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BioMarkers win Green Thumb Award

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

We’re pleased to announce that our BioMarkerTM plant markers won a Green Thumb award from the Direct Gardening Association this year.

BioMarkers

Now in its 15th year, the Green Thumb Awards recognize the best new plants and gardening products available each year from gardening catalogs and websites. The Direct Gardening Association (formerly the Mailorder Gardening Association) sponsors the annual Green Thumb Awards.  For more information, visit the Green Thumb Awards page.

BioMarkers are easy-to-read, durable, and ecologically friendly.
Big and bold with easy-to-read weatherproof labels, the markers are made to last many seasons.  The weatherproof labels can be printed on a laser printer or written on directly.  They will last a full season and are easily replaceable for marking the next year’s garden.

BioMarkers are made in Iowa by MCG BioComposites LLC from Duramze™, a blend of tough recycled plastic and corn cob fiber.  BioMarkers are available in three colors, Light Stone, Medium Brown and Dark Green.  To learn more about the BioMarkers or purchase some for yourself click here.

 

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Heat for Hot Peppers

Friday, January 13th, 2012

Last year I skipped using a heat mat underneath the flat in which I started my hot pepper seedlings.  That was a big mistake.  I had a germination rate of less than 10%.  This year I picked up a new heat mat and have had great results.

It’s already time to start hot peppers in Austin.  They can be transplanted into the garden as early as mid-March and it takes 8-10 weeks from the time seeds are sown until the seedlings are ready to transplant out.

Hot peppers germinate best around 80 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit.  Since I don’t keep my house that hot they need supplemental heat.  There are fancy heat mats that come with thermostats and soil thermometers, but I picked up a less expensive one that simply raises the temperature of the flat 10 to 20 degrees above ambient temperature.  For my purposes it has worked fine.

In the picture you can see that I’m also using a plastic cover over the flat to both retain moisture and heat.  The heat mat does make the soil in the flat dry out more quickly; I have had to mist the flat daily.  One thing to watch for with the plastic cover is that it may reduce air flow and get moisture levels too high, creating conditions for fungal growth on the plants.

The covered pepper flat.

My flat has 72 cells.  I planted 6 varieties of peppers on January 2.  I first began to see germination on January 6, but some of the seeds are just sprouting now, on January 13, and I expect a few more to still germinate.  The seeds that I had from the 2010 growing season are taking longer to germinate than the seeds packed for 2012, but the slower germination may also have to do with the variety.

I sowed two seeds per cell to ensure getting close to 72 plants.  In the cells that have two seedlings I’ll use a small scissors to cut out the weaker plant.  I don’t want to pull it out as that may disturb the roots of the remaining plant.

Pepper Seedlings

Once the peppers grow their first set of true leaves I’ll transplant them into 3 ½ inch pots.  I like to grow a lot of peppers, but I won’t need 72 plants; so I’ll have a few to give to friends.

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Kale Avocado Salad

Thursday, January 12th, 2012

Still harvesting winter kale?  My friend Matt Gossage gave me the recipe for this salad.  I tried it for myself a few nights ago and decided to share it.  The avocado gives a creamy texture to the salad.

Kale Avocado Salad

Ingredients

  • One large bunch kale
  • Two ripe avocados
  • Fresh lemon juice
  • Salt
  • Course ground black pepper

Remove the stems from the kale and chop.  In a large bowl add ½ tsp salt.  Massage the salt into the kale with your hands and then let sit for 20 minutes.

Taste the kale to see if it is too salty.  You may need to rinse it once to remove any excess salt.  If you do rinse it, press out as much water as you can.

Add two chopped avocados, fresh ground black pepper and the juice of one-third to one-half lemon.  Mix and serve.

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Self Watering Strawberry Containers

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

In October I wrote about the project that I did with Save Our Youth making self-watering planters out of reclaimed five gallon buckets.  You can read the original post here.  I decided to modify the original design and turn it into a strawberry planter.

First a note about strawberries in Austin:  They are normally planted in the fall here and treated as an annual crop.  I’m a little late in my planting this year.  The plants fruit in the spring, but rarely survive Austin’s extreme summers, even with ample watering.  Therefore rather than spacing new plants further apart and allowing them to fill in via runners, a tighter spacing is used and runners are discouraged.

In the container that I built, I use a similar tight spacing, placing the bare root plants about five inches apart.  To build this container, follow the original steps for a self-watering planter.  See my post above or look at a video of Mike Lieberman’s original design here.

Make the markings for two rows of holes one about four inches from the top and another one four inches below the first row.  Mark the holes five inches apart in each row and offset the holes on the bottom row. This gives seven holes per row.  Use the same 1 1/8” hole saw used to cut the hole for the watering pipe in the original planter.  Since you will have to cut through both buckets, tape the buckets together first to keep them from sliding around.

