Tag Archives: garlic

Garlic

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Seed Garlic

I was so pleased with my garlic this year that I’ve decided to plant more than twice the amount for next year. In fact, by next spring, I may regret how little space I have left in my garden for anything else!

As the years go by and I gain more experience growing veggies, I’ve found that there’s certain varieties of plants that I like to grow, and others that aren’t worth the hassle, whether it be because of unpredictable yields, space considerations or whatever. I love to grow tomatoes but I often end up with way too many cherry varieties (and/or yield), so next year I plan to be very strict with myself stick to one cherry type and a couple of slicers (I usually buy my romas for canning because you just can’t beat $15 for a local bushel at my nearby grocery store). I also like to grow one particular variety of chiles (name unknown) and they are seriously prolific, and do best in pots. Sweet peppers are grown year round here in greenhouses, and I find they need a very long season, so they’re often not worth the effort when you can get such good fresh local ones at the market. Salad greens are always rewarding of course.

But garlic! Good quality local garlic is rather pricey, but I prefer it over the nasty, often old stuff that’s shipped over from China and sold in the grocery store. And sometimes there are localish varieties of garlic available at the grocery store (i.e. American), but I tried some once and while it was very fresh, it had an awful musty flavour that made food inedible (who knew there’s such a thing as badly flavoured garlic!). It’s a shame that more grocers don’t engage in contracts with local garlic growers more often — we have really great garlic available right here!

The garlic I harvested this summer yielded about 45 bulbs, in two varieties: Music and Purple Glazer, both available through Richters. We’re already almost finished eating all the Purple Glazer, so obviously I could do with a lot more to get me through the winter. Since seed garlic is quite pricey, I used a bit of this year’s harvest to plant for next year, but also I ordered some Siberian garlic from Richters to try, and some Korean Purple from the Salt Spring Seed Company. I’m particularly excited about the Korean Purple — the heads are HUGE!

For anyone thinking of trying growing garlic for the first time, the time to plant is now. If you haven’t ordered your seed garlic, get on that right away because suppliers often sell out. For tips on growing garlic, my go-to resource is Boundary Garlic Farm’s awesome site.

Cured garlic

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Cured garlic

Cured garlic, Purple Glazer and Music varieties

My garlic harvest is now cured and stored away safely hanging in my basement. I had it on a drying rack in the garage with a fan on it for about 2 weeks or so, and then I trimmed off the dead leaves and the roots, and then brought them inside.

I tried my hand at braiding the smaller variety, the Purple Glazer, but I think this technique must be better suited for soft neck varieties, as it was very hard to manipulate the stalks into the braid. There are numerous videos on how to do this online (I referenced this one).

Cured Purple Glazer garlic

Cured Purple Glazer garlic

Music, the larger variety pictured above, has stalks as much as a half inch thick, and some of them are still quite green, so I’ve just wrapped the whole bundle with some twine and hung it up. The green in the stalks suggests its not quite finished curing but given its most of the way there it should be fine hung up in a dry spot. My basement isn’t exactly humidity free but its dry enough, and last year’s garlic did just fine.

Cured Music garlic

Cured Music garlic

The stalks of my Spanish onions were starting to fall over in the garden so I decided it would be a good idea to pull them and set them to cure while we’re on holiday, rather than leave them in the garden. My shallots are still curing, along with the last of the multiplier spring onions I had allowed to get too overgrown. My hope is I can save those bulbs and try them out in either the early winter or next spring. I’ve never saved bulbs from onions but it should be easy enough.

 

I had it backwards

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Purple Glazer Garlic

Purple Glazer Garlic

Now that it’s out of the ground, I’m pretty sure I had the variety of my garlics mixed up. I think the smaller one is Purple Glazer (above), and the larger one is Music. The larger variety doesn’t seem to have a hint of purple skin. I have half a mind to call Richter’s Herbs, where I bought the garlic, to see what they think, but I suspect that I’m (now) right.

Music Garlic

Music Garlic

Both varieties were looking like they were nearly ready to harvest, so tonight I decided to dig a few up from each type to take a look. They looked good and we have a couple nice days ahead, so I decided to pluck up the whole crop so that it can cure over the weekend. We’re expecting some rain Sunday afternoon so I’ll likely have to bring it into the garage or the basement to finish up, but… hooray!

