The Yellow Farmhouse Garden

I believe if you looked back and counted, you will find that I have posted more entries on the subject of Garlic than any other topic.

Well, here is another chapter in the garlic story…harvest time.

The garlic tops have mostly turned yellow and fallen over. That’s the signal. It’s time to dig the garlic. Many people suggest that you knock over all of the plants at this time and let them dry further in the garden. We don’t do that because we have overhead irrigation and the combination of water and garden soil tends to stain the outside skin of the garlic bulb. Staining doesn’t hurt them, but they just don’t look as nice.

We just loosen up the soil near each garlic plant with a garden fork to help us lift them from the bed.

After digging, they get a quick rinse from the garden hose.

Then they are laid out on a table in a shady spot to air dry and cure for several days.

It is during this curing period that the individual cloves form their papery skin. I used a bulb of garlic yesterday and the cloves were surrounded by a skin but it was still white and soft making it a little hard to peel.

Once the garlic has cured, the tops may be cut off and the bulbs stored in the fridge until use.

“Soft neck” garlic tops may braided to form a “rope” of garlic. This makes a very nice gift for your cooking friends.

We harvested somewhere between 400 and 500 bulbs of garlic from our 6 beds this week. Most will have their tops cut off and be given away to our garlic loving friends.

Bob

Oregano is one of my favorite things to grow and harvest. Since it is a perennial, I don’t have to worry about planting it every year and it grows so vigorously that it chokes any weeds that try to “invade its space”.

To harvest it, we simply cut the entire stem. It then goes immediately into the dehydrator (set at 95F) for a day or so.

Wearing latex gloves, we slide our fingers down the stem and the dried leaves come right off. The leaves are packaged in Zip-Loc bags which then are stored in a cool dark place to preserve the flavor and the wonderful bright green color.

I use a lot of oregano when I cook and let me tell you, store boughten oregano is not even in the same league as this stuff!

Bob

We are at the “tail end” of our lettuce harvest. We usually grow at least 3 types of “heading lettuce”…

Iceberg:

Buttercrunch:

Romaine:

Seeds from all three types were obtained from Johnny’s Selected Seeds.

Bob

Late last week we picked our red currants… it was a disappointing harvest. A large percentage of the berries failed to form.

The photo clearly shows small, dried spheres where the berries were supposed to be.

Something must have happened around the time the bushes were flowering causing a disruption in fruit set.

We did have a very warm spell that initiated early flowering. That was followed by a cold snap, which may have killed some of the flower buds. All of this is just a guess on my part.

The final count?…about 1/4 of our usual yield.

Bob

This season’s warm temperatures have caused our tomato plants to grow like “crazy”. We have relatively high fertility in our garden beds and the tomatoes are regularly watered, hence all the growth.

All of these factors are setting us up for the potential of Blossom End Rot in our tomatoes.

The rapid growth causes the plants to have difficulty in taking up calcium from the soil. The lack of calcium in the plant during the time the tomato’s fruits are growing will cause Blossom End Rot.

It’s pretty disappointing to have grown all those beautiful plants with all those tomatoes on them and then have them start to rot right on the vine.

Sometimes even an experienced tomato farmer can lose nearly all of his crop to this problem.

What we are doing right now, is spraying a soluble form of calcium right on the leaves to ensure the plants get some supplemental calcium. You can find these sprays in most any garden center. We have been spraying about once or twice a week.

Calcium imbalance can also be caused by:

• Too much nitrogen in your garden soil (use low nitrogen fertilizer instead)
• Soggy soil, which causes root stress (plant in a well drained area)
• Cultivating too close to the plants, which destroys needed feeder roots
• Sudden lack of water after a period of plentiful water (irrigate evenly, mulching helps too)
• Low soil calcium levels occurring naturally (supplement your soil with lime,a common name for calcium, next fall)

Keep in mind that foliar sprays will not help Blossom End Rot once it starts.
Bob