Hello,
Friends of CobraHead,
When
I first worked with gardeners in indigenous southern Mexico, I was forced to
re-examine my own notions of a well-ordered garden. Plantings that to the outside eye may have
seemed random and unorganized, weedy or even "wild" actually had a well-thought
logic that not only provided an abundance of food but also helped protect the
soil from severe tropical rains. As I shape
my own Austin garden, I try to remember and incorporate some of these ideas,
especially when dealing with our own intense rains here in central Texas. Or maybe I am just making up an excuse to let
my vegetables get a little overgrown.
In
Spanish, the words Sabor and Saber mean Taste and Knowledge. Tasting food gives us a way of knowing the
world. How do you know and taste your
own garden? Judy shares a quick recipe
that can be adapted to your own harvests. In this issue we provide ideas for making the transition from a summer to a fall garden. Of course gardens provide delight to all of
the senses and we share with you our continuing enjoyment of Bloom Day.
Happy
Gardening,
Geoff
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Attack of the overgrown beans  | Fall Garden Planning
Ever wonder how to plant your fall garden when the summer garden is still producing? Geoff shares the action plan for prolific produce production at his Austin, TX home.
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Couscous Salad  | Whole Wheat Couscous Salad
Here's another fast food lunch from the Valdes kitchen. Judy explains how to modify this quick dish to make salad with veggies from your own garden.
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Bloom Day Monarch  | September Bloom Day
Anneliese has taken the lead for the Valdes Family in participating in Bloom Day on the 15th of every month. If you don't know about bloom day, check out the blog of its founder, Carol, of May Dreams Gardens
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 Last month we pumped up our Facebook presence and asked our CobraHead
friends to help us reach our goal of 1000 fans. While we didn't make it to our goal, we are pleased to have tripled the number of CobraHead fans on Facebook.
Since we didn't hit our goal, and we want you to help us
keep trying, we are offering an interim incentive. On September 28th all CobraHead Facebook fans
can pick up 15% off anything in our store. Anneliese will have the shopping cart code
prominently posted on our fan page.
In the meantime, we haven't given up on our
1000 fan goal, so help us keep priming the pump. When we get close to a thousand, we'll let
you know, and we will offer a 20% coupon when we cross that threshold.
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If you like our newsletter and our products or if you have some suggestions, we'd love to hear from you.
If
you have gardening friends or if you know potential gardeners who might
be interested in CobraHead and what we have to say about gardening and
eating, please forward this newsletter to them.
It is the mission of CobraHead to help people grow their own
food and to provide exceptional products and services to all gardeners. We
try hard to "walk the walk" when
it comes to issues of sustainability and in deciding what is best for
ourselves and the environment as we grow our little company. We've chosen to make our tools locally,
here in Wisconsin,
and we think that bigger is not necessarily better. Gardening might just be earth's
great hope, and in any case it's a great hobby.
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Thank you,
Noel, Judy, Geoff and Anneliese
The CobraHead Team |
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Cicada Skin  |
September has been a blur for the CobraHead team. We've already done three trade shows this
month and we have one more coming up this weekend. On tap is the Mother Earth News Fair in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania. Anneliese and I will be leaving Thursday for a
650 mile trek in the van. It will be a
tough grind, but we are really looking forward to the show as it is all about
sustainability, gardening, and living the eco-friendly life. We expect to see lots of friends and we
always meet new and interesting people, so Pennsylvania, here we come.
If you did not recognize the picture heading up the column,
it's a cicada skin, shed by its owner as it left its nymph stage for adult life. It's a very perfect example that I happened
to see on a cactus pad in a residential garden in Dallas.
Cicadas are common here in Wisconsin. Even if you've never seen one of these giant insects, you've definitely heard them buzz.
The garden tour was part of our conference, trade show, and tour of
gardens that Geoff and I just completed.
The venue was the Garden Writers Association's annual conference, this year in the big D.
It was an excellent business trip for CobraHead, but a big fun party,
too.
September is heavy harvest time here in my Cambridge, WI garden. We are bringing in peppers, eggplant, cukes,
raspberries, beets, potatoes, celery, the first of the hard squashes, and the
last of the tomatoes. The shiitake
mushrooms on the logs in the woods have kicked in with onset of cooler weather,
so we are eating well.
Thanks for reading our newsletter. It's great to hear that people like what we
have to say and share. Our main message
is that it's not hard to grow your own food, and that gardening is the path
through which the world will find its way.
Happy Gardening from Noel and the CobraHead Team!
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