I’m thrilled with how my garlic has turned out this year. The first year I tried growing garlic, I planted it in the wrong season (tip: don’t get suckered into buying the seed garlic they sell in virtually every garden centre and store in the spring! Garlic needs to be planted in the autumn!). Then the cloves separated and re-sprouted the next year all over the garden. I harvested that stuff but it was a mess, and the cloves were small and difficult to use.

Music Garlic

Music Garlic

Finally last growing season I planted it at the right time but the heads of garlic were small and I think I had planted them too deep. I used them too but again, really small garlic is a pain to peel and cook with.

Last fall I bought the two varieties from Richters and got them in the ground at the right time, and I made a conscientious effort not to bury them too deep (I wasn’t quite so conscientious about labelling them however).

Shallots

Shallots

The same improved planting technique has yielded much better results with my other alliums too. Pictured above are my shallots. They keep trying to flower and I’ve clipped back the flower stalks regularly but I figure they could be picked and cured too. My yellow Spanish onions are growing to a nice size too. Finally! Good-sized onions!! With all my gardening experience, getting good yield in my onions has alluded me until this year!

I bought the Spanish onion sets from a bulk bin at a farm supply store near my parent’s farm — rather than the ones I usually pick up that McKenzie supplies to the garden centres. Not sure if that made a difference but I wouldn’t doubt it.

I read somewhere that you can plan shallots in the autumn. I don’t know if I can find shallot sets for the fall but I’d like to give it a shot if I can. If anyone knows anyone who I could order them from in September, I’m all ears!

Garden Freckles

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April GardenFreckles lettuce

My garden, or what’s been planted in it so far, is chugging right along. I’ve got lettuces, spinach, radishes, carrots, beets and some chard and kale in the ground in the backyard beds, but these are mixed in terms of success.

The backyard beds get less sun than the front yard, so this year I tried planting some items I thought would be less picky about sun (last year the beds were installed a bit late in the season so I put some of my extra tomato plants back there, and the only ones to produce fruit were the cherry varieties). The lettuces and spinach are all doing very well, if not a little patchy here and there. The radishes and kale also seem to be enjoying themselves. But the beets, chard and carrots, not so much.

Also a likely factor in the mixed success may be the age of my seed. I have this habit of overbuying seed, and then a few years goes by before I get to use it. Not a good practice. Some types of seeds can remain viable for years but other types are quite sensitive to age, and I was far too busy/lazy to do any germination testing. I also tried to plant less seed so that I didn’t overcrowd things, but it appears that was a bad gamble. But I knew it was a test, to see what would grow in the conditions back there, and so far, it appears those beds will likely be best for salad greens, radishes, and probably they’ll be great for using with a cold frame in the winter (an experiment I’d like to try next fall/winter). Once the leaves are off the trees those beds get good light, so I think the backyard will be great for winter veggies.

April Garden

My garlic is doing super awesome. Finally this week we’ve had a proper spring drenching, and I can practically hear the leaves coming out on the trees and the grass growing. Same with my garlic — I planted two varieties last fall and they are vastly different in their appearance. I recall planting them in a hurry because the fall was getting away from me (you know, with the wedding and all) and I didn’t mark which was which, but I’m 80% sure that the garlic on the left in the photo above is Music, and the garlic on the right, the much bigger garlic, is Purple Glazer. Even since this photo was taken the larger garlic is dwarfing the smaller one.

I’ve been hardening off my tomato and nasturtium seedlings all week, and I may try to plant a few of them this weekend, using my frost jacket cloches (the ones that hold water). I only have a half dozen of these so I can’t plant everything. My chile and pepper seedlings are unfortunately still tiny, too small to transplant still. I might have to move them outdoors too just so they get the sun they need to jump up.

Finally, some rain

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While it’s so early in the growing season that I really don’t have much planted outdoors yet, just some onions, potatoes and garlic that was planted last year, we’ve had virtually drought conditions all winter and early spring. But finally, yesterday, the heavens opened and it’s been pouring ever since. We need at least a good week of this weather to put things back in proper spring balance, I think.

