New Plans and Storage Crops

I have been sketching out plans for the 2011 garden already since we need to build some new beds, and I am still lacking space (of course- is it ever enough?).  This means I must prioritize what I want to grow, and weigh that against what I should grow.  Taking stock of what I have sitting in my pantry yesterday was insightful, and it will help me assign crop space for next year .  There is a decent amount of food put by in canning jars and freezer bags as well, though much of it is fruit we picked elsewhere.  I have herbs, kale, green beans, tomatoes/tomato products, pesto, raspberries, and currants from my own garden stashed in the freezer.  Relishes, sauces, jams etc. are on the shelves, but it is the for a pantry I am interested in.  Those high calorie, get-you-through-the-winter roots.

Here she is, my mixed bag of tricks "pantry":

 China, stem-ware, animal chow, and dirty vegetables!

Now for the walk through.....what is left of my globe onions:

(I am not going to bother growing these next year,

 space is at a premium and onions I can buy anywhere.)

Garlic braids are hanging, and I also have an allium drawer with shallots, a few heads of garlic,

 and more red onions, some of them globe, some of them a long heirloom variety:

(Onions are not my best crop.)

Next are the potatoes, and they are everywhere.  The bag holds my fingerlings, 

and the box holds potatoes from a friend's garden.

This drawer has Purple Viking, Keuka Gold, Red Cloud, and Russets:

Sweets:

And that is it.  No winter squashes from my garden unfortunately.  I have made peace with the need to just buy them from others.  A friend and I split a bushel of butternuts from a local farm, so I have a small stash to admire and cook up as I please (and an acorn with a price tag, sigh):

So would you all make my week and post what you have for storage crops, and how you store them?
Canned goods and stocked freezers are always fun to see too.
Share your thoughts on the amounts you grow, what you are pleased with, and what you would like to improve upon.  Winter will quickly be upon us and we will dreaming of digging the earth again come spring, so link your posts in the comments section and show us whatcha got!!

TIME TO PLANT THE GAH-LIC

(This psot was written days ago, but I just never got around to publishing it.)

Yup, it is October, and it is getting cold.  Time to get those cloves in the ground.  Last week I gave the potato onions a home, this week it is garlic's turn.  I had read a very informative piece over at Daphne's Dandelions a few days ago, and I think I will try one of her methods which involves peeling and soaking your cloves before planting them out.  Daphne claims great success with this method, so now I just need to go check the proof on my bottle of vodka and decide which cloves will the best for seed.  The trouble is that a large head of garlic doesn't always mean large cloves are inside, in fact many of my small heads have few, but large cloves.   From what I understand, the larger the clove the better when it comes to next year's crop.

I ordered some hardneck garlic (German Extra Hardy), and will also be planting 3 other varieties that were harvested from the garden this year (a mystery farmer's market variety, Chet's Italian Red, and Inchelium Red- both softnecks).

**UPDATE**   I did in fact soak the cloves in a baking soda mixture w/ some minerals and seaweed, but only for a couple of hours as the rain was coming.  They were quickly peeled, then rinsed and soaked in rubbing alcohol for about a minute, rinsed again, and then run out into the garden.  I had a friend over so I didn't pause to take pictures as I already felt a bit rude for peeling and planting garlic while she was here, but what else is there to do when 3 or 4 solid days of rain are coming?

These are all the discarded cloves.  Some of these just may be bruised, but I do not have enough experience to differentiate between fungus, nematode entry hole, or "just a pimpled//discolored/brown spot" so aired on the side of caution.....but look at all these cloves- maybe I should cook them up?  I hate to just toss them in the garbage.  Thanks to all the discarded cloves I am shy of filling two 4 x 4 beds as I had intended.  Maybe I will just raid my stash and plant some more out once the rain stops.

HAPPY GARDENING!

I have nothing to write about. Besides gahhh-lic.

See those 2 bulbs sitting on that railing?  The one on the left is what you don't want.  Luckily I didn't wait for all the green leaves to turn brown before digging up my bulbs because I already had a couple of these split wrappers brewing underground.....which means they are overdue for digging.  Intact wrappers like the one on the right are best for preserving the storage life of the garlic.

Bulbils coming up the stalk.  These little jewels can be planted for an eventual garlic harvest.  For more information on propagating bulbils read here.  It is not immediate gratification, but the end result should be garlic adapted to growing in your soil which is always a good thing!

After collecting and all those dried garlic leaves, trimmed roots, and accompanying dirt for the compost pile, don't forget to set aside the best bulbs for Fall planting.  It is the large clove size (vs. bulb size) that influences your future harvest- which is pretty inconvenient if you ask me, as the cloves are all hidden under those layers of paper.  Hmph.  Oh yeah, and if you plan on ordering any garlic seed be sure to do it in the next month or so before it is all stamped with that SOLD OUT FOR 2010 bit.  Best planting time varies some depending on the source, but a month before your average first frost date is a good window to aim for.

Garlic Trials

One of the garlic varieties we have growing here, Inchelium Red, a soft-neck/braiding/artichoke variety is starting to show some leaf die-back. I pulled a bulb a couple of days ago out of curiousity, and the size was decent. After pulling up a couple more today I think I pulled up one of the larger bulbs initially as these were both smaller.

This is my first year growing garlic, so I am feeling under-confident in my decisions of when to harvest, and how to cure. I figure I have two options. The first being a shed cure. There are windows, but no electricity for fans so depending on the 3 or 4 week stretch of weather I would worry over air circulation, but the temperature and indirect light should be ideal.

