Hello,
Friends of CobraHead,
Last
night I re-read some of my blog posts from previous years. It helped me to remember when and what I had
planted and harvested from my garden. Seeing
past successes keeps me motivated and reminds me that the effort put into
planting and weeding does pay off, giving me food that I can't get anywhere
else. Working
with new gardeners also motivates me.
Whether it's with school gardening programs or with older folks who have
finally been able to take the time to garden, I get great pleasure from knowing that someone
gets a concept that I have just explained.
We
encourage you to help and encourage new gardeners. Check out our new gardener contest below and
share with us your own victories. Then
take a break and savor some of Judy's eggplant parmesan. Happy
Gardening,
Geoff
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Win these cool prizes!  | New Gardener Contest!
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! Click here for details.
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Aubergine Extraordinaire  | Eggplant Parmesan
Anneliese has always been a picky eater and never cared much for eggplant. However, she eagerly anticipates Judy's delicious eggplant Parmesan. We think that you will like it, too. Judy also explains how to make a dairy-free version. Check out her recipe here.
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From sod to garden bed in less than three hours.  | Building Gardens, Building Friendships
At CobraHead, we encourage people to grow some of their own food, and we like to help out when we can. Last week, Geoff helped establish a new family garden in Austin. Check out the process of turning hard clay sod into a raised vegetable bed here.
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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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October normally brings the first heavy frost to Wisconsin, although
we've escaped a hard freeze so far. My
squash plants crashed after three nights of temperatures in the
low 30's so I've harvested them and just about everything else in the
garden. Now I'm trying to clean up my
beds before the cold October rains show up.
I'm hoping I can get the garden in order
and drag the leaves into the beds while it's still nice outside. As in all years, this garden was unique and
interesting.
I started a lot of things late, and a lot of things did not get planted
at all. No brassica, other than the
volunteer kale and mustard. So no
cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, or cauliflower, but I didn't have to worry
about white cabbage moths and their nasty green worms, my most hated garden
pest. No carrots, either. Well a few, but it was a crop failure. The onions didn't do well, but the leeks came
in fine. Not to worry, we have friends who
garden and sell produce, we have the wonderful Farmers Market in Madison and a very good food co-op, so we'll
find good substitutes for those things we did not grow.
What we did grow mostly turned out quite well, and successes more than offset any
failures. Tomatoes, which last year were
a disaster due to the late blight, came in just fine. We are still harvesting beets. The eggplants were the best ever. Even the beans produced exceptionally well in
spite of being half eaten by deer. Winning
at home gardening often means just growing a lot of different things. Most of what you grow will come through. We encourage all who are able
to grow their own food. It
can save you money and is very often the best food there is.
We like to
hear from you, so send us a note, post a comment on our blog or Facebook page,
or say hi if you see us around. Happy
Gardening from Noel and the CobraHead Team!
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