weekend garden notes

my garden has been a bit neglected lately.  i was starting to think that i wouldn't even have the energy to get my garlic in (and i was trying to convince myself that i was okay with that).  this weekend we continued to have unseasonably warm weather and i forced myself to head over to my community garden to harvest my potatoes.  it was a bit disappointing (especially after i realized that i harvested fewer potatoes that i had planted in the first place!), but they will still be delicious.  i planted all blue, german butterball, and rose finn apple.  this year i tried a potato tower method, which was clearly not very successful.  i think a few of my problems were that my towers were too big around (about 3 feet in diameter) and i didn't keep them watered well enough.  if i try this again next year, i will definitely make them smaller.  what's your favorite way to plant potatoes?

i also managed to get my garlic in, which i know i will be really happy about come summer.  since i wasn't sure i was going to plant any, i hadn't purchased any new seed garlic.  i just used the garlic i grew this summer- german extra hardy and georgian fire.  i planted cloves from the largest bulbs and covered them with a pile of leaves, since i didn't have any hay or straw. 

our kale is also still going strong, and now that whatever little bugs were munching on it all summer are gone, maybe we can actually enjoy some of it.  after ignoring my garden for the last two months or so, it felt so fulfilling to get in one last garden day before winter sets in.

late october in the garden

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.



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.



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.



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.

autumn garden notes

I took a walk down to our field garden today. It's the garden that's so far away that we often go a full week without checking in. We have some gilfeather turnips that are ready whenever we are, but i'm waiting for Thanksgiving. I love looking around our gardens and seeing things that will end up on our thanksgiving table: tiny brussels sprouts, leeks, sage, and kale.

The winter rye cover crop we planted is doing well. You can see it in this photo growing all around the turnips. I have to say that the morton oats we broadcast on the left side of the garden did not germinate as well.

Next week, we'll plant our garlic. We've been holding out because it's been warmer than usual and we don't want the cloves to germinate and grow too much before the winter snow cover. I recently came across this article on garlic and really enjoyed it. Everything you need to know right in one place. Our seed garlic from Fedco arrived recently too. We're planting five different varieties as we want to do a taste test and find our favorites. And we really would love to be garlic farmers one day. Here's what we're planting:

Georgian Fire
German Extra-Hardy
Music
Phillips
Russian Red

How about you? Are you planting garlic this year?



I couldn't leave the garden without taking back a snack. three pretty little cherry belle radishes. a nice treat.

growing garlic

this is my first year growing garlic and having just harvested the two varieties i planted last fall, i would definitely chalk this up to one of my garden successes for the season.  as shari wrote last week, it's so easy to get caught up in all the things going wrong in the garden (and there are always things going wrong) that it's easy to forget your successes.  each year, i try to make a list of my successes, and there are always more than i expected once i list them out.  garlic is definitely on that list this year.

i planted two varieties: german extra hardy and georgian fire, last fall (i think it was late october or early november) at my community garden and at home, respectively.  immediately after planting, i thought the cloves had been dug up by squirrels because there were holes in the soil around where i had planted them, so come springtime i was not expecting anything to happen.  but then, one by one, sprouts began popping up, and i ended up with seven of each variety.  i guess the squirrels took one sniff and turned around!

in late june/early july, scapes can (and should) be harvested from garlic plants and used in cooking wherever you would use garlic.  i threw a handful in some hummus, and ultimately chopped up the rest and stuck it in a jar in the freezer.  i'm looking forward to throwing them in stir fries and soups over the winter.  garlic bulbs should be harvested when 1/4 to 1/3 of the leaves turn brown.  loosen the soil around each plant and pull up the bulbs.  do not wash the garlic, gently brush the dirt off (if you have a mushroom brush, this works perfectly).

i was really looking forward to braiding my garlic, but apparently that only works with the soft-necked varieties and i conveniently planted two hard-neck varieties.  oh well! instead of braiding, i wrapped the plants in garden twine and have just hung them to cure, which will take a few weeks.  once cured, cut the roots and stems off and store in a cool, dark place.

i ordered my garlic from seed savers last summer for fall planting, but i think this year i'll purchase new varieties from a local farmer who grows heirloom garlic.  i plan to save a couple of the bulbs i grew this year for replanting in addition to the new varieties i add.

have you grown garlic in the past? any tips or ideas to add?