Sweet Roasted Goodness - The CobraHead Newsletter

The Cultivator

Sweet Roasted Goodness - The CobraHead Newsletter

September 2011

Hello Friends of CobraHead,

I finally started planting my fall garden last week. So far, just a section of rapini and other mixed greens, but I'll be putting in more as soon as I get back from the Heirloom Expo in Santa Rosa, California. I have already bought more unusual vegetable seeds here than I can possibly plant over the next year.

I've found in Austin that erring towards the earlier end on recommended planting dates makes a huge difference with productivity in both the spring and the fall. Of course, that's not always easy in Central Texas, where it's abnormal for us to have a "normal" season. The record summer heat started to break last week and then shot back up into the 100's. It looks like by the time I get back this weekend the triple digit days will be over.

I'm turning forty next week. We decided to celebrate by helping out the Urban Roots youth farming project in Austin. If you don't know about this inspirational group, then you need to check out the post below. We are going to match donations between now and October 1 with in-kind donations up to $1000. Plus, we have a contest. Help us get the word out about the Urban Roots fundraiser and get cool stuff. The details are in the post.

Plus in this issue Noel talks about growing an interesting new tomato and Judy shows how to cook it with roasted with beans and served over pasta.

How has your view of gardening changed over the years? Drop me a line at Geoff@cobrahead.com

Happy Gardening,

Geoff

Urban Roots at Austin Farmer's Market

Support Urban Roots

Austin has an amazing youth agriculture program called Urban Roots. If you don't know abut them, you need to check out this post. We're giving away a CobraHead Weeder, a garden fork, and a kneeling pad, our Garden Essentials Package worth $89.95 to help them out - click here for details. We're also matching donations in-kind with up to $1,000 worth of our tools and other products.

Sweet Treats Tomatoes

Noel talks about an interesting and most productive tomato. Read more here about how you can grow this tasty treat.

Roasted Green Beans and Cherry Tomato Pasta

Harvesting Beans? Harvesting Tomatoes? Judy does it again with this sweet roasted goodness. See her recipe here.

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 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.

Thank you,

Noel, Judy, Geoff and Anneliese
The CobraHead Team

In This Issue

Support Urban Roots

Sweet Treats Tomatoes

Roasted Green Beans and Cherry Tomato Pasta

Sweet Potato Blooms

Our kitchen is overflowing with food from the garden. The harvest this year is exceptional and better than I had hoped for. I'm often amazed at how easy it can be to grow lots of food. It's actually a lot easier to grow it than to do something with it afterward, especially foods with a short shelf life that don't lend themselves well to storage. We've had a good melon crop and friends have been bringing over their extras. You can only eat so much melon.

For several months of the year we produce over half the food we eat. September is probably the best month of all. Food from the garden is on the table for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks in between.

We at CobraHead are very happy to be involved in what is referred to as the food movement. I would summarize that as a current trend toward eating better quality food than what is offered by the corporate mainstream's fast food and factory farm offerings. At the core of the movement is "grow your own" and "buy local". Another factor of the food movement is the saving of grown foods genetic gene pool that has been developed over thousands of years of seed saving in agriculture. It's difficult to imagine that there are those who would destroy our food heritage merely for profits, but it's too true.

A champion and pioneer in working to save the wondrous variety of food available to home gardeners is Jere Gettle and his company, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Baker Creek is hosting a new event this week in Santa Rosa, California called The National Heirloom Expo. CobraHead is happy to be an exhibitor at the show. Anneliese and Geoff will be representing the team and we think it will be a landmark event.

I see the food movement as part of a logical approach to the issue of sustainability and planet health. I'm quite sure only gardening on a small scale will resolve many of the problems humans have created with the earth. So with that, get out in the garden. Do your part to save yourself and the planet.

Thanks for reading our newsletter. We like to talk gardening and food. Send us a line or comment.

Noel and the CobraHead team.

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