garlic envy

I visited my Mom 's garden yesterday. I weeded her paths dense with purslane and grasses. I fertilized her tomatoes and squashes, pulled her spent pea vines, and gave Charley a bunch of old broccoli stems and a few last peas to eat.

I also pulled my Mom's ripe garlic. I had serious garlic envy last year. My heads were so small, hers were nice, and I vowed to work on my soil to get heads as big as hers. A week ago I finished pulling my garlic and it is much bigger than last year's. I was pleased. But yesterday, head after head, I pulled my Mom's and it's amazing. Even bigger than it was last year and definitely bigger than mine. ---- So I still have garlic envy. And will vow another year to work on my soil.

garlic sources for planting

I've been asked me where I buy garlic and for other sources so I thought I'd post this list again. I posted it last October too.

Here's the list of garlic seed sources that people have recommended in response to my post a few days ago. They look awesome! I can't wait to try out some. If you have a source you like, let me know and I'll add it.

Pacific Northwest: Filaree Garlic Farm - So many! This source was seconded and thirded! Washington State Adaptive Seeds: Good selection, also grey shallots, free shipping over $50. Oregon Territorial Seeds: Oregon

Colorado: The Garlic Store Potato Garden

New England: Fedco bulbs division: Maine. Ordering deadline is early September. High Mowing Organic Seeds: Vermont Green Mountain Garlic: Vermont

Everywhere: A garlic festival: Four are in the New England/New York area Local farmer's market: no shipping charge, varieties that do well in your area Costco: Bulbs from California

I have to add that it's a good investment to buy good garlic seed. I replant my cloves for many years. About 10% of my harvest, my biggest heads, get replanted every year. I've gone 10 years without buying garlic, just replanting my own. Occasionally there's a bad crop (like I had two years ago) and I have to buy more. So starting with good healthy seed garlic gets you off to a good start. E

And every year you replant your best garlic you are selecting seed that is best for your garden and developing a strain of garlic that is best suited to your growing conditions.

I am planing to plant my garlic this weekend. This year - with LOTS of compost! So I don't get another harvest of tiny little heads. (Lots of compost like my Mom's garlic bed. You should see how big her heads are!)

mid-winter garlic

I checked the garlic growing in my garden today. "Music" (pictured) is up an inch or so above the salt march hay mulch. The tops of the plants look weather burnt, but underneath they're green. "Late Italian" is up about 2 inches above the mulch. "Duganski" isn't up yet. Our forecast is now saying maybe we'll get some snow next Tuesday. The garlic would prefer that. Gardeners at my community garden have been concerned and have been adding more salt hay to cover their garlic.

I'm now eating supermarket garlic. :-( I'd normally have my own still in February but I had a problem with rot last year :-( So, I'm chopping up these big, pure white supermarket cloves. I assume it's CA garlic. Maybe from Gilroy, the garlic capital. I was surprised by its flavor. I find it very strong and sharp. Pshew! I remember someone saying homegrown New England garlic doesn't have much flavor. Now I understand. In comparison to this, it's very different. But I find that our local garlic has nice complex flavor, without the strong sharp taste.

I saw local garlic at a winter farmer's market in Wayland MA last weekend and almost stocked up. However, it was small and $1.75 a head. I'd eat 10 of them in a week I think, so I didn't get any. I'm glad they get such a good price.

looks like a good day for planting garlic

We had a torrential rain storm last night. My fall greens must have loved it. Now it's drying up and the sun is out. I brought a dozen bags of compost, manure and topsoil down to my garden yesterday. Also, a bale of salt marsh hay. I'm just waiting now for a new version of Photoshop to download (my old one didn't seem to work with my new Windows 10 OS). Separating the cloves as I wait. Once it's done, me and the dogs are going to go do some digging and plant garlic.

The new garlic patch is where my tomatoes were. I have three varieties from Territorial Seeds.
   8 oz Italian Late has 72 cloves!
   8 oz Music, 22 giant cloves
   8 oz Duganski, 45 pretty purple cloves

OK, I'm off to plant....

ordering garlic - where do you buy garlic?

