Wednesday, October 26, 2011

late october in the garden

tomatillo

snow is in the forecast for tomorrow. we keep having false alarms in the frost department, but we felt it was time to harvest our tomatillos. did you know that we didn't think we planted tomatillos this year? we were sent tomatillo seeds instead of the husk cherry seeds that we ordered. i'm not complaining. more salsa verde in our very near future. we also pulled out our matt's wild cherry tomato plants (finally!) and have an entire colander full of various shades of cherry tomatoes sitting by the sink.

garlic

it's time to plant garlic. many of you wrote to tell me that you are a bit intimidated by garlic. don't be! it's super easy to grow and doesn't have many pests. just simply break the bulb into cloves. don't peel them.

garlic planting

and plant them with the tip pointing up. i've read different opinions about spacing. 4-6 inches sounds good to me. at the farm, we plant them 8 inches apart because we have the room to do so. push the entire clove into the soil and cover. pat the soil down when you finish planting.

if you have a chance, enhance your soil with some aged manure or compost. at the farm, we add cheep cheep, which is supposed to be good for any plants in the allium family.

beehives

our hives are wrapped and ready for winter weather should it truly arrive tomorrow. mouse guards are in place, too. we're all set whether it snows or not.

5 comments:

  1. I just planted garlic in my garden a few days ago (and posted about it on the blog)...what type do you grow? I'm looking at expanding next year.

    And the snow? I have my fingers crossed but I have a feeling it is going to stick to the higher elevations and skip me completely this time around.

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  2. we planted georgian fire, german extra-hardy, music, phillips, and russian red.

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  3. Does the garlic stay in the ground over the winter? That's the part that confuses me most about planting and time of year (and hence why I haven't tried gardening yet). Some things appear to grow to maturity within the same season, and others appear to be aimed at next year.

    I had an "older" clove of garlic that I found had sprouted in my fridge. On a whim, I stuck it in a small bowl of water. The shoot has sprouted about an inch a day for three days and there are small roots in the bowl below the clove. Any suggestions on what I should do now since I didn't kill it?

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  4. the garlic does stay in the ground over winter and is usually harvested (here in vermont) in july/aug. you don't want the clove to grow too much because it will put too much energy in the green and not in the bulb. but i say, go ahead and plant it. garlic likes a layer of straw on top once planted, too.

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  5. I just wrote about garlic too! Love your pictures! http://shanonhilton.blogspot.com/2011/10/around-yard-growing-garlic.html --Shanon

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