Harvest

This week was the first picking of kale along with the lettuce.  I also cut the garlic scapes off and will be finding different ways to incorporate them in our meals.

Garlic

Seeing something green growing in the garden while I am waiting for everything else to come in helps to make the spring garden feel alive.

Signs of Spring

The garlic is coming in through the straw and the chives have already started new growth.

Planted!

I finally got my garlic planted.  I was worried with my crazy year that I might not get the chance to plant it.  I either have been working when the weather was nice or had free time while it was raining and not suitable to plant the garlic.  But this weekend I finally had the time and the weather cooperated also.  This year I planted "Music" since I had good success with it last year.  This year it is in a raised bed so we will see if it does better than in the in-ground garden.  I topped the raised be with straw to help keep it from freezing while it takes its winter nap. 

Garlic

The garlic has finished curing, been trimmed and is stored away in a mesh bag.  I ended up with a bit over 2 pounds which is my best garlic harvest yet.  I have saved a couple of the largest bulbs for next year's seed and picked up a few more large bulbs of the same variety for seed at the farmers market.

Garlic

 

This garlic is ready to harvest and needs to be pulled soon.  As in I should have pulled it yesterday.

You can tell garlic is ready when the bottom 2-3 leaves have turned yellow and died off.  Mine each have 3 dead leaves with a fourth and fifth leaf about ready to go too.

Garlic

The garlic is growing and poking through the straw because we have had Spring like temperatures.  However the next couple of days the temps are going down in the 20s so I am not removing the straw just yet.

2011 Bean, Leek, Garlic, Onion Reviews

Tendergreen Snap Green Bean - I was happy with this variety.  It grew quickly and provided one main crop with a second picking.  I liked that it was a bush variety and didn't need to be trellised.  The beans were typical green beans with good flavor.

Royal Burgundy Snap Beans - These beans are a wonderful deep purple.  I picked them specifically just for the color.  They were prolific bushy plants.  My only wish is that they held their color when cooked.

Kenearly Yellow & Jacobs Cattle - Both of these drying beans did similarly.  Both had trouble with disease and were spotted with yellow and brown splotches.  The harvest was mediocre.  I have extra seeds so I might try them again but I'm not sure if it is worth the space.  I will have to try the beans soon and decide if they have excellent flavor worth taking up the space.

American Flag Large Leeks - This was my first time growing leeks.  I was overall happy with the final plants.  Some were very large, some skinny.  I still have some in the ground waiting to be picked, I want to see how well they do with in ground winter storage.

California Garlic - This is a soft neck variety that did poorly two years in a row.  Every bulb was tiny and if I was lucky some were small.  I don't ever want to try this variety again.

Yellow Stuttgarter - These onions also did poorly.  All of my onions were tiny and small.  It might be my clay soil, despite the fact that I have amended it and loosened it.  But I am still on the quest for an onion that does great for me.

Growing Garlic

This year I planted Fall garlic because all of the Spring planted garlic I have tried has had poor results.  I planted the garlic last month after our first real frost.  Just recently I noticed the garlic has been growing and has started to come up.  We have had some milder weather than usual.  I am not sure if this is what should happen yet.  I was under the impression the garlic would get roots established but the green leaves would not grow yet.  I am going to cover them with a blanket of leaves and hope that it is enough protection to keep them safe until Spring.

Garlic

The weather has become cooler and frost has set in so it was time to plant garlic.  The past two years I have planted soft neck varieties that have always ended up a bit puny.  I'm not sure if its been because the soil isn't loose enough, the garden center was selling crap product, or the variety.

So this year I bought garlic from the Farmers Market to plant in my own garden.  The garlic was sold to cook with but I figured if the Farmers around here are having luck with this variety maybe I will too.  They actually had a couple of garlic options and I bought "Music" because I wanted to try a hard neck variety to see if it would make a difference.  I have also read that Music is a good variety that it is easy to grow, hardy and stores well.

I planted 32 cloves six inches apart in all directions and 2 inches deep per standard garlic planting directions.  We will see how well it does come next Summer!

First Sprouts

The onions and garlic starting coming in about a week after they were planted.  This picture was taken a few days ago, more and more keep popping up everyday.  To give you an idea how little they are this guy is only about a half an inch.  It's exciting when the garden is no longer a big patch of dirt!

Spring Planting

Over the weekend I was able to get some of our plantings started.  It rained so hard Saturday it was too muddy so I waited until Sunday afternoon when the ground had dried out enough.  Unfortuneatly it got dark before I could finish everything.  I wasn't going to get the lamp out again, I do have my limits.  Hopefully later this week I will be able to get the rest of our Spring seeds in. 

Broccoli transplants and a new Rosemary plant in the back.

It's a very unexciting picture.  But behind the four sticks are the rows of onions and garlic I planted.  The onions are Yellow Stuttgarter.  I planted them 4 inches apart which seemed a bit close hopefully they get big enough.  This year I decided against growing red onions since I don't use them as often and the variety I chose last year did quite poorly.  We go through yellow onions much faster so I decided it would be better use of our space only to plant yellow this year.  The garlic variety is California and those were planted 6 inches apart. 

  

The asparagus patch, I planted 16 plants.  Each is marked with a stick so I know exactly where they are and can watch for the new growth.  I planted mostly Jersey Knight and some Jersey Giant.  Even though I normally prefer heirloom plants I opted against the heirloom Martha Washington so I don't have to worry about self seeding.  I only put a couple of inches of dirt on top of the roots.  You aren't supposed to completely cover them in the beginning.  As they grow rest of the dirt gets filled in around them.  I have read differening opinions on spacing ranging from 12-18 inches.  I wanted to fit as much in as possible so I went with 12 inches.

And people wonder why I don't love our neighbor's Magnolia tree.  If you need a reminder look a couple of posts down at the pretty, clean mulch of last week.  This is only half the petals the other half has yet to drop.  They are slippery and the leaves in the Fall are even worse.

Storing Garlic

Along with storing our onions it was also time to store our garlic.  I cured the garlic along with the onion.  I decided to try braiding the garlic for storage purposes.  Not really knowing the proper way to braid garlic I figured it was similar to french braiding hair.  While it isn't perfect and some of the heads of garlic are a bit loose I still think it was a decent job for a novice.  So for ladies and possibly men who can french braid hair you can also braid garlic.  If you don't know how to braid hair properly you essentially start with three garlic heads and then add one in at a time.  I do however wish the I could have braided the garlic while the stems were still a bit green, it would have made it easier to braid them tighter.

Recent Harvest

Carrotts

Garlic and Onions that are curing for storage.  They were all a bit smaller than I had hoped for but for the first try growing both I am overall pleased.

And more tomatoes!