Hello, Friends of CobraHead,
Last week we had some wondrous showers in Austin followed by temperatures in the 70s. With last year's heat and drought still burned into our collective minds, every drop of rain brings joy.
The rains helped the moth beans that I under-sowed beneath my squash plants germinate quickly. Moth beans, from India, are a relative of black-eyed peas and yard long beans. I ordered my seeds from the Bountiful Gardens catalog. According to them, these beans make a good cover crop and thrive when the temperatures hit 100 degrees. If the moth beans are a success they will be a nice complement to the okra that also thrives in the heat.
We're launching a photo contest this month. We want a picture of you using the CobraHead. Top prize is $200. See the details below.
Also in this issue, Noel shows how to interplant greens with garlic and Judy shares a recipe for asparagus spring onion cheddar cheese scones.
Do you have favorite crop or variety that takes the extreme weather conditions of your area? Drop me a line at Geoff@cobrahead.com
Happy gardening,
Geoff
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 | | Anneliese weeding strawberries with the CobraHead |
CobraHead Photo ContestWe want a photo of you using the CobraHead Weeder and Cultivator or CobraHead Long Handle Weeder and Cultivator. You could win $200! Do you have a favorite use for the CobraHead? We would like to see you in the garden using our tools! Between now and June 12th, upload a picture or pictures of you using the CobraHead or CobraHead Long Handle to our Facebook page. Winners will be selected by the CobraHead team and will be announced in June. We will award prizes for the best three photos.
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 | | Asparagus Spring Onion Cheddar Scones |
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 | | Garlic inter-planted with cilantro and greens |
Inter-planting Garlic with GreensNoel and Anneliese shot two videos about how to inter-plant garlic with greens. This method produces great garlic and takes advantage of the extra space to grow a quick crop of spring greens. Learn more.
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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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 | | Transplants in Hoop Tunnel |
April was an overall miserable month, weather-wise, here in Wisconsin, but May is making up for it. Along with our close to tropical March and almost no winter, we're way ahead of normal planting opportunities, and I'm going to try to take advantage of that by getting my transplants all in this coming week.
My hoop tunnel has proved to be a most excellent device for saving me the work of potting off hundreds of seedlings. The hoop tunnel environment has given my plants a huge boost in both growth and hardening-off, ready to handle any weather. I posted about making and using the hoop tunnel a couple weeks ago here.
Normally, the more delicate tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers should go into their permanent homes around or just before Memorial Day weekend, but I'm going to try to get all of those out of the hoop tunnel and transplanted in the next couple days. As it is often June before I get some of these things planted, I'm really enjoying the good fortune of excellent planting weather and the jump start that the hoop tunnel has provided.
Geoff mentioned it, but we want to make sure you don't miss out. We are giving away some nice prizes, $200 being the top one, for a photo contest. If you use and like our tools here's a chance to show us and the world and be rewarded for your work. Check out the blog post for the details.
We post articles about food growing and cooking with home grown food on our website blog, but note that we almost always have a discussion or several going on about food and growing on our Facebook page. Please check it out.
We'd like to remind all our readers that we love to grow our own food and help others do the same. You can help us spread the word by forwarding this newsletter to a friend and if you have any gardening questions, drop us a note. If we can't help you we'll find someone who can.
Thanks for reading our newsletter.
Noel and the CobraHead Team
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