Recently, CobraHead teamed up with Singing Rooster Coffee and Just Coffee to support rural development in Haiti. Singing Rooster has already been working with small farmers in rural Haiti. They bring Haitian grown coffee to the U.S. and work to get Haitian coffee (which is very good) established here. With the devastation in Port au Prince, many Haitians are returning to small towns and will likely be getting back to growing food. Through Singing Rooster, we are sending a lot of CobraHeads to Haiti to help with the gardening programs to be established there.

Of course, in the short term lots of emergency help is still needed. Partners in Health has a proven track record in this regard. Last week, we helped host a fundraiser in Austin for Better Future International-Haiti. DJ Chorizo Funk kept the spirits high.

CobraHead supports helping people grow their own food. It's part of our mission, and we are pretty sure that small-scale growing is actually the future of agriculture. We are happy that we can help in Haiti, and we are always looking for venues where we can share our gardening tools and expertise with others.

About a year ago I set up a worm composting system using the Worm Factory. I was pretty excited about it at the time, and I decided to name it Phil (each individual worm is also named Phil). Because I've read that vermicomposting can take a while to really get going, I was careful not to overfeed Phil during the first few months. I don't think I even added a second tray until two or three months had passed.

When July rolled around, the creator of the Worm Factory offered to let me try their new model, and I happily agreed to trial it.

The new Worm Factory is designed to allow better air to flow through the system. The bottom tray now sits on a booster that creates an air gap all the way around the bottom of the tray, and the lid now sits above the top tray rather than inside of it. I was told I could simply take the old trays and stack them in the new system, but I wanted the tray colors to match.

Transferring Phil into his new digs was also a good opportunity to check on the composting process. Aside from a few paper scraps and minor food chunks like eggshells, the bottom tray was ready to harvest (note to self: do a better job of crushing eggshells before feeding them to Phil). I kept the tray going, though, mostly because I was too lazy to empty it out right then.

Fast forward to January 2010, when I finally got around to harvesting some worm castings (I'm skipping a few months where Phil developed a fruit fly problem, and I left him alone for a while – I now make sure to microwave the scraps I feed him to kill any fruit fly eggs).

I moved the bottom tray to the top of the system and left the lid off. I also stirred the castings and kept the light on to encourage the worms to migrate down to the tray below. I left it like that for about a day or so, hoping that the castings might dry out a bit before I took them out to store them. They were still quite moist when I transferred them to a big bowl, though.

We'll probably mix the castings with potting soil and use the mix for our indoor potted plants, most of which are in dire need of transplanting at the moment.

Phil's fly problem has cleared up, and he seems to be chugging along just fine for the time being. I think this year I'll make it a goal to ramp up production and really put Phil to work.

Funnel Collector

Japanese Beetles On A Grape Leaf

Japanese beetles only became a pest in my garden four years ago. When they first appeared their numbers were so overwhelming that I pretty much had no choice but to let them go unchecked. They nearly defoliated my raspberries, but I still got an okay harvest. They loved the asparagus fronds, but they did not seem to be doing severe damage there. Their favorite food was the leaves of the wild grapes that grow all over my property, especially along the fence lines. Many grape leaves were skeletonized, but the vines survived the onslaught.

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Judy and I returned to the Kickapoo Country Fair in La Farge, Wisconsin for another show Saturday and yesterday. We did our first show there, last year, which you can read about here. The fair is about farming and smaller organic family farms, versus the corporate factory farms that now dominate world agriculture.

The show was noticeably bigger this year than last. More exhibits, more workshops, more vendors and bigger crowds. I think, if they stay on track, Kickapoo will become a major event for promoting the ideals of organic farming and sustainable living. A large field of sunflowers greeted us when we entered the grounds of Organic Valley Headquarters. The sunflowers are part of an experiment in bio-diesel fuel.

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A couple days ago I blogged about flowering edibles in the garden. It was quite hot when I was taking the pictures which included some shots of the multitude of pollinators that collect around the flowers. I commented on how hard it was to photograph the bumblebees because they would not stay still long enough for me to get a good shot.

Yesterday and today have been very cold. A high of about 66 both days. For the middle of July, it is not normal. I came home from a trip to Minneapolis late yesterday afternoon and noticed bumblebees working the coneflowers by the driveway. They were moving quite slowly, and working the flowers very deliberately. I thought it would be easy to get some pictures. It was. The flowers are well past their sell by date, but they still have excellent color and obviously enough pollen to keep the bumblebees interested.

As I was finishing up shooting, I came upon a dying bee. I had already found a dead one. I don't know if the cold weather was killing them or if they were just running out of gas after their natural life cycle, but I was able to put the camera right up on the bee without any worry about having it get mad at me.

Long ago I used to have a bad attitude about ornamentals. I looked at flower gardening as an indulgence, without the necessity attached to growing plants to eat. That has changed and I now not only admire beautiful gardens, but I have great respect for the gardeners who create them. Nevertheless, I'm a hungry man, so it's mainly the vegetable garden for me. If I had more time, I would dabble in the artsy, but now I barely have time to secure the harvest.

Edible plants almost all produce flowers to attract pollinators. Some of these flowers are tiny or not even recognizable as a flower, but many can be every bit as gorgeous as the wildest exotics of the flower garden.

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This weekend Judy and I were CobraHead Exhibitors at the Midwest Renewable Energy Association's 20th annual energy fair in Custer, Wisconsin. It is the largest show of this type in the U.S. This was our third year at the show. We sell lots of garden tools. In fact it is a way better show for sales than almost any garden or flower show we do.

