Hello, Friends of CobraHead,
I'm happy when I can share my love of gardening with young people, so I'm pleased to let you know that the gardening workshops with Save Our Youth, SOY, have continued. In fact, we've come up with the official name of El Quelite Youth Gardening Project. We started out with a simple task this week, potting up aloe, rosemary and mint that the young people took home for their own use.
El Quelite means greens in Nahautl (the language spoken by the Aztecs among others, and is still spoken by over one million people). It refers to greens generically, but depending upon the context and the geographic location, may also refer to a specific plant. If you have read my previous posts, you know how much I like greens for both their taste and nutrition. I hope to share my passion for greens, gardening and cooking with the young people. In the coming months I'll keep you posted about our gardening endeavors. I'd also like to give a special thanks to SOY coordinators Czarina Aggabao Thelen and Rene Valdez for inviting me to participate.
In this issue, I share my pruning techniques for peach and plumcot trees. Here in Austin, we're actually already past the ideal fruit tree pruning season, but in the north you still have time. Also, Noel reviews a new gardening book that has become one of his favorites, and I present a sweet potato recipe in honor of Valentine's day, but good to make any time of the year.
What are your favorite greens to grow and cook? Drop me a line at Geoff@cobraHead.com
Happy gardening,
Geoff
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 | | Sweet Spiced Sweet Potatoes |
Sweet Potato TreatsWe hope that you had a wonderful Valentine's Day. Still looking for something to share with your loved one? Try this sweet potato dessert. Click here to read Geoff's recipe.
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 | Henry Homeyer
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Organic Gardening not just in the NortheastNew Hampshire garden writer Henry Homeyer has recently published another book and it's one that Noel highly recommends. Henry is an excellent storyteller but also fills this book with practical advice. Read Noel's full review here.
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 | Pruning a peach tree
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Got fruit trees? Winter is the time to prune. Geoff shares what he's learned about pruning stone fruit like peaches and plums 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 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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 | | Anneliese at Madison Expo |
Here's a happy Anneliese at our booth at the Madison Garden Expo where we exhibited last weekend. We've been vendors at this show since 2004. We like Garden Expo for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that we sell a lot of tools. We can honestly say we have CobraHead fans here. People in the crowd will go out of their way to tell others how much they like our tools. There's nothing better than an unsolicited testimonial.
The show is sponsored by Wisconsin Public Television. It is very gardener oriented with an almost overwhelming schedule of in-depth seminars and workshops, and the collection of vendors is one of the best of all the shows we do in terms of having good things for gardeners.
Garden Expo is always the second weekend in February and it draws an excellent crowd of gardening fans eager to start thinking and planning for the upcoming gardening season. Weather is often an issue at the show and this year was no exception. It was snowing Friday night and that hurt the attendance a little, but Saturday and Sunday were just fine and the crowds were out in force. This is Wisconsin after all, so a little snow and cold doesn't deter people from going where they want to go.
We are happy to report a winner for our newsletter sign-up at the show. It's Helen Hartman. Helen won a $50 gift certificate to our website store. While we are on the subject of winners and garden shows, I'd like to announce that Christine Hendricks won a $50 gift certificate for signing up for our newsletter at the Porter County Indiana Garden Show where we exhibited a few weeks ago.
I was invited to speak on my open raised bed garden techniques on each of the three days of the show. The talks were well attended well received. It's becoming obvious that people really do want to take control of their food destiny and grow their own if they can. I'm very happy our little company is contributing in a small way to that.
Noel and the CobraHead Team
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