I FINALLY remembered to order my garlic. I hope it gets here soon. I'd like to plant it at the end of this month - in 2 or 3 weeks.

My garlic crop had problems this year. More than half of it rotted in the ground. I only harvested 40 heads so I decided to eat them all and buy new (clean) stock. I usually like to save 75-100 cloves (about 15-20 of the biggest heads) for planting.

I checked a couple local sources first (Johnny's and Fedco) but seems they don't sell garlic.I had thought I might buy it at a local Farmer's Market, but didn't get to ANY this summer. (I've been swamped with my own vegetables...)

I ordered my seed garlic today from my old favorite: Territorial Seed Co. Three varieties: Duganski, Music, and Late Italian. (The first two are old favorites. I'm trying out Late Italian, a soft nect that sounds good.)

Where do you buy your seed garlic? I'd love to set up a list of sources.

what caused my garlic to rot? rotation, rotation, rotation

I've been thinking about why half of my garlic crop rotted this year.

In early spring, my garlic plants yellowed and curled and then died. This started mostly in one area of the bed and then gradually other plants curled and died more slowly. Some just stopped growing looking like a small plant, but when pulled, the bulb was rotten.

Once I saw the plants rotting, I worried that I planted where onions had been last year and maybe garlic the prior. This is my list for crops the bed the garlic was in.

2009: tomatoes, peppers
2010: beans, dill
2011: squash
2012: garlic
2013: roots, including onions
2014: squash
2015: garlic

So next I looked into garlic rot information online. I looked at a Cornell Plant Clinic factsheet on garlic diseases. There are several different types of garlic rot. I'm not sure which I had, but the ways to address them all are the same, so I'm not going to worry about an ID.

The Cornell sheet says:

... as with any crop, it is important to plant clean healthy seed. For most of the mentioned diseases (Basal Rot, White Rot, Downy Mildew and Nematode infestation), once the pathogen is established in a field, rotation away from Allium spp. for several years is an essential management tool.

It looks to me like I didn't rotate well because onions are also an Allium species. I think they snuck in there are ruined my 3 year rotation. Darn.

Well, next year I'll have clean fresh garlic seed and I'll see what I can do to avoid this bed for a long time.

my last clove of garlic

I planted 75 cloves of garlic last fall. It gave me a pretty good harvest. There were a few more rotted coves than usual, but my main wish is that I had more heads. I've had years when my harvest lasts til April. I was jealous to read a blog where the gardener planted 500 cloves of garlic!! Wow. This fall again I planted 75 cloves. I'll have to think about a way to plant more next fall. I would need to use a second bed. Just over 100 cloves would be nice.

I used to plant 100 cloves, but they were smaller and I planted them closer together. I have a real nice seed stock from Territorial now, mostly Music, and it is big and takes up more space.

today's garden work

I've been visiting my parents for a couple days. Today I helped out with some garden work. It was a beautiful day for gardening!

- I took down "the annex", a small (about 10 x 15 ft) garden section that we created in the lawn next to their garden last year because they needed more room. They grew tomatoes, summer and winter squash here and it did great. I pulled out fence posts and stacked them under the porch, removed and rolled up the 5 foot tall plastic deer fence and saved it for next year with the posts under the porch, pulled up and disposed of the mostly decayed landscape fabric that they used to keep down the weeds, collected and stacked the bricks used to hold down the fabric and, finally, racked smooth the soil surface. The area would ready to be mowed with the rest of the lawn, except that LOTS of wild kale came up all over this new garden and my mom is still using that.

