The Cultivator

Potato R�sti and a Good Year in the Garden

The CobraHead Newsletter

December 2014

Hello, Friends of CobraHead,

After a cold, early start to winter in November, December in Austin has been relatively mild. Last weekend, I took advantage of the warmer days to transplant a couple of volunteer pomegranate trees. I've been slowly extending the pomegranate hedge along the northern side of the garden and occasionally their roots extend into the vegetable beds. In the spring two seedlings emerged in the one of the beds. I worked around them this year until the temperatures became cool enough for transplanting, and now have enough plants in the hedgerow to run the entire length of the garden.

In this issue, Noel shares a year-end review of his 2014 garden. And, of course, Judy provides a delicious recipe, this time it's potato r�sti.

In addition, we're offering our newsletter subscribers 10% off (almost) everything* on our website between now and December 31. Free shipping in the U.S. Use the coupon code holiday14 to get your discount. See all of our gardening products here.

What was your biggest gardening success this year? Drop me a line at [email protected].

Happy gardening and happy holidays,

Geoff

CobraHead offers a 10% discount on all products (* except the broadfork). At checkout use the code: holiday14

Potato R�sti

This Swiss / German treat is delicious. Judy's version is worth trying. See the recipe:

Here.

Summer Harvest

Garden Year in Review

Even after a slow start, we had a great garden. Noel has posted about the good and bad of 2014.

CobraHead Weeder

Save 10% on CobraHead Products

Here's a holiday offer to our newsletter readers from CobraHead: 10% off everything in our web store (except the broadfork). Use this code at checkout: holiday14

Holiday Shipping Schedule:
We will ship through December 19th. No shipments 20th - 28th. Resuming December 29th.

Shop 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.

Here's a holiday offer to our newsletter readers from CobraHead: 10% off everything in our web store (except the broadfork). Use this code at checkout: holiday14

Thank you,

Noel, Judy, Geoff and Anneliese
The CobraHead Team

In This Issue

Potato Rösti

2014 Garden Review

Save 10% at CobraHead.com

Anneliese on trumpet with The Werewolverine

December in Wisconsin is going to be significantly warmer than November, which was uncommonly cold and not at all pleasant. There are many places in the world where the locals might not believe that 37F and sunny could be considered a beautiful day, but it's what you get used to, and December has started out nicely.

However the month has started out sadly for our family as we lost a very good friend and the very best gardening friend one could hope for. Michael Ball, who I met a couple years after moving to Wisconsin, became my very best friend. We shared seeds, plants, ideas, and the bounty of the garden for the past twenty years, but he was far ahead of me in food production. Gardening is my hobby, but Michael and his wife Linda ran a CSA for quite a few years and many people counted on him for excellent food and lots of it. I learned much from Michael. He was a most interesting person and he lived life in a way to be admired. I'll miss him and it's a blue week here.

I talk in an accompanying post about my year in the garden. Geoff, who loves to garden, no longer has the time to put into having an expansive garden like I do. It's a problem for many people. Gardening does take time if you really want to grow a lot of food and time is something too many of us don't have. Maybe we need a "make more time for gardening for everyone" campaign.

December is most often when families get together and we'll be lucky enough to be hooking up with Geoff and his girlfriend down in Mexico City at Christmas. Anneliese and her boyfriend are traveling down with Judy and me, so it will be some fun times. We wish you a happy holiday season.

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.

Here's a holiday offer to our newsletter readers from CobraHead: 10% off everything in our web store (except the broadfork). At checkout use the code: holiday14

Thanks for reading our newsletter.

Noel and the CobraHead Team

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