Winter Mulch

The weather has started to turn to winter and finally time to mulch everything.  I like to wait until we have had a little snow and frost, in the hopes that most creatures have already found their winter homes, before I lay down bales of nice dry straw.  I mulched the garlic at home with a bale and a half per bed, the raspberries asparagus and strawberries with another 3 bales and then used 2 and a half bales to mulch the garlic at the community garden.  This will pretty much wrap up my posting for the winter, and hopefully I can get it back on track in the spring.

Barnyard Garlic Planting

Taking advantage of 4 hours of sunlight, I planted the remaining garlic at the barnyard garden today.  It has been raining daily, which hasn’t exactly been ideal for planting.  I took time yesterday to break apart all of my bulbs, so that I could plant faster today.  The planting went well, got everything planted before the weather started to turn on me.  I planted around 335 cloves to take my total this year to over 800.  I'm hoping that with the increase in quantity as well as an increase in the number of porcelains and marbled purple stripe I can more than double my harvest weight from last year.   

Home Planting

Right on schedule I planted all of my garlic at home today.  I spent the last couple weeks getting the bed ready.  I dug up another 150 square feet of grass to plant in.  I dug the sod under and then after letting it decompose for about 2 weeks I re dug it and raked out any large remaining chunks of sod.  This year the garlic has stakes with actual labels.  Using a paint pen I had my wife write the names of all the varieties and I then sealed it with a couple coats of urethane.  I'm hoping that it survives the winter.  I then planted all of my garlic taking notes as I did.  It took the better part of the day to plant all 478 cloves because of the remaining prep work I had and the fact that I was planting so many different varieties.

Cleaning Garlic

Today I cleaned the rest of my garlic.  Some of it was left too long in the rafters but for the most part they cleaned up beautifully.  I think that 4-5 weeks is optimal for drying time and 6 weeks is a little long depending on conditions.  Most of them had 3 layers come off the outside, but a few did have 4 to 5 layers.  The glazed purple stripes and a couple of the Rocambole’s  had looser skins.

Cleaning some garlic

Today after drying almost 2 weeks I started to trim some up for the Farm market to sell.  I found that the porcelains and a few of the marbled stripes being larger were not quite ready yet and could defiantly use another week at least.  The marbled purple stripes and rocambole’s were much drier, but for optimal storage another week would also be beneficial.  I also was able to go over the notes I took day of when harvesting.  Some plants definitely needed to come out sooner, purple glazers as well as a few other varieties 2 weeks after scapes are cut they need to be dug.  The porcelains I had notes saying to leave them in a few more days, but I am finding as they dry that the skins are cracking 2-3 layers deep.  So depending on how much cracking continues 3 weeks after the scapes are cut might be the optimal time to dig them up.  Now the cracking could be a result of the rain we received the day before they were dug, but not entirely sure.

Harvested at the Barn

I stopped after work today to harvest all the garlic in the community garden.  I did the same as before digging each variety individually, making notes before tying them up and then hanging them in the barn when I was finished.  It took me a couple hours but I did have Simon to help me out, or rather stalk the chickens and play with my string.

Home Garlic Harvest

Taking advantage of the nice day at the right time for a change I harvested all of my garlic form my home garden.  I dug them up variety by variety and placed them in separate bushels with a tag in each bushel.  After all of the garlic was dug I separated them into 2 or 3 bundles.  One bundle of each variety was my garlic to keep for seed and thus my biggest and best.  And the other bundles were the garlic I plan on selling.  By separating them now, when I only need to clean some I can let the seed garlic continue to dry.  They are all hung up in the rafters of the blacksmith shop and will be for the next 3-6 weeks.  Also as I bundled them up I wrote notes on the condition of the plants at harvest as well as the qty harvested.

Scapes Cut

This morning all of the garlic scapes were removed.  A few had been cut last week, but I took advantage of my time today to cut everything I had remaining.  As well as cutting the scapes, I also took time to thin the carrots.  They should have been done a little bit sooner but because of where I'm living wasn't really an option.

Scapes

I have been really bad lately about making posts on the garden.  Because I'm not out there in it more than once or twice a week at most it’s just getting left to the wayside.  For the most part if I have something to put up it will be about my garlic

Today I noticed the first scapes have appeared!  They are pretty much right on schedule as to when they arrived last year

Carrots

The carrots are up!  They were planted in the same location as last year with a little extra soil mixed in to fulfill the nutritional requirements.  They just grew so great last year I am hoping for a repeat performance.

Strawberries

Today I was surprised with some strawberry plants, to my already full garden.  What I did was plant them along the asparagus and the raspberries as a temporary measure until the fall when they will be transplanted.

I also used up a bunch of my leaves to mulch the raspberries and the rhubarb.  As well as top up my paths.

Spring Planting

Today I managed to finish up the majority of my planting, later for some things but because of moving didn’t really have any other choice.  On my way home I stopped by the community garden to plant beets, and various lettuces.   When I got home I planted 4 different kinds of carrots as well as all my peppers and tomatoes.  The peppers and tomatoes needed to be hardened off better but they should survive.

Barnyard Planting

On the way home today my lovely assistant and I stopped at the barnyard to finish my planting.  We planted kale, parsnips, beets and lettuce.  It all went pretty smooth except for catching 3 escapee chickens.

