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.