Thinking Fall Garden

Today while I was at the garden center I noticed that they had a number of haskap plants.  They had 3 varieties which would give me the appropriate mix to ensure proper pollination.  So I will have to think about what I want to do with that.  They are expensive and will not produce for a few years anyways.  I have also never tried them, so I might not even like them although that does seem unlikely.  Most likely nothing will be done this year and I will leave it as an option for future years.  But if they do go on sale in the fall I might have to get some.

I set up the trellis for the fall planting of peas.  Its set up so I have one long pole across the top and one on the bottom and then just string running between them for the peas to cling to.  Not something I have done before but a setup that I have seen online a few times.

I also noticed some beans growing.  They have been hidden by the weeds so I will have to check them out in the light in the next couple days.

Last of the Garlic

I had plans to mulch the flower beds tonight, but when I looked at the forecast and then went outside decided that the garlic needed to come out before it rained.  The remaining garlic was only left in the ground until the bulbils matured, which according to everything I have read is when the umbel cracks open.  Below is a mature Music umbel.

There were only a few that weren’t open yet and those were pretty close to being ready.  When I was harvesting them I cut all of the scapes off of plants and placed them upside down in paper bags and put tape around the top so they wouldn’t accidentally fall out.  I then dug up each variety separately, tagged, tied and hung them from the rafters in the blacksmith shop.  Below are Red Russian bulbils from 2 different plants.

When I was looking at the bulbils for the brown Saxon, 2 of the plants had large purple bulbils and the other 3 had small white bulbils.  I'm wondering if cloves I planted last year might not have all been brown Saxon.  It looks like accidentally I when I bought them there was another variety in the box.  I will be looking into it further but I have separated them for now and will most likely not saving the bulbs with small bulbils for seed. The one below is  one of the 2 Brown Saxon umbels that I think are actually Brown Saxon.

This is one of the ones that I do not think is a Brown Saxon.

As you can see, they are drastically different.  Also just as I finished with the garlic it started to lightly rain.  I was still able to finish mulching the flowerbed before it started to pour.

Potatoe Co-op Maintence

Tonight was the potato co-op at the field.  The potatoes from a lack of water are looking pretty rough.  As well the potato bugs seem to have devastated over half of the plants. So we ended up spending the night tilling between some of the rows, weeding and picking a few potato bugs.  I also checked on my onions in the field.  They are about twice the size of golf balls and will be ready to come out of the field in a couple weeks.  I'm going to let them die off a little more before they are picked in hopes that I might get them a little bigger.  They were planted pretty late and were a last minute thought so the size doesn’t bother me.

Softneck

This morning I went out and dug up all of the polish white.  Because I didn’t dig it up last year and just left it in most of the bulbs were small and all clumped in together.  A few of them are all right but on the whole they aren’t great.  I also cut all of the scapes they had on them.  The scapes look good, pretty much the same as the bulbils I planted last year. 

 Peas are still being picked although I'm down to 2 rows now. The first row is being left for seed and the other two rows will be picked until the plants die.

Hardneck Garlic

This morning the reminder of the hardneck garlic at home was dug up.  There were approximately 20 each of the Brown Saxon, Northern Quebec, Georgian Fire, Red Russian and McEwen’s Red.  There are still 5 plants of each in the ground that are waiting for the bulbils to finish maturing.   After digging them I separated them all into their own bushel basket and then tagged them all at once.  They were all tied into individual bundles of 5 and then when I went to tag them I tied 2 bundles together and attached a tag.  The tag starts the varietal, variety, area grown, date picked and the number of bulbs in the bunch.   After tying them all up into bunches they were hung from nails in the rafters of the blacksmith shop.  It does get a little warm up there but with some of the windows open and the fact that it is pretty wide open, I feel that they should get more than enough air movement to dry properly. 

That is all of the garlic separated, tied and labelled before I hung it up.

The bulbs look pretty good with a good mixture of medium to large bulbs.  The McEwen’s red is the smallest bulbs I have but they were grown from smaller cloves so wasn’t really sure what to expect.  All of the porcelains are pretty big with the odd small bulb.  Overall I am happy with the way the garlic turned out.

Music

Took advantage of the nice weather and dug up the Music garlic tonight.  I ended up getting around 45 bulbs dug and still have 6 that I left in the ground until the bulbils fully mature.  They are currently sitting on the deck and tomorrow when I dig up the rest of the garlic I will be tagging and hanging them to dry.

The garlic bed before I started to harvest anything.