Self Watering Strawberry Container

Marking the holes for drilling.

Use a 1 1/8" hole saw to make the holes for the strawberry plants.

Once finished with the holes, fill the container with pre-moistened potting mix up to the first line of openings.  Then carefully place the bare-root strawberry plants (in my case Chandler variety) in each aperture, getting the crown in line with the wall of the container.  Spread the roots out as much as possible.  Once one row of plants is in place add more potting soil, gently tamp it down and fill to the next level.  With the second row complete, add another six plants on the top surface and water them in.  Fill the reservoir via the copper pipe until water begins to spill from the overflow hole.

A little tape keeps the two buckets aligned during drilling.

The finished container prior to adding potting mix or strawberry plants.

Keep the crown right in line with the bucket and spread the roots out.

The planted strawberry bucket.

I’ll cover the container if we are going to get an exceptional cold snap or move it to a protected area, but otherwise it will stay on my front porch.  Come next summer, I’ll move it to a shady location to see if I can get the plants to survive the heat.  Strawberries can fruit as early as March in Austin.  Hopefully I will have some juicy berries in a few months.

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Sweet Potato Leaf Quinoa Soup

Sunday, November 20th, 2011

Since it’s getting close to the end of the growing season for my sweet potatoes, I decided that harvesting some of the leaves that have sprawled into my other garden beds would probably not affect tuber production significantly.  I’ve sautéed sweet potato leaves before and will post another recipe soon, but today I wanted soup.  The quinoa in this soup gives it some body to make it more filling.

Sweet Potato Leaf Quinoa Soup

Sweet Potato Leaf Quinoa Soup

  • 1/2 Onion chopped
  • 1 Stick Celery chopped
  • 1-2 Hot Peppers seeded and chopped
  • 1/2 cup uncooked Quinoa triple washed
  • 5 cups Veggie Broth
  • 3 TBS Rice Cooking Wine
  • 2 cups Sweet Potato leaves coarsely chopped
  • Avocado

In a medium sized pot sauté the onion, hot pepper and celery until the onion starts to turn golden.  Add the veggie broth and quinoa and bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.  Add the sweet potato leaves  and rice wine and simmer for five more minutes.  Garnish with sliced avocado and enjoy.

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Seed Stratification

Thursday, November 10th, 2011

Last spring I started some Agastache mexicana seeds indoors but got very spotty germination.  I decided to investigate whether or not stratification would improve germination.  I think that it will.  Here’s the why and how:

Many seeds have built in germination inhibitors.  This prevents them from germinating until more ideal growing conditions are present.  Stratification is one method of mimicking natural conditions that seeds are exposed to prior to germination to “trick” them into germinating.  Since Agastache mexicana, also known as Mexican Hyssop or Lemon Hyssop, comes from the cooler highlands of Mexico I’m using a cool, moist stratification process similar to that used for prairie plants like Echinacea.

Some seeds can be put into a moist medium like peat or sand, put into a sealed plastic bag and put into the refrigerator for anywhere from a couple of weeks to a few months. The idea is to match the conditions of a cold, wet spring that the seeds would go through prior to germination.  Since the Agastache seeds are tiny and would easily get lost in the medium, I decided to broadcast them directly into a couple of small pots.  I then pressed the seeds gently into the moist sowing mix.  The pots themselves are sealed in a plastic bag, labeled and dated and put into the fridge.

Agastache seeds ready for stratification

Can you see the Agastache seeds? Me neither.

I will take these pots out in early January and put them under my grow lights.  Assuming that I have good germination success I’ll prick the seedlings out and transplant them into larger containers once the plants show their first set of true leaves.  The timing should work out for a mid-Spring outdoor planting in Austin.

Agastache seeds in sealed plastic bag with name and date.

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Have Noel give a vegetable gardening talk!

Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

Over the past couple of years Noel has been developing and refining his presentations on organic raised-bed gardening.  It’s about time.  After thirty years of growing lots of good food, he has learned a thing or two.  Below is the press release that we have put out touting his abilities.  Please feel free to share this with any groups that would want to hear Noel speak.

Noel Valdes

Noel Valdes

CobraHead’s Noel Valdes Speaks on Open Raised Bed Vegetable Gardening

Cambridge, WI – November 2011  –  For Noel Valdes, founder of CobraHead Garden Tools, it’s about helping people grow their own food.  A lifelong vegetable grower, Noel now speaks to gardening groups across the Midwest promoting organic raised bed vegetable gardens.  Noel’s methods have been influenced by the intensive techniques introduced to the United States by Alan Chadwick and popularized by John Jeavons, but over the past thirty years he has developed his own raised bed gardening style.

Noel’s method requires no power tools, uses few external inputs and provides high yields of delicious produce for him and his family.  Noel grows in over twenty raised beds producing everything from lettuces and other salad greens, to potatoes, sweet potatoes and other storage crops, to small fruits like raspberries and strawberries.  While his garden is relatively large, his methods can be applied by the home gardener who just wants to start with one bed.