The reason is the audience. MREA attracts people with interest in sustainable energy. They have a very high awareness of what is really "green". Thus there are lots of gardeners and small farmers. Overall, the people are way hipper than the average show crowd when it comes to environmental issues and a knowledge of food and gardening.

All aspects of renewable energy and sustainability are represented in vendor exhibits, workshops, and talks and keynote addresses. The three day show also has some excellent food vendors including the Wisconsin staple - beer - by a great and "green" local brewery, Central Waters Brewing Company, and good entertainment. Saturday night we saw Michelle Shocked and I immediately became a fan.

Here's Judy trying to make a sale.

Solar is cool! Pictured are a vendor of panels, a huge solar cooker designed for villages where there is no firewood, and a solar powered water heater.

Wind power for home, farm, commercial, and community was represented.

This experimental house features locally produced inputs and is super energy efficient.

The big boys like Toyota attend the show and don't pass up an opportunity to show off their energy efficient vehicles.

But the home enthusiast modified Mercedes that runs on vegetable oil is in many ways more interesting.

My favorite vehicle – an Allis-Chalmers "G" tractor modified to be solar powered. No gas fumes in this farmer's organic veggies.

I don't exactly know when this happened, but I discovered it at 5:45pm today, and it wasn't like that at 4pm when I left for the post office. We've had three days of pretty steady rain, and the wind has been rather gusty today, so I guess this is what can happen. We're pretty lucky it fell in the direction it did -- that tree was right next to power lines!



On the plus side, now we can scratch "Chop down old dead tree" off the to do list.

I started pepper seeds yesterday. Here's the list: Hot peppers: Orange Fogo - source - Renee's Garden; Red Demon - source – Renee's Garden; Unknown 1 1/2" long short fat tapered hot, and Unknown 2 1/2" long fat tapered hot - source – saved seed from plants given to me by my neighbor Sheryl Jarlsberg; Feherozon Paprika – source – Fedco; Anaheim – source – Fedco; Pasilla Bajio – source – Baker Creek; Bulgarian Carrot Chile – source – Fedco; Ancho 101 – source – Fedco; Hungarian Hot Wax – source – Fedco

Sweet Peppers: Golden Cal Wonder – source – Baker Creek; Corno Rosso – source – Franchi; Sunset Orange – source – Seeds of Change; Red Rocoto – source – Seed Savers; Golden Treasure – source – Baker Creek; King of the North – source – Fedco; Red Belgian – source – Baker Creek.

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I've wanted a worm bin for a while, but it was never an urgent issue. It's not as though we don't have a compost pile. For as long as I can remember, we've composted all of our food scraps. In fact, when I was a kid, I didn't know what a garbage disposal was. I distinctly remember visiting a friend's house and asking where they kept the compost bucket. The way I understood it, throwing food into the kitchen sink was a BAD thing. Imagine my surprise when she flipped a switch, and the sink ATE the table scraps! At the time, I probably thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I've since gotten over it.

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The past two weeks have been quite hectic for me and Geoff. We exhibited at Green Festivals two weekends in a row, and they were on opposite coasts. It's a tiring schedule, to be sure, but we like being busy like that. The Green Festivals are always interesting and a lot of fun. At each festival we end up making new friends, and we often see a lot of old friends, too.

Two weeks ago the Green Festival was in Washington DC. A number of folks from the gardening world were on hand to promote better gardening practices. Some very nice folks from Purple Mountain Organics were there selling books and gear to help with organic growing, Kathy Jentz had a booth with Washington Gardener Magazine, Susan Harris from Garden Rant stopped by (see her picture of Geoff at the booth here ), as did Viveka Neveln from The American Gardener Magazine. My friend Martha Stauss of Green and Sticky, Inc. also came to the festival with her son Forrest, and our friend Joe Lamp'l gave a talk on greener gardening practices. He was kind enough to give us each a "Growing a Greener World" wristband. I was happy to wear it for the rest of the festival, but I have to admit that I'm not much of wristband wearer. The wristband is now serving a far more useful and visible purpose as a travel mug grip band. It makes my stainless steel tea mug easier to grab, and it helps to keep the slippery container from sliding out of my backpack water bottle pouch. Joe seemed to like the idea, and he even posted a picture that I sent him on his blog. Maybe I've started a trend!

We were only home two days before we left again for the San Francisco Green Festival. There weren't as many gardening exhibits this time (with the exception of our friends at Rain Reserve), but there were still a lot of people interested in gardening and food growing. We were very fortunate to meet some really wonderful folks. Across the aisle from us was Anne Thibeau from The Old Fashioned Milk Paint Co.. They make no VOC paints using old fashioned methods. Next door was our new very cool friend Jenny. Jenny makes aromatherapy sprays for stress, relaxation and revitalization. I was also lucky enough to be visited by my friend Brad, who I know from back in my drum and bugle corps days. Brad and his girlfriend Jennifer are expecting their first child, and they were glad to learn about the dangers of Bisphenol-A and other potentially toxic compounds in baby bottles and other baby items. They were able to pick up a few safe baby items from a company called ZoLi while visiting the Green Festival.

Geoff and I are now decompressing back in our respective home states. Traveling can be fun, but it's always nice to come home. Starting in early 2009, we'll be back on the road again for garden show season. Watch for us at a garden show near you!