An excellent garlic harvest

This is a lot more garlic than it appears!

I brought in the garlic that's been drying in the garden shed this evening. It may be overly 'cured' but it's a great harvest nonetheless. I notice that I thought it was overly dried last year too, and it stored beautifully, so it may be just right! Last year's garlic lasted through January or so, and this looks like enough to get even garlic lovers like ourselves through many delicious meals.

A side note: it was fun to search for garlic references on older posts! We do really enjoy our garlic. I need to create a menu of posts on the sidebar (but, hmm, that does sound a bit like some work), and it's summer, after all.

Harvesting garlic and garlic scapes

I started harvesting garlic this morning, sorting out some to eat fresh and others to dry. I ended up doing this first small harvest (planted in late November) backwards perhaps (you're supposed to dry the smaller heads and eat the larger ones fresh, according to one reference). And I cleaned the outermost leaves (there was lots of soil sticking to the heads), not normally recommended. So I'll plan on using this first batch early. Last year's harvest was such a success that I'm anticipating garlic for some months to come!

Some of my garlic patches are definitely ready to harvest, judging by leaf dieback (and depending on the variety), other patches need a bit more time. You're supposed to judge by the numbers of brown leaves, with variation depending on whether it's softneck or hardneck.

In practice, this is harder than it seems. But happily, garlic is a forgiving crop, and delicious at any stage. (Any sort of freshly-harvested - that is, green garlic - is fabulous, in my opinion).

If the stalk has tipped over, I definitely harvest it, and if it looks pretty brown (in terms of leaves), ditto. And then I tie up bunches to dry in the garden shed for 2 to 3 weeks (it doesn't take long in our warm climate).

I had bought a bunch of garlic scapes at a tailgate market in the mountains over the weekend -- they were quite tasty, although not as ethereal as some reports would suggest. Interestingly, garlic scapes are largely produced by hard-neck (rocambole) garlics, which in warmer areas, we don't grow as much. So, no wonder my largely soft-neck garlics don't normally produce them (I certainly hadn't noticed them before hearing about them on KCRW's Good Food (a favorite podcast from Southern California accessed via iTunes) and reading about them in various other places.

But I'll be harvesting a few more of my garlic scapes in the next week or so, as they produce a curled flower stalk.

Happily, this year, I actually have copper markers with the varieties marked, so I can keep track of what's what. In previous years, my wooden labels, marked with pencil, indelible ink, or permanent markers, etc. ended up providing no clues as to variety by the time harvest came around. I'm not all that concerned about varieties (all garlic is good), and frankly it's hard for me to distinguish between varieties, except for size of plants and heads, and reddishness of skins in some. But it's nice to TRY to keep track of how different sorts did.

Garlic, spinach, mustard greens, and lettuce

Garlic, radish, potatoes, snap peas, and a couple of hay bales ready to plant

Abundant rain this winter and spring (hooray!), along with some very warm days over the last week, has the vegetable garden growing rapidly.

I might actually be able to try cooking some fresh favas (broad beans) this year. There are a few pods on the small number of plants that overwintered.

These plants came from seed sown in early February --it'll be interesting to see if they're able to set any fruits before our hot weather sets in. Fall planting followed by overwintering is usually the best method in our climate, but this year's cold winter zapped that!

Right now, there are more greens than we can eat directly -- the mustards, Asian greens, and older salad mix will become stir-fries; younger lettuces, spinach, purple mustard, arugula, and green onions, we'll eat fresh.

The garlic and onions are looking very promising, and the potato foliage looks great. I'll be planting squash and beans in the next couple of days, if I can squeeze it in -- otherwise, this weekend.

The transplanted tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers look good, although I still need to put the final transplants in their hay bale 'experiment.'

We've had several excellent rounds of spinach from this container (a good amount each time, actually) - yum.

This was Renee's Garden Oriental Giant Spinach - totally fabulous, and by far the most productive spinach that I've grown.

