The Cultivator

Crisped Plumcots and Trellised Tomatoes
The CobraHead Newsletter

August 2014

Hello, Friends of CobraHead,

The summer in Austin has been relatively mild so far, and not as dry as the last few years, but we are about to get into a stretch of triple digit days. When that happens, if I don't garden early in the morning, I don't get out at all.

My summer garden is modest this year. I re-used the trellis that Noel helped me build for peas in the spring to grow loofah and Malabar spinach. I planted a number of hot peppers. And then just allowed volunteer papalo, basil, and sweet potatoes to fill in the gaps. Roasted salsa with papalo is a summer treat.

In this issue Noel shows how to trellis tomatoes and I share a recipe for plumcot crisp with cinnamon and cardamom. Plus, we have a special for newsletter subscribers, offering 10% off of everything on our website store (except broadforks).

What's been your favorite treat from the garden this year? Drop me a line at [email protected]

Happy Gardening,

Geoff

CobraHead Long and Short Tools

Summer Sale! Save 10% at the CobraHead Website Store

Through all of August take 10% off everything in our website store (except broadforks).

Use the code: summer2014

at the end of the checkout process.

Go to our shopping site here.

Plumcots

Plumcot Crisp

Plumcots are an apricot/plum hybrid. Geoff had an abundant harvest. Here's a great crisp recipe that will work with a lot of different fruit.

Here's the recipe.

Tomato Trellis

Rock Solid Tomato Trellis

Noel finally built the trellis he's always wanted for his tomatoes. It was easy and it's performing extremely well.

Here are the details.

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

Summer Sale!

Plumcot Crisp

Tomato Trellis

Flowering Herbs

Warm weather came slowly after a long cold winter. Our reward for enduring a true winter from Wisconsin past is a wonderful cool summer for which Wisconsin can and does brag about. I'm outside a lot more than I would be if it were hot. I don't live here to enjoy the winter, so a summer like this makes a pretty good tradeoff.

Pollinating insects, and the loss of them, have been getting a lot of attention. We try to encourage pollinators in our yard mainly by letting a lot of plants go to flower and seed. The oregano above, to the right of the flowering carrots, gets the prize as the best pollinator attractor we have. It's loaded with bumblebees of several types. There are also honey bees, several different small bees, and other flies. Wasps, hornets, butterflies, moths, dragon and damsel flies are on and amid the flowers. I've estimated over 100 bumblebees to be in the area at one time, so we're not lacking for the good guys showing up in the garden.

Every year I've been letting more plants go to flower. In this picture carrots, oregano, anise hyssop, lemon balm, and flowering spring onions, are all attracting some type of pollinator. I've been letting cilantro bolt and seed for many years. The bees and wasps love that plant nearly as much as the oregano. The reward for letting herbs and veggie plants flower includes both free seed and lots of bees and pollinators. It's an easy thing to do and I would encourage anyone to give it a try.

A recent winner of a $50 gift certificate for CobraHead products was Lee Maki, who signed up for our newsletter at the Upper Midwest Master Gardeners Conference in Bettendorf Iowa. Congratulations.

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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