Talking and Writing About Gardening
I started CobraHead to sell a tool I designed. I was quite sure my tool would be a help to a lot of gardeners. Since then, sales have proven what I knew when I started, the tool was a good one. Supposedly it was Emerson who said, “Build a better mousetrap and the...
CobraHead Weeder and Cultivator Chosen for the Top 8 Manual Weeders of 2017
The CobraHead Weeder and Cultivator was chosen by Ezvid Wiki as the #2 garden weeder for 2017. That means we are #1 small hand weeder since their #1 selection is a stand up weeder for weeding the lawn. Here’s the link: https://wiki.ezvid.com/best-manual-weeders
Oven Roasted Root Vegetables
We had a late harvest of turnips and radishes, more than we could eat raw, so we included these in a roaster full of vegetables. I've not cooked with radishes much so this was something different for us. I've listed the veggies that were in this mix but you can use...
Late Fall Planting of Wine Cap Mushrooms
Wine Cap Mushrooms (Stropharia rugosa annulata) are considered one of the easiest mushrooms to grow. Easy to grow, but highly prized, Wine Caps are noted for both their large size and excellent taste. Wine Caps are not often found in stores because of their fragile...
Black Beluga Lentil Vegetable Soup
Tis the fall season when the harvest of garden veggies are brought in and placed on every available flat surface in the kitchen. It's not always easy to find a place to have lunch or dinner but I did my best to use up enough food to make room for the soup bowls.........
Marigolds Attract Pollinators
About five years ago I bought a flat of marigolds at a garden show in Rockford, Illinois. The flat cost only five dollars. I presumed the marigolds were neither organic nor open pollinated, but they looked strong and there were a lot of plants for the money. I thought...
Balsamic Sautéed Beets, Greens and Onions
We have a nice patch of fall beets. The thinnings are great for sautéing and if there's a baby beet attached, so much the better. Way back when, my mother used to serve cooked spinach with a splash of cider vinegar. I just changed it up to balsamic vinegar which has...
Sweet Potato Harvest 2016
This year’s sweet potato harvest was certainly different than most. It was the largest we’ve ever had, over 125 pounds. Our previous best was 85 pounds. We normally yield between 75 and 80 pounds, so this was "really shocking". We also had the largest single potato...
Layered Compost Pile
It looks like a pile of straw, but it’s really a very structured compost pile. I built it over the weekend. It's layered and there is actually not that much straw in it. My raw ingredients included a pile of two seasons worth of garden debris - weeds, stalks,...
Hot Tomato Sandwich
Are you looking for something to do with all those cherry tomatoes? In addition to salsas, cobblers, pasta sauces, etc., how about a hot tomato sandwich? This is a vegetarian version of your typical hot beef or hot turkey sandwich and just as satisfying. Recipe: 1-2...
Cucumber Salad
Need a quick cucumber salad for lunch or dinner that's just a step up from plain sliced cucumbers? Try this: 1-2 peeled cucumbers, thinly sliced 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. salt 1 T. white wine vinegar Slice your cucumbers as thin as you can. if you have a mandoline so much the...
Ergonomic Garden Tools: Your Best Friend When Planting to Attract Pollinators
Planting to Attract Pollinators According to the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, 75-80% of all flowering plants and staple crop plants depend on animal pollinators to produce seeds and fruit. We tend to think the pollinators are hummingbirds,...
Sweet Potato Black Bean Salad and Kohlrabi Pancakes
'Tis the season for garden veggie meals. We've been mixing the old and the new, i.e. some veggies from last year's harvest and some fresh from this year's crop. It's not always easy to come up with brand new recipes but by virtue of what's available in the pantry...
Open Raised Bed Garden
I advocate the use of open raised beds for home gardening. I’ve been working with open beds for over 30 years. There are lots of advantages over both conventional planting in rows, and also over assembled, boxed in beds. I’ve got two plots with open beds. The area...
Garlic Harvest
We harvested our 100 garlic plants yesterday. The bulbs were almost all quite large and firm. We didn’t wait for the stalks (on the soft necks) to fall over, the traditional sign that it’s time to harvest. We were expecting some extended rains and we didn’t want to...
Snow Peas A’Plenty
This has been a great year for peas and we didn't even have to share any with the roaming neighborhood deer. (Noel will tell you about his new electronic deer detractors in another post.) We have been eating snow peas and a couple varieties of sugar snap peas...
Good Year for Peas
We're having a bountiful pea harvest this year. The trellising system I've employed for the past few years works very well in allowing the peas to climb tall. The picture above, taken a few weeks ago shows, from left to right, snow peas, capucijner soup peas and two...
Planting Butterfly Gardens: Do it the easy way with a revolutionary handheld garden tool!
Have you ever seen something and thought, “Wow, that is absolutely gorgeous”? Well, that’s what butterfly gardens make people say every day; they’re beautiful, colorful, peacefully serene, and of course surrounded by butterflies. You may want one of your own, but it...
It’s National Pollinator Week!
National Pollinator Week is a USDA sponsored event with the main focus of improving the health of pollinators, primarily, honeybees. I appreciate their efforts, but if the USDA really wanted to improve pollinator health, they would get out of their agri-business...
Onions Planted
This small bed has 90 Candy hybrid onion starts that I planted today. I took advantage of a morning rain that dampened the soil. Planting in wet soil made the transplanting shock minimal. This is the first time I've planted Candy. They are supposed to be big and...