Early April garden - Spurge

Spurge after the rain

I’ve drafted my planting map for my two raised beds. I’ve had to pretty much write off my regular beds along the house this year because of some serious waterproofing work we need to do. They’ll never be quite the same beds again afterward, because they need to be set up with proper gravel drainage at the sections closest to the house, but I’ll make do. I’m welcoming the opportunity to replant them again with some kind of “master plan” as the perennial section has become a bit of a hodgepodge, due to my lack of experience.

Early April garden - Daffodils

Daffodils

What will really be a bummer is that most of the bulbs, unless I can salvage them, will take a serious hit. The front beds were planted years and years ago with gazillions of bulbs, by Chris’s aunt, and as a result they are always a welcome cacophony of colour every spring. Hopefully I can get in there during the digging and retrieve them.

Early April garden - Garlic

Garlic sprouts taking off

I’ve stuck a few potatoes in the raised beds, along with some red onions and shallots. I managed to get them in last night in a break in the rain. I also want to plant a second crop of garlic but I’m not sure where to put it. They might have to go into pots in the backyard this year.

Early April garden - Sorrel

Sorrel, already could be harvested

My seedlings in the house are doing well. Many of my “mystery chili” have come up, thank goodness, because I only harvested two last year due to the horrible weather conditions. Here’s hoping for a great summer for growing chilies!

My garden is convinced

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Spring Emerges!

Snowdrops

There have been snowdrops going strong in my garden since last weekend, when we got that gorgeous warm sunny weather. This weekend has been a bit of write off weather-wise, and according to tonight’s forecast next weekend will be too although all week is supposed to be beautiful (what is with that? Seriously Mother Nature, you have some esplainen’ to do).

Spring Emerges!

Tulips already!

The hyacinths and even the tulips are poking through. The grape hyacinths are kind of always there, with their green foliage that likes to sprout in the fall and live happily under the snow until it melts away. The very first leaves of the Star of Bethlehem flowers are also coming up.

In my raised beds I see that my garlic is greening up again. This is the first time I’ve grown it and I kind of wish in hind sight I’d planted some last October. I expect this crop should be ready in June. If I’d done an October planting I could probably have had a couple crops come ready.

Spring Emerges!

Garlic awakens

My sorrel has some burgundy tipped leaves unfurling as well. I want to move it this spring though; it really took over last year in the raised beds and I want to move it to my herb garden where it can have a more permanent home. I want to reserve my raised beds for annual veggies. I just sort of stuck it in a free spot last year without giving it much thought.

Spring Emerges!

Sorrel. Note the confiscated sticks in the background (Luna's haul)

Surprisingly for me, I haven’t done a lot of garden planning yet. Last spring that was about all I did. Guess I’ve been a little preoccupied this year (read: Luna). We took a trip to Lee Valley over the weekend and I picked up a PotMaker, and I’ve made a few dozen pots with it out of old newspapers. Haven’t planted anything yet though. I always feel I have to hold myself back on starting my seedlings; I’ve been trying to overcome my tendency to start seedlings in early February, and then I end up with huge plants that I don’t have room for. Even last year I started them around this weekend and my tomato plants were ginormous by planting time. Not to mention we had some serious frosts and some major hail last spring. So I think I’ll wait at least one more week to start them. I don’t have any cold frames or tunnels set up, so I have to be careful about my timing.

I’ve ordered a few more seeds, this time from Greta’s Organic Gardens, located in Gloucester, Ontario: Aunt Ruby’s Yellow Cherry Tomato, Des Andes Plum Tomato, Borettana Yellow Onion (Cipollini), Ruby Streaks Mustard Green, Purple Mizuna, Dwarf Blue Curled Kale, Dragon Tongue wax bean and San Marzano Plum Tomato. I have gazillions of seeds now, and I’ll probably have less room to plant this year due to some major house repairs. I was kind of hoping maybe I could convert the flat garage roof into a veggie garden but Chris says no, that the membrane up there isn’t designed to withstand a lot of foot traffic, not to mention he questions the ability for the roof to support a lot of extra weight. I would have wanted at least one or two rain barrels up there with my pots if I was to do something like this, but it sounds like its not in the cards. Too bad – it’s a perfect sunny flat spot on our property I could take big advantage of. We’ll just have to build that into the reno plans!