Field Status

Tonight headed into the field to harvest the garlic I had growing there.  It is most defiantly ready.  In fact if I had checked it before I went on vacation it probably would have harvested then.   I ended up digging up 27 bulbs and there are still approximately 30 left with scapes.  The plants are all dry with the leaves snapping off of them but none of the bulbs broke out of their skins.  I'm attributing this to a couple factors: first we haven’t had rain in 3 weeks so any additional moisture to increase their size didn’t happen and second because of the heavy clay soil they are pretty small.  They are about the size I ended up with last year from the bulbils.   I did not intend to leave in access of 30 plants with scapes on them in the field.  The plan was for originally for 5 but was time constrained when I cut them last time and kind of forgot to come back.  Oh well the bulbs are pretty small anyways and this garlic was planted because I had the cloves already.

The scape below grew without any bulbils. It was a music scape from the field

While at the field I checked on the rest of the garden.  Not good news at all.  It appears that deer enjoy watermelon and cucumber plants.  So on all of those hills there aren’t any leaves just vines.  This really bugged me because last year they grew no problem and this year they look terrible.  The pumpkins and gourds are growing but because of the lack of water not the best.  Same goes for the potatoes and peppers, they are there but small and unlikely to get a large harvest from them.  The tomatoes are up but harvest is looking like it will be smaller than last year, few tomatoes per plant.  Only a few of the corn and beans came up.  Not sure if something ate the seeds or if the soil and conditions just kept them dormant.

The potatoes and gourds that were planted in the brush pile are however doing excellently.  They are approximately 10 times the size of their field counter parts and have leaves all over them.

Next year I don’t think that anything is going to be planted in the field.  It just doesn’t grow well.  The soil is very heavy and when it does rain sits on top in pools and floods everything out.  The compost might get a few pumpkins next year but that could be it.

Ready to Harvest

Finally back from vacation, and after spending yesterday getting everything watered and back on track I spent tonight seeing how everything was going.  After the water the greens and carrots received last night they both perked up immensely and are looking much better.

I dug up a bulb of Music garlic earlier and it is looking great.  It looks like I could have actually harvested it any time in the last week but I was not in the province.  I'm not as worried that they are being harvested late, because none of them are being sold.  They will all be for home use or given to some friends so if they are not as aesthetically pleasing as they could be, it’s not a major concern.

The scapes that I have left on are uncurled nice and straight with large seed heads on them.  A few of them have even broken through and are almost ready to pick.

Tomorrow I am going to go check out the garlic planted at the field and then on Friday I will be harvesting all of my hardneck garlic except those with scapes, they will stay in the ground until the bulbils are fully mature.  The only soft neck garlic I have (polish white) is going to stay in the ground until all of the bulbils are mature.  Just because they are all too close together and in order to dig one up, I'm going to have to dig them all up.  They should be ready to take out in about a week though.

Finally Home

Finally back from vacation and before I even went into the house I had to check out the garden.  The peas are all fully mature; a number of them were taken off as shell peas because they were so big.  The tomatoes are significantly bigger and have flowers started on them.  Peppers looking a little wilted but not too bad.  They all have peppers started and with a little water should perk right up. 

The garlic is ready to pick now.  At least the bottom 3-4 leaves are dead on the plants.  The scapes are fully erect some even starting to have the umbels break open.  They will be harvested in the next week as time allows.

The broccoli, kale and lettuce are all looking rough.  The weeds are taking oven and because of the sandy soil they need water bad.  The carrots are also hurting for water, I weeded then before I left but because they are in raised boxes, they don’t even have the option of trying to pull water up from below.

I did manage to give everything a quick weed and lots of water, so hopefully tomorrow the plants will be looking a little perkier.

Headed Out

I'm headed off for vacation in the next few days and just going around making sure everything is going to be good to go when I'm gone. Everything was given a generous watering, more than I normally would but it has been pretty hot out and the whole week I'm going is supposed to be brutal.

Picked another 2 liters of peas and the new rows are just starting to produce. They are just little peas but in a couple days should be full size. Family is going to hopefully pick them while I am gone and if not I guess it will determine which ones I'm saving for seed.

The pepper box is doing pretty good.  Of the 4 plants the one closest to the house is dying, the one farthest away is huge and the other 2 are average.  They have been getting water every few days and hopefully will continue to while I am gone.

Thinning Carrots

Tonight I spent time thinning out the carrots.  About half of what was thinned was big enough to eat and the other half were just little spindly things that weren’t worth the effort.  I also thinned out the parsnips.  They were much better than the carrots and I really only had to pull a half dozen or so.

The garlic scapes are starting to get pretty tall.  The umbel capsules haven't started to bulge yet but the scapes are now in a large horseshoe shape.