Says Noel, “After years of implementing and practicing open raised bed gardening techniques and intensive home grown food production, I’m convinced that one person can easily grow up to a third or more of all the food requirements for a family of four or more in a very small area.  They can do this with relatively minimal inputs in both terms of time and money, without the need of power tools, and with organic and extremely sustainable gardening practices.”

“People are starting to realize that growing food using good food growing practices is necessary for both healthy people and a healthy planet.  If small scale growing techniques similar to the ones I explain were utilized by a large percentage of the world’s population, I’m sure issues of hunger would be reduced and the health of the earth and its human population would be greatly improved.”

Noel has presented at the Madison Garden Expo, The Chicago Flower Show, the Wisconsin State Master Gardeners Conference and the EcoFair 360 among other places.  In the coming months he will again present at the Madison Garden Expo as well as the Porter County Garden Fair in Valparaiso, Indiana.

For more information or to book Noel for a garden presentation contact CobraHead LLC. 866-962-6272.  info@cobrahead.com.  www.cobrahead.com.

Noel's Garden

Noel's Garden

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Black Bean Quinoa Salad

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

I’ve made a couple of versions of this dish over the past few weeks and gotten a lot of compliments, so I figured that it was time to share.  Quick and easy to make.

Please keep in mind that the quantities listed are approximations as I don’t measure everything exactly when I cook.

Black Bean Quinoa Salad

Black Bean Quinoa Salad

One-half cup uncooked black beans (One cup cooked)
Two cups uncooked quinoa
Three celery stalks
One-half onion
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar

Cook the black beans the way that you like them.  I tend to use garlic, onions, Mexican oregano and cumin with a hot pepper or two thrown in for good measure.

If the quinoa is not pre-washed then rinse it three times, then add four cups water and a little vegetable bouillon and bring it to a boil.  Once it’s boiling reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook for exactly fifteen minutes.  If the quinoa is still liquidy after fifteen minutes, drain off any excess water, but don’t cook it past the 15 minute mark or it will get mushy.

Drain the black beans and add them to the quinoa.  Chop the onion and celery and add these as well.  Splash on some olive oil and balsamic vinegar, give it a good mix, and you are done.

Options:  Throw in some chopped parsley or chopped cilantro.  Or, chop some fresh or steamed garden greens like chard and add these as well.

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Saving Our Youth with Self-Watering Containers

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

A few months ago I came across Mike Lieberman’s website, the Urban Organic Gardener.  He posted several how-to videos about making self-watering planters out of reclaimed five gallon pails.    He does an excellent job explaining how to make them, so I’m not going to repeat all of the steps in this post.

I decided that this would be a perfect project to try out with the Save Our Youth Project of Red Salmon Arts, housed at Resistencia Bookstore.  We had already planted a small herb and vegetable garden, but since they had little soil and far more paved parking lot, containers made a lot of sense.

Czarina, Rene and the other staff and volunteers of Red Salmon Arts already do superb work with young people via poetry and arts.  They recruited me to add a gardening component to their workshops.

Below are our steps towards turning a bit of parking lot into a vegetable garden.

Jacob drilling drainage holes in the inner bucket.

I want to thank the staff at Central Market Westgate in Austin for providing me with empty peanut butter and almond butter buckets from their bulk department.  My friends wonder why my car always smells like peanut butter.

Cutting the copper tubing for the water inlet.

 

We modified Mike's design by cutting tabs into the bottom of the old yogurt container so that it wouldn't slide around.

Jacob and Crayvon adding the pre-wetted potting mix.

I find that adding some water to the potting mix prior to planting makes it easier for the soil to take up water.

Rene, Crayvon, Czarina and Jacob show off the finished planters.

Given the shift in Austin weather to some cooler fall temperatures we planted collard greens, chard and broccoli.  As the young people get the hang of caring for these plants we will probably make several more containers.  In total we spent about one hour making the containers and less than one hour planting them, making it an easy way to transform a patch of asphalt.

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Urban Roots Matching Fundraiser a Success

Monday, October 17th, 2011

We want to thank everyone who donated to Austin’s Urban Roots last month.  Because of all of your contributions we raised over $850 to help keep this inspiring youth agriculture program running strong.

We will be sending Urban Roots at least $850 worth of our tools and other products as a match to the cash donation.

We also want to thank everyone who re-posted, re-tweeted, facebooked, or otherwise helped get the word out about the fundraiser.  In particular, we want to thank Martín Perna who went above the call in publicizing this via his multiple social network connections including his personal blog.  To thank him, we are sending him our Garden Essentials Package.  Martín is also a talented musician, if you don’t know his work you should check it out here.

I’m looking forward to continue working with the young people and adults at Urban Roots.

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