The National Garden Lady Wellness Tour
CobraHead is pleased to partner with Shawna Coronado during her Garden Lady Wellness Tour! Shawna is moving across the country from Illinois to Arizona, and she's decided to turn her road trip into a speaking tour with 30 stops along the way. Beginning on January 28...
Butternut Squash Green Chile Soup
This last growing season was a good year for butternut squash. At least for us here in southern Wisconsin. Below is one of many tasty ways to use this winter squash. Ingredients: 1 T. olive oil 2 C. chopped onions 1 medium to large butternut squash (5 cups - peeled,...
Black Friday Garlic, Again
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...
Curried Squash Galette
This past Saturday I cooked up our first butternut squash (of about a baker's dozen harvested this year). This interesting recipe in an issue of Food and Wine Magazine caught my eye and I happened to have all the ingredients on hand. I should clarify that...I had...
Compost 2018
I finished my compost pile yesterday. It snowed last night. The pile is already warmer than its surroundings and it’s only two days old. The internal temperature of the pile when I took this picture was 60oF, outside it was 29. I learned to build these structured...
Hot Sauce
I made almost two pints of hot sauce using three different chili peppers: A standard Cayenne, a pepper we just call 3" Hot, from seeds from a plant my neighbor gave me years ago, and a couple handfuls of little Thai hot peppers. The Thai peppers are the plants that...
The Last Watermelon
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...
Fried Potatoes, Onions and Zucchini
Who doesn't love a good side of fried potatoes and onions? And who doesn't feel like they have a leaden belly after eating too much of a good thing? 🙂 This recipe does double duty of using up a garden zucchini while also lightening up that traditional potato dish a...
Shiitake Mushroom Duxelles
We have been growing our own shiitake mushrooms at the edge of our woods for about the last ten years. While it's fun to walk outside and harvest them, you do have to pay attention to the weather or you can miss some good eating. The shiitakes fruit best when...
Japanese Beetles
Japanese beetles, along with a lot of other other natural disasters, are making the garden a little less fun this year. The beetles have only been in Wisconsin for about a dozen years, and they are loving it here. Their populations seemed to diminish for a few...
Chicken of the Woods Mushroom Fajitas
Further to Noel's post on chicken of the woods mushrooms we had chicken (of the woods) fajitas last night for dinner. It was a home cooked fast food meal. I sautéed a sliced onion, sliced red pepper, chopped garlic and chicken of the woods mushroom pieces - for...
Chicken of the Woods
Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus sulphureus) is a beautiful and delicious wild mushroom, usually found on dead oak logs. This one was on an old log in our front yard. Interestingly, the same log gave us one of these mushrooms about five years ago. Over 2 ½ pounds of...
Bumblebees and Russian Comfrey
Bumblebees love Russian comfrey. The plant is frequently recommended as a bumblebee magnet. I often find four or more different varieties of bumblebees in the comfrey along with many other pollinators who also like the plant. My son Geoff introduced me to Russian...
Asparagus Mushroom Tofu Stir Fry
We have been eating asparagus every day for over a month from our 30 year old garden patch. Some days I ask myself what new and novel dish can I possibly fix with asparagus today - scrambled egg asparagus burritos? lemon sprinkled side dish? garlic roasted...
A Slow Start to the May Garden
The garden is off to a really slow start this year. It’s mostly April’s fault. That month gave us very cold weather right up until the end, so nothing got planted. For the first couple weeks in May we were practically under water and it’s only been the last two...
Pickled Red Onions
We harvested a plethora of onions last year. We still have yellow copra onions which store quite well. Then there are the red onions which don't store quite as well. Those are definitely sprouting, so I cut out the sprouts and use what I can. I've been using them...
Practical Organic Gardening by Mark Highland
I first met Mark Highland quite a few years ago, maybe at the Philadelphia Flower Show or at a Garden Writers conference. He already knew Geoff and Anneliese. Mark had just launched his company, Organic Mechanics, to produce high-quality potting soil. Since then, Mark...
Sweet Potato House
I’ve been starting my sweet potatoes from sprouted old roots rather than starting from new potatoes for quite a few years, now. It’s a close to fool-proof method. Here are 25 sprouts in a soil box. I removed the sprouts from the mother plants and cut them into...
Pizza Time
Sometimes you just want pizza. Okay, most of the time I just want pizza. So when Judy (a.k.a. "Mom") told me on Monday that she was thinking of making pizza for lunch on Tuesday, I was excited to hear it. She planned on using ingredients left over from last year's...
Stop Starting Sweet Potatoes!
I used to start my sweet potatoes like this, in a cup or jar of water. Now I don’t start them at all. I just let some old potatoes sprout on their own and plant the sprouts. I haven’t started sweet potatoes either in water or soil for quite a few years. After I...