Spinach, lettuce, mustard, and mache

In the main vegetable garden this winter and spring, I'm avoiding planting brassicas (kale, collards, arugula, mustards, etc.) to dampen the root-knot nematodes (even though I have a few overwintered collards).

I'm also only going to plant nematode-resistant tomatoes and peppers when warm weather comes.

So, garlic, onion sets, lettuce, mache, and spinach are what I've planted so far. The garlic went in last fall, with the onion sets being stuck over the last couple of weeks, and the greens just sown.

I also sowed a couple of flats of spicy mesclun and radicchio, as well as large containers of spinach and mesclun. These can all be protected if a hard frost threatens. It's been mild for the last few days; not as warm as last week, but pleasant in the afternoons.

I've got all the beds ready to sow greens and early cole crops in the satellite garden, and hope I'll be able to snag the woodchuck who will be undoubtedly hungry as s/he emerges on warm days!

And my seed potatoes should arrive soon.

Finally, some planted garlic

I cleaned up beds in the main vegetable garden and the satellite garden today. It was nice to be back in the garden, after too much time focused on other things. I fussed (to myself) about being late to do these things, but whatever. All things in their time.

After a Sunday morning walk with my gardening companion (and my gardening assistant - aka my husband and dog), I set to work pulling up spent tomatoes, peppers, and lagenaria squash, and started amending beds for planting.

I planted this bed with Inchelium Red and Early Italian, with multiplier potato onions in a small patch towards the thyme.

Fall garlic

My garlic order came yesterday. I probably don't really need to order garlic to plant, since I had such an excellent harvest this year, and could use cloves from my harvested heads.

But it's such fun to order new varieties - Chesnok Red, Early Italian Red, Red Toch, Shantang Purple, and Susanville. These were grown organically and certified disease-free, from a small, family-run farm, Hood River Garlic, in Oregon. My previous source (Gourmet Garlic Gardens, run by Bob, the Garlicmeister) in Bangs, TX, provided great garlic, too.


I won't plant the cloves until mid-October, or thereabouts. I could even wait until early November, too. I usually harvest in May and June, but this last year is the first I've had LOTS of garlic that we can enjoy through fall, at least.

Late garlics

I enjoyed cleaning up the second round of harvested garlic this morning. The bundles had been hanging from the rafters in the garden shed ('curing' for probably too long). Generally, recommendations describe curing garlic for several weeks for good storage, but we'll eat it fast enough anyway not to worry too much about it.

I trimmed off the stalks and dried roots and some of the outer wrappers, and piled them in a basket. Hopefully they'll keep well at room temperature.

The heads are smaller than the early varieties, but they're equally delicious. The pungencies of varieties differ, but basically we like all of them! There are a number of excellent mail order/internet order garlic companies -- two of my favorites are Hood River Garlic, in Oregon, and Gourmet Garlic Gardens (in Texas).

Brussels sprouts and kohlrabi

We love all sorts of greens and broccoli relatives, at least I do, and my gardening companion eats them happily, when stir-fried with olive oil, onions, and garlic.

I've certainly got plenty of garlic. This was the large 'main' harvest, now cured and inexpertly braided.
Now I just need to find a place to store the harvest; the garden shed is MUCH too hot, and the basement seems too dark and dank, although it's quite dry. Perhaps, I'll have to rig up a 'herb rack' to hang from the 'mudroom' ceiling? This sounds like it will require crafty things with vines or twigs, not exactly my area of expertise.

The Brassica oleracea cultivars that produce brussels sprouts and kohlrabi should be delicious, and kohlrabi, at least, is supposed to be easy to grow, and harvestable within 60 days. Hard to believe, but worth trying as a fall crop. Brussels sprouts are quite frost-hardy, so they should be a decent fall crop for our region, although I don't know anybody who grows it. I bought seeds of both at our local farm supply store, and the cashier (one of the owners) asked about the kohlrabi, saying she'd seen some at a local upscale grocery store.