- I planted garlic. Earlier, I explained to my parents that its best if they plant their own garlic that they grew last year. Its the first year that they've gotten a really nice garlic harvest. My mom was disappointed at first to give up 7 or 8 heads. then when I told her it should be the biggest heads, she was crushed but complied. Last year I planted 40 cloves for them, they want to have 50 heads next year, so I we counted out the largest heads to give 50 cloves and I planted them. Before planting, I layered on a good amount of their homemade compost (yeah for homemade compost!!!) in two rows, turned it into the soil, then planted the cloves. I planted double rows of garlic in the two rows, staggering the cloves alternately, then smoothed over the soil. In the next few weeks, I'll cover it with salt marsh hay.

salt marsh hay mulch for my garlic bed

Its been getting chilly, so yesterday I brought a bale of salt marsh hay to my community plot and spread a good layer on my garlic bed. Suzie thought this was really fun! Skippy gave her a look and tried to tell her it was not a place for a puppy.

planting garlic

I was late to plant, but finally planted 75 cloves of garlic. Less than my usual 100 cloves, but all were very big and I spaced them so they used the whole bed that I usually use for 100 cloves. The variety is mostly "Music", a second year planting.

I planted the garlic in my community plot. I've decided to keep my plot another year. Next year, I'll work on getting my new home garden going, but since the soil is so hard, that will take some time.

garlic harvest

The garlic in the back side of my garlic bed (Music) is ripening early. I have been picking lots of scapes and they have been delicious. As leaves yellow, I have been pulling the garlic. I like to pull them when 2 or 3 of the bottom leaves are yellow or brown.

I've started underplanting the garlic with small bok choy and summer crisp lettuce seedlings. So hopefully, as I pull the garlic, the bed will gracefully turn into a bed of greens.

I also have a couple rows of garlic in the front of the bed that are ripening much later. This is a "variety" that I've saved for years now. I've selected the biggest ones for replanting from my mix of garlics, some from the farmer's market, some Duganski. I don't really know what variety it is now.

more 2012 crop reviews

Carrots. I didn't do a good job with carrots this year. Lots of room for improvement here next year. I've grown great carrots in the past, but for some reason, decided to experiment this year. I learned what not to do. Carrots sprout slowly and they need to stay moist. This is hard for me since I grow them at my community plot and don't have time to go water every day. So I sowed my carrots in pots and and transplanted the seedlings, like I do for nearly every other crop I grow. The results were terrible - short, badly misshapen, bi-, tri- and quadru-furcated roots. Next year, my plan is to dirext sow and use burlap the hold the moisture.

Chiles. Overall a very good year for chiles. I grew lots of NuMex Joe E Parker, poblanos,Thai hots and cayenne. Also a yellow bell that never turned yellow, but was very nice as a green bell pepper. I tried some other varieties also, but these did the best for me.

Cucumbers. It was a super cuke year! I had 6 or 8 varieties, long and short ones, white and green ones. I love to grow way too many cucumbers. Diva is still my favorite variety, but a close second is the long and crispy Sooyow Nishiki. Cucumbers do well in the very protected and slightly shady space my side yard.

Eggplant. My eggplants got shaded by my cucumbers this year. They eventually produced a nice crop, late in the season. I like the little bicolor Thai variety (Tiger) and a big purple oval one (Classic). I'll try to remember to give them more space next year.

Garlic. A bad garlic year. :-( I planted 100 cloves last fall, but at least half of it rotted in the ground. I think because I planted too late and did not mulch. We had a nearly snow free winter, and the soil in my garlic bed was like hardpan it was so dry. I havested about 40 nice big cloves. With so few, I didn't have enough to eat and plant next year. I bought some new seed garlic: The variety Music, which I am looking forward to trying. My current variety is Duganski.

Green beans.

garlic shipment is here

My garlic shipment is here!!! I'm excited to get it in the grown a bit early this year. Maybe this week? (I was too late last year.) I have my potato bed dug and ready to go for the garlic. I'll add a couple inches of compost, turn it under, and then its ready to plant.

e-how asked me to do a couple of videos on planting garlic. I am hoping to do these this week and will post links.

I ordered the garlic variety "Music" from Territorial.

I like to plant a full 12 x 3.5 ft bed (about 80 or so cloves) in my garden each year. This gives me enough to eat all year and plant for the next year. (My harvest this year was poor because I planted late and didn't mulch.) I have 6 big heads saved from my harvest this year (mostly "Duganski", 8 cloves per head). I'll add to it the 8 Music heads I just got (6 cloves per head), plus some sprouted supermarket ones I want to try. Some will go to my parents garden too.

last of the garlic

I only have a few heads of garlic left from last years harvest. They have been delicious!

