening World
Here is some recent CobraHead news that I want to share. Anneliese was elected to the Mailorder Gardening Association Board of Directors. The Mailorder Gardening Association has been an excellent organization for CobraHead. Many of the major garden catalog firms...
New East Austin Vegetable Garden
Last week I gathered up some folks to help dig a new vegetable garden with friends Natalina and Kiko and their new daughter, Lola. Natalina grew up with gardening in San Antonio and Kiko spent part of his childhood on a coffee farm in Colombia, but this was their...
Eggplant Parmesan
Our eggplant harvest was prolific this year. The extremely hot summer we had in Wisconsin probably had something to do with that! Eggplant is a great addition to pasta sauces and veggie sautés’ but our all-time favorite is eggplant parmesan. The original recipe came...
Tell Us About a New Gardener and Win Great Prizes!
Do you know a young gardener who you would like to help succeed? We would love to know more about them! Tell us about a young or new gardener in your life, and you could win great prizes for that gardener and yourself! The Contest: Let us know about a new gardener...
A CobraHead Fan in Ireland
As a small business without a big advertising budget, CobraHead relies heavily on testimonials from happy users to get our story out to the world. Yesterday, we were exceptionally pleased to be made aware of Ciaran Burke's Garden Blog. Ciaran, a professional...
Plant Television
A couple of weeks ago I got rid of the television and canceled cable. Yet I still found myself staring at the empty space that the TV used to occupy. What to do? Time for plant television. Now I can still sit on the couch, stare across the room, bits of drool...
What’s this Moth Doing in My Potatoes?
This big guy showed up while I was down on my hands and knees digging potatoes. It landed right in front of me and didn't try to fly away when I picked it up. It is a really pretty moth. Almost the whole underwing is pink, and the moth shows off the bright color...
Battle of the Predators
A few mornings ago I saw a praying mantis just outside my front door. I rushed to get my camera and as I took the pictures, I wondered why she continued to pose for me. Then I realized that a spider web enveloped some of her feet. I broke off the strand of web as...
Fall Garden Planning in Austin
It’s past time for planting my fall garden in Austin, and yet in my limited garden space the overgrown but still producing summer crops take up most of the four beds. Between nine foot tall okra, supposed bush beans that turned out to be super-spreading pole beans and...
Whole Wheat Couscous Summer Salad
Here's another fast food lunch from the Valdes kitchen. Did you ever get the feeling that most recipes are just recycled over and over again in various forms? I'm an avid recipe reader and sometimes they all start to look alike. Maybe one or two ingredients are...