was it any good?

@JRinPA, cut some Kale into it, still it is wicked (good!) spicy!

The Gotch

Garlic digging day has come. Unfortunately we had a lot of rain and my crop got infected with garlic rust, so I had to harvest sooner than I would have liked. For comparison, I harvested the garlic scapes two weeks ago. The one scape I left standing does not have fully formed bulbils yet.

I'm happy that I did harvest today though, since many of the bulbs started to disintegrate, while the foliage was still pretty green.

How do you guys deal with garlic rust?

I haven't had the rust @Frosti but in very wet years I've had some pink root decay on bulbs - never the whole crop though (knock on wood). Growing in raised beds is a hedge against the wet conditions in ground, but I guess it doesn't help with rust! I didn't realize that rust affects bulbs as well as foliage... what a shame.

bower wrote: ↑Sat Jun 22, 2024 6:42 am I haven't had the rust @Frosti but in very wet years I've had some pink root decay on bulbs - never the whole crop though (knock on wood). Growing in raised beds is a hedge against the wet conditions in ground, but I guess it doesn't help with rust! I didn't realize that rust affects bulbs as well as foliage... what a shame.

I don't think it does, but I'm not sure. The disintegration was also a problem last year, without rust. It's either a variety thing, or more likely my soil is not ideal for garlic. I also did not want to give the rust a chance to reach another stage in its life cycle and possibly stay in the soil for much longer.

We visited countryside during the long Midsummer weekend. Garlic scapes are already curling about a week or two early.

I'm noticing some things are blooming early this season, even though we had most of our snow pile up in March.
Garlic scape time and harvest time can vary a lot, depending on the season. But over the years, I noticed that they've always produced scapes at the same time the Yellow Gentian is flowering, often starting on the same day. Now my Gentians look to be ready to emerge within a day or two, so I'm anxiously looking for the beginning of scapes as well. This would be at least two weeks early for both of them.

I got out and weeded the garlic today - sure enough, by the end of the afternoon a few early scapes were poking out!
I'm really happy with the decision to fertilize with chicken pellets this rainy spring. Seems to have worked against the 'washed out' condition, and the size of the main crop stems is looking good. Gentian is the tall yellow flower just ready to bloom, they are a bit droopy after yesterday's rain. Here's a surprise: a true scape on Germidour, and it's a lovely red color.

Here's the Iberian Wight now I harvested at the end of the May. Giving the stems a final little dry.
Yesterday I harvested the Solent Wight. Half good size, half a bit small, perhaps due to rust. However, I also think the interplant with strawberries didn't work as well this year, the bulbs from the half of the bed with the bigger strawberry plants turned out small, so next year I will probably grow this variety in the greenhouse border instead.

I tried strawberries as a rotation this year - just transplanted rows of strawberry plants in the fall from volunteers around the garden into harvested garlic beds. TBH they didn't do very well. Except for a few outliers, the plants are less vigorous than plants just volunteering in the ground, and I doubt they did anything to sop up nutrients before winter nor hold the ground against washing out..
I ended up consolidating the survivors in rows on the edge, and will be planting squash and beans in the middle.
At some point, I'll be able to say I tried everything...

My scapes straightened out for the most part. I only broke off about 30% from the long bed and a scant few from the black mulch bed. I need to get a drying system thought out in the next week or so. I might plant a whole lot of bulbils this fall.

Thanks for the strawberry update. I don't think I will try that. Sounded interesting, just...it seems they would look at each other as weeds, they take up the same level.

JRinPA wrote: ↑Fri Jun 28, 2024 12:12 am My scapes straightened out for the most part. I only broke off about 30% from the long bed and a scant few from the black mulch bed. I need to get a drying system thought out in the next week or so. I might plant a whole lot of bulbils this fall.

Thanks for the strawberry update. I don't think I will try that. Sounded interesting, just...it seems they would look at each other as weeds, they take up the same level.

I think the interplant didn't work as well this year because the strawberry plants were more established. Probably too much competition for water and nutrients. I think if the spacing was larger it would work, but I have 18 strawberry plants in a 2x1 metre raised bed and then 40+ garlic too.

Northern Hemisphere Garlic Ranchers' harvest time is nigh, in these here parts, leastways.

This here's the BIGGEST @$$ BULB I've ever pulled; that's a Silver Dollar...NOT a quarter! The Gotch

Looks like big cloves in there for sure.

I just picked my first today before the rain.

I am so mad, I broke my good and trowel, or I should say it finally let got of the wood handle, but I kept using it with the remaining stub. For a week. Before I lost it. I have a feeling it went in the dumpster when I picked up and dumped a wheelbarrow.

It had a 4" Scale right on it! No need for a tape. And was of course the best trowel ever, found it in a cranberry bog...lost of washed in there, not sure, but that a great piece of forged steel.

Garlic Scape Pesto, 2.0: The Gotch

My garlic harvest this year, 27 heads from a 4'x4' raised bed and the containers around my cinder block bed. Both hard and soft neck.
I'm growing onions along with the surviving strawberries in one raised bed, and it seems to be working well. The rabbits decimated the strawberries, although they're coming back now that the rabbits have been excluded. They also got into and decimated one of my brassica beds. Clever little devils! They got under the 3' chicken wire that I buried 5-6 years ago, and a baby bunny found the hole I'd made larger for my soaker hose. All of which has been fixed, at least for now.

Looks like a gorgeous day for a garlic harvest @JayneR13 .

Pulled a few more yesterday, to remove them from impairing the tending of our burgeoning Kellogg's Breakfast, Inzhir Rozovyi, and King Kong Tomato plants. I'm cautiously optimistic for an outstanding crop.

The Gotch

I harvested my garlic yesterday and today. I had covered my two garlic beds with AG-15 to try to keep out allium leaf miner but unfortunately forgot that I had grown bunching onions last spring in one of those beds. In that bed, the ALM emerged and were trapped under the AG-15 and laid eggs on all of the garlic in that bed. Now that the garlic is harvested, I will be removing the mulch from both garlic beds and solarizing the soil to kill any ALM pupa that are in the soil.

I also didn't water as well as I normally would due to the hassle of the AG-15 in place. Thankfully we got more rain than normal but the bulbs were generally smaller than normal.

For three new-to-me varieties, I purchased just 1/4 lb each of them from Mad River Garden Growers.:

Rosewood - Purchased 1 huge bulb with 5 humongous cloves.: .
.
Montana Giant - Purchased 1 huge bulb with 6 humongous cloves and grew this: .
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Dog House - Purchased 2 small bulbs with 17 medium and small cloves total. I only planted 11 cloves and won't be growing it again. I prefer varieties with a single row of large or larger cloves and not varieties with more than one row and small cloves. .
.
And these are my 2 past favorites that I grew from my own previous harvests.:

German White Stiffneck: .
.
Music:

Harvested the upper bed, > two (2) weeks early, some real monsters: The Gotch