I wish this years crop looked better. I forgot to cover it with salt hay and it looks like this was a mistake. Plus I planted very late. Many cloves didn't sprout and it looks like its suffered from drying out with the lack of rainfall this spring.

planting more garlic

Last week my son planted 40 cloves of garlic. I planted another 60 cloves today - finally. The wind was very chilly and not much is left in my garden plot. After planting I pulled a blanket of salt hay over the cloves.

Yesterday I had looked up how much garlic I planted last year - 100 cloves. This seemed like a perfect amount, so I planted the same number of cloves again this year. This great thing is that this year what I planted is all garlic that I grew myself. So it was FREE!

Last year I bought 4 nice varieties if garlic from Territorial and Johnny's paying about $40 as I remember. I was hoping I was right in my thinking that this was a one time investment and that after this I could now grow my own garlic in successive years. So far so good. 100 cloves is about 12-15 heads of garlic and was about 10% of last year's crop.

this weekend's tasks

Not much garden work left for this weekend.

One last bed to clear out.
Print and post fall/winter information notice on bulletin board at community gardens.
Garlic: Locate new bed, transplant volunteers, figure out how many saved bulbs to plant and plant them. My son wants to help - he wants to earn $$ for some project of his. I love to have his help.

I meant to plant garlic a couple weeks ago, but didn't get it gone. The garlic planting time is pretty flexible. I'm looking forward to this!

drying garlic

Before leaving for vacation, I was short of time and threw my newly harvested garlic into a box in the basement. I found this nice video from Kitchen Gardeners about harvesting, curing and storing garlic. Hopefully my garlic will still dry OK after neglecting it last week.

wild garlic

This year, the fields near our community garden are filled with wild garlic. Much more than previous years. There seem to be two different varieties, one with a larger flower (photos above) and the other smaller (photo below).

I am assuming its wild garlic. It has small heads with 3 or 4 cloves, like garden garlic. Much of the wild garlic photos I see on line are a pretty white flowered variety with wide flat leaves. This is quite different.

garlic harvest

This week I finished harvesting my garlic. I harvested half of it (New York White and Susanville softneck, plus some hardneck varieties I saved from past years) two weeks ago (July 2). July 10, I pulled the giant cloves of German Extra Hardy and Duganski hardneck varieties. A fantastic harvest!

I have enjoyed reading a book called "The Complete Book of Garlic" by Ted Meredith to learn about when to harvest garlic. Its a very informative book that the published sent to me to review.

The ideal seems to be to harvest garlic when 5 green leaves remain and the rest are brown. I mostly did this, but still several were more mature and some less.

As the book describes, since garlic leaves start at the base of the bulb, they are also the bulb wrappers. A green leaf means an intact wrapper, and a brown leaf means that wrapper has degraded. If there are no green leaves left, the bulb has no wrapper and the cloves are exposed and will not store well. Too many green leaves and the bulb has not reached full size and flavor (but is still great to eat as green garlic).

There's also a nice comment earlier on my blog from Patrick about harvesting garlic. He says, "Garlic can be pulled and eaten almost anytime! I start in the spring, when it's the size of spring onions and keep harvesting every few weeks. When it's too young to harvest the roots, you can harvest the greens. In this way you have fresh garlic almost all year round."

I am also excited about the extra space I have in my garden now that the garlic is pulled. I planted a bunch of seeds yesterday: soybeans, several lettuce variates, mixed greens and broccoli. I will need to start thinking about where to plant next years crop of garlic, but it will not go in the same spot. Maybe in the corn or squash bed when they are finished.

fresh garlic bulbs

These beautiful bulbs were give to me by a fellow community gardener. I didn't realize garlic could be pulled this early, with the clove wrappers still thick. Maybe its just that they aren't good for storage if pulled before the wrappers dry. In any case, its delicious!