After getting home I filled up the pond, I did have some trouble with my large pump, so going to have to take a look at it again to see if I can fix it.  Also cut more asparagus and pulled a bunch of rhubarb.  The boxes I prepped yesterday were planted with carrots (atomic red, purple haze, deep purple and Nantes).  Next weekend I will plant the tomatoes, peas and peppers.  Pretty late for peas but just haven't had a chance yet.

Laying Wood Chips

So today I went home and got started on my garden.  I ended up emptying the pond and started to clean it out.  After that I headed to the barnyard garden, to lay down all of the wood chips that I picked up on Thursday.  These are the chips for the path that we dug at the last work party day. I think I will still need more chips to top it up once it has settled.  While at the garden I also planted my leeks, they are in two rows, on the outside of the garlic on both sides.

Barnyard Work Party

Today was our first community garden work party and our main task was getting the paths dug out and edged.  This morning the weather was looking a little rough, but the work wasn’t until 3pm so it worked out perfectly.  We were able to set all the paths out and then edge them with old cedar rails.  The only thing left to do is to cover them in wood chips that I was going to be responsible for, however my cheap source is all out so might have to wait a little bit.

First Asparagus

Today is going to be a very busy day with the stag and doe later and getting everything ready, but I did take a few minutes earlier to cut my very first asparagus of the year.  It looks pretty good so far, and it all should gradually come up, into what I hope is a solid crop this year.

Spring Meeting

Tonight was the first barnyard meeting of the year.  Everyone was given their plots and we had a little potluck afterward.  My plot is in pretty much the same location just a different shape than last year.  Everyone also got to see the new goats as well.  I took some time to remove leaves from around my garlic, especially the plants that hadn’t poked through yet.  There was approximately 4 to 6 inches of leaves on the garlic and that might have been just a bit too much.  Around 80% came up pretty well, but that last 20% would have been a couple weeks delayed if I hadn’t helped it out.

Rhubarb Transplant

I had planned on getting rhubarb last week to transplant but decided to delay after it started to snow.  So today I went out on lunch to my aunt’s on the lake and dug up a number of rhubarb crowns.  When I got home I separated them in to smaller pieces making sure each had a good chunk of root with it.  After that I gave them a little water and am now just letting them grow.  I won’t harvest anything from them this year to let them get established but will cut some next year.

Barnyard Garlic

The weather hasn’t exactly felt like spring lately.  We have had some frost filled mornings as well as heavy rain and then very warm days.  There is also supposed to be freezing rain tomorrow as well.  Needless to say I stopped and checked out my garlic at the garden to see how it was growing.  The ground is still pretty wet but most of the garlic is up and growing well. 

Rest Of Peppers

All of the regular peppers are up!  They did take longer than the medusa’s, but pretty much right on schedule with last year.

First Peppers

The medusa peppers are starting to come up as well as the green onions

Sprouts

Going to just put up a few quick posts in the next few days as stuff comes up.  Today the leeks and peas are both poking through the soil and as well as the tomatoes!

Sprouts

Well that didn’t take very long.  The broccoli, bok choy and kale have all sprouted and started to grow.  I also moved some dirt away from the peas and you can see that they are starting to crack open and should be up tomorrow.  I am impressed with how well they are doing and excited to try out the sprouts.  The peppers should be up in a few more days, they usually take a week to come up.

Seeding

Last year I seeded about 3 weeks earlier than I am this year.  My peppers were big and had to have flowers picked off them every couple days and the tomatoes went a little crazy and outgrew the space I had for them.  That is why I am just starting to seed now.  On the top shelf I planted a half tray of peppers, chocolate, and king of the north, jimmy Nardello and sweet banana.  Space is going to be a little more limited this year so I don’t have as much room for everything. A half tray of medusa (because I have tons of seeds that I collected) and the other half of the tray is bok choy and kale. The middle shelf has a tray of tomatoes (Isis, black, yellow cherry tomatoes, alpine, black Ethiopian and polish linguisa tomatoes), and the other tray is half black prince tomatoes and half green onions.  Finally on the bottom shelf I have a full tray of leeks, and in the other tray I have a row of peas, kale and broccoli. My plan is to use that last tray mentioned as sprouts. They are all extra seeds I have leftover that do not have a place in my garden, so figured I might as well try it out.

Preparing the Growing Room

The shelf I used last year is now in the shed covered in all of the empty pots and trays I have, so I decided to make a new one.  It is identical to the old one same measurements, same wood so that it will work just like it did last year.  I will be using the exact same setup as well, 3 overhead shop lights hung on chains, and water with a small watering can and spray bottle.

New Gardening Year

The weather is finally warming up and time for me to start thinking about gardening again.  Last weekend I bought a few seeds for new things I am going to try, but for the most part I have enough left over from last year that I didn’t need to buy very much.

While walking around the garden I noticed that the garlic is starting to just poke through the straw in a couple places.  This is very exciting as garlic has become perhaps my special favorite to grow.  There was also the leftover evidence from the rabbits that ate all of my winter kale.  The good part is that there is some fresh manure for my plants, the bad is that there are rabbits wandering the neighborhood.  This is the first time I have had problems with rabbits and am hoping that the farm cat that wanders over frequently will keep them away, if not I will have to trap it and quite possible eat it.  I have always wondered what rabbit tastes like. If not just let it go elsewhere.