I put the two newly dug bulbs in a wire drawer.  The bulb on the left must have been planted up-side-down, the roots were facing up and the stem is U shaped.  The bulb on the right is quite small still, even with another couple weeks of grow time left, it would be puny.....certainly not seed stock!

My second option for curing is to hang the bunches indoors from the ceiling.

This bulb had been drying in the kitchen before I hung it today, and it seems to be doing OK.  I will follow the bulbs over the next couple of weeks and see which environment seems to be better suited for curing.  Thoughts??

Things to remember about harvesting garlic:

- Watch for leaf yellowing, when 4-6 green leaves remain it may be time to harvest.
- Best to withhold water for the weeks leading up to harvest to help the curing process along.
- More time in the ground = bigger bulbs, but it can also result in splitting.
- Different varieties mature at different rates.
- SSE link:  SSE's Garlic Growing Guide

Robbing the Cradle

That is 9.5 ounces friends.  I just sacrificed how many potential pounds of red potatoes to get 9.5 ounces!?!?!  Worst part is these must serve the four of us with dinner tonight.

I also got testy and pulled up an Inchillium Red, if only you could smell it with me...

I chopped the top and combined it with my two remaining garlic scapes for some garlic-lover's pesto.  (Or as us girls named it one night over a glass of wine, "Wicked Piss-ah Pesto".)  You New Englanders can appreciate that one right?   :)

Green Garlic

Isn't it funny how things sometimes happen?  I had never really been aware of "green garlic" until I was giving a tour of my garden last week and a friend said 'green garlic' when pointing at my greenery.  I hadn't heard of all it's culinary uses- what a shame!  And now it seems that I have been seeing those words everywhere in my small blogging circle.  Ribbit over at The Corner Yard just did a post on her freshly pulled garlic for her friend needed a clove, megan/mason from On a Little Land mentioned it as a must have for her Top 5 (see previous post).  Many farmers thin the garlic in Spring and sell it at markets or to chefs.   Maybe some of you have even seen it in your CSA box.   I pulled a handful of my smallest stalks in effort to thin as I harvested, and this is what came up:

Interesting how the different varieties are colored, lots of 'reds' in there!  After a little trimming of the roots, and peeling of the outer skin, this is what one is left with for cooking:

Still undecided as to how to use this new garden treat I decided to thinly slice it and go from there.....

After doing some sampling I decided the leafy green tops were my favorite, so I added the remaining trimmings that were set aside into the bowl as well (seen below before being added in).

Searching for recipes turned up the usual suspects: pesto and pasta.  Before picking the stuff I had intended on making a pesto of sorts, but then I read how cooking the green garlic down in butter gave it a leek-like quality.  I was sold, so into the pan it went with a chunk of butter.

The end result:

The flavor did mellow, but I actually prefered it in it's raw state.  I tossed some of this garlic into our pasta for dinner (a Red Pepper- Arugula sauce), and the rest sits in the fridge awaiting it's destiny.  (I am thinking a pizza or a tart.  It is what I always go back to really.)

Red Pepper- Arugula Sauce:

1 block softened cream cheese
1 12 oz jar Roasted Red Peppers- drained, rinsed and seeded (or 4-5 peppers, freshly roasted)
1 clove od garlic, minced (or sub green garlic as I did)
water or milk to thin to taste.

Put all dry ingredients into food processor and mix.  Add liquid to thin to desired consistency.  (This recipe can be doubled for a pound of pasta if you like lots of sauce.  It makes enough to coat a box of Barilla Plus pasta nicely, which is short of a full pound.)

Wilt fresh arugula in a pat of butter or splash of olive oil for a few minutes on stove top, then stir into sauce, keeping in mind the greens shrink down quite a bit- I never seem to pick enough.  Top cooked pasta with grated Parmesan and ground pepper, and serve!

(Here is picture of out leftovers in the fridge, I forgot to take a picture of it last night- oopsy!  And see, I could have used some more arugula in there.)

Don't you just love 'garden fresh'??

How to Plant Garlic

Garlic planting season is just about here. This will be my first time putting cloves in the ground so I had many questions left unanswered. I found a great source of information over at Boundary Garlic Farm, such as when to separate the individual cloves (right before planting), spacing options for standard rows or intensive gardening (tighter spacing will result in higher yields per pound, but smaller cloves), that hardneck garlic needs it's tip to be 2 inches below the soil surface, etc....it is a recommended read for any questions one may have on garlic. The last of my deliveries should come this week. I also plan on planting some cloves from a head I purchased at the farmer's market, the variety was not known. Here is a video I came across along the way:

How to Plant Garlic

Have any garlic tips or variety preferences to share? If so post them here, I would love to hear all about it.

Bulbils

Yes, bulbils I say. Did you know that bulbils are the economic way to grow those garlic cloves? Turns out if you leave a garlic scape be it will stretch out and grow a flower-like top made up of all these bulbil things. Then, one can save and plant these bulbils in the fall and patiently wait....

If you planted bulbils, they will not form any stalks. Instead they will have several grass-like leaves up to a foot long, which will die back in July. This is the time to harvest the rounds! What you will find is marble- to golfball-sized rounds that resemble small onions in that they are not divided into cloves. These rounds may be eaten like garlic cloves or saved to plant again in the fall. If planted, they will then give you regular garlic bulbs the following year - WHO KNEW!?!?

Click here for a beautiful slide show of bulbils, you really don't want to miss it!http://henrycaron.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=3283874&AlbumKey=XQ3Nc