Hello, Friends of CobraHead,
Last weekend I enjoyed the only, yet delicious, pomegranate produced this year by my pomegranate hedgerow. This fall I've been making an effort to just enjoy the abundance of my garden, whether it is vegetables, fruits, herbs or flowers. The size of my fall garden is the smallest that it has been in years, but between the still producing summer plants like basil and okra, herbs like rosemary, sage and pericón, fruits such as lime and fig, and the beauty of bougainvillea, Salvia greggi and Pink Texas skullcap I have plenty to enjoy.
I had a chance to catch up with Mississippi garden writer Nelly Neal last week at the Louisiana State Master Gardener Conference and during her talk she reminded us to walk the garden every day. This re-enforced my own goal of gardening seven days a week, even if only for a few minutes each day. There is a parallel with exercise here: moderate effort sustained consistently can bring great results. Plus, my mood almost always improves after even a short time among the plants.
As I write this, I'm drinking a cup of lemon balm tea, also from the garden. It reminds me of the gardening I did at the Tsyuhehkwa Center with Ted Skenandore. A day rarely went by without jokes and we would usually accuse each other of being in need of a cup of lemon balm tea due to its anti-flatulent properties.
In this issue Judy shares sauerkraut recipes and Noel provides tips on harvesting and storing sweet potatoes. In addition, Anneliese gets giddy about Reallygoods. Plus, we have a special discount on CobraHead goods for our newsletter subscribers.
What's your favorite herb for digestive ailments? Drop me a line at Geoff@cobrahead.com
Happy gardening,
Geoff
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 | | CobraHead Tools |
As a special thank you to readers of the CobraHead Newsletter, we are offering 10% off all items in our web store, except the Gulland Forge Broadfork. To receive the discount, add an item to the cart. Put the code: autumn12 in the box labeled Promotional Code and click Apply Code. The discount will apply to all items added to the cart. Good through November 15th, 2012. Thanks very much for being a friend of Cobrahead.
Click here to shop now. Remember to use the code autumn12.
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 | | Red Cabbage Sauerkraut |
Judy has wanted to make sauerkraut for a long time. This year she finally got the inspiration to do it after attending two fermentation workshops. Fermented cabbage is healthy, stores well, and is easy to make. See the recipe here.
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 | | 80 Pounds of Sweets |
Anyone who's been to our newsletter knows we are crazy for sweet potatoes. This wonderful plant is one of the most nutritious a gardener can grow, and it easily lasts in storage for a year. Noel had his best harvest ever, and he talks about it here.
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 | | Reallygoods |
Our friends, Chris and Steve McDiaramid, have launched a business to make and sell Reallygoods. We love these wholesome Wisconsin-made snacks. This is a product that deserves success, so we're giving them a shout out.
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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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 | | Hoop Tunnel |
October normally ends on a cold note here in our area of Wisconsin. This year is no exception. The nights are now below freezing. I've been working to try to put things to bed for the winter That means trying to catch up on neglected weeding, pulling out dead plants, deconstructing all the trellising structures, and raking up and dragging leaves into the garden beds.
While my outdoor gardening work mostly comes to an end by November, I'm trying to coax some carrots and beets into lasting a while longer. I've set up a double walled hoop tunnel over the bed I planted in mid-August. These hoop tunnels are easy to construct, and easy to set up, take down and move around. Here is a post that expands just a bit on this. And here are the basic instructions for setting up a hoop tunnel.
We don't talk too often about how our CobraHead tools get made. Some people think we make them ourselves, which we don't and we couldn't without a very sophisticated manufacturing facility. We are way too small for that, but we've purposely chosen to find manufacturing partners close to home. Our primary supplier is Green Bay Drop Forge. They make the blades for both our tools and the steel collars that are part of our CobraHead Long Handle. This company has been in business since 1914. Green Bay Drop Forge is a supplier to a diversified list of industries and they've managed to stay quite successful even though the U.S. forging industry has seen a lot of its work outsourced to overseas operations.
Green Bay Drop Forge has been instrumental in helping us with design and manufacturing issues. We would not be in business without them. They've just launched a new website and their work with CobraHead is a featured case study. Please take the time to browse their site. I think you'll find it quite interesting. Green Bay Drop Forge
We have a couple winners of our $50 gift certificate giveaways for newsletter sign ups we solicit at garden shows. We drew Tyler Cullender's name at the Mother Earth News Fair conference in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania. Cira Coates was a winner from the Indiana Master Gardener Conference in Noblesville. Congratulations!
I hope all you gardeners had great success this year. We can honestly say this was one of our best gardens ever. We'd like to remind all our readers that we love to grow our own food and to help others do the same. We post articles about food growing and cooking with home grown food on our website blog, and we almost always have a discussion or several going on about food and growing on our Facebook page. 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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