It looks to me like it will need plenty of water to mature the swollen stems. This image is from a lovely vegetable-gardening-oriented blog called Calendula and Concrete.

More spaces to plant

I harvested almost the last of the garlic, along with all of the remaining bulb onions yesterday. The garlic (a German porcelain type) was smaller than the June-harvested ones, probably because the hot, dry weather limited clove growth, in spite of watering.

But I've been quite pleased with my harvest and have LOTS of garlic for the coming months, enough even for devoted garlic lovers.
There are also quite a few harvested new potatoes that will stretch for a month or two, along with fresh onions.

I'm not quite sure how to properly store onions and potatoes for a long time, and they're so tasty fresh, it's hard to get motivated to do the research.

I think I'll add a second trellis of yard-long beans, for fall production, and another set of cherry tomatoes & roma tomatoes to the vacated space, after adding lots more compost. I'm also going to put kohlrabi, brussel sprouts, and broccoli (oops, and parsnips, too) in beds that I won't need for rotation in fall. Hmmm, maybe I need more beds. That's a slippery slope!

This large red cabbage in a container is ready to harvest.

Time to harvest garlic

The beds of garlic I planted in the fall are ready to harvest. The lower stalks are turning brown and tops of the early varieties flopping over. I've never actually stored garlic, since we usually eat the entire harvest while fresh, but this year may be different.

I planted a LOT of garlic and onions in the satellite garden (the photo below is from April; I knew if the woodchuck emerged from his/her winter hibernation early, they wouldn't be eaten in early spring). The garlic and onions have flourished.

Garlic is wonderfully easy to grow; I've enjoyed ordering different varieties from specialty growers and have been amazed at the types available. They have evocative names- Inchelium Red, Nootka Rose, Chesnook Red, and Georgia Crystal; garlic is grown all over the world, so there's been adaptation to local conditions.

I'll be swapping out the garlic for more tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, and pole beans -- all hopefully will thrive in the hot dry days to come.

Next year, I'm definitely planning to harvest some of the young 'scapes' or flowering shoots-- I just received a link to this article in Mother Earth News by William Woys Weaver, which is fascinating, as are the other garlic links given.

Why hadn't I thought of making my own garlic powder before?

Checking young shallots and garlic

I thought I'd harvest a bunch of nicely developing shallots and a large garlic plant to check their progress (and turn them into a yet-to-be determined dinner item that we can enjoy!)

I was glad to see well-developed cloves already -- garlic at this stage is delightfully fresh and almost juicy.




The shallots haven't developed very large bulbs yet, but have bunched vigorously.

Here they're ready to be used, along with some fresh sugar snap peas and a loaf of homemade bread.

Garlic, woodchucks, and fall flowers

I planted garlic yesterday in the satellite garden. I'm quite confident our trap-lining woodchuck (I think that s/he roams around the neighborhood looking for tasty tidbits) isn't interested in onions or garlic, at least the Welsh onions haven't been bothered. I can't say the same for newly planted collards, chard, or red cabbage, clearly favorites. Amazingly, s/he/they nibbled the perennial Italian dandelion in the main garden down to nubbins (actually a chicory) recently. Those leaves are so bitter that they require par-boiling prior to cooking to be edible. Worrisome, however, that s/he is now becoming brave enough to visit the main vegetable garden next to the house. I put Mocha out today on 'woodchuck' patrol. He'd much rather lounge around inside where it's cool, but I told him "Woodchucks, No." Ha! He slept on the shaded side porch all morning, so hardly was any deterrent.

Fall flowers are lovely -- the swamp sunflower is in its full glory in one of the perennial beds, and I've enjoyed this volunteer Blue Ageratum (Eupatorium coelestinum, now Conoclinum coelestinum) near the old metal wheelbarrow.

I also sowed more flats of fall and winter lettuce and some extremely hardy lettuce varieties called 'North Pole' and 'Arctic King' that have sailed through our last winters here without damage. Check out the Cook's Garden catalog for seed!