How to grow garlic in your garden
17.9 years ago garlic bulbs, growing challenge
My experiment of planting organic garlic which I bought from my local produce section of my grocery store seems to be working well. If you want to try this yourself here are some hopefully easy to follow steps:
- Buy some good looking garlic at your grocery store (I chose organic since I made an assumption there was a decreased chance that it was treated to prevent growth)
- When you are ready to plant, carefully break open the garlic and separate the tear shaped cloves.
- Take the largest cloves and plant in well cultivated soil 2 inches deep and 4 inches apart with pointed end up, these will be for your full garlic bulbs.
- Take the smaller cloves and either use in some spaghetti sauce or plant them in your garden 1-2 inches apart to harvest as baby garlic (think green onions, but strong garlic flavor)
- Fertilize with a balanced fertilizer (or bone meal) during planting but avoid fertilizing after that point since you don’t want to encourage too much foliage growth by having an abundance of nitrogen in the soil and allow the plant to use its energy to grow a big bulb.
- When the foliage on the “scapes” began to completely uncurl you can cut them off and use them on salads, scrambled eggs, or even garlic scape pesto. I would recommend leaving a couple of your garlic plants with scape attached since it also works a natural indicator of when your garlic is ready to harvest. When the lower third of the scape is light brown (the color your expect for garlic) it is ready to dig out.
- Take any cracked bulbs and use them immediately, take the remaining bulbs and wash off any dirt and let them dry for 2-3 weeks depending on how dry your climate is.
- Once cured hang in a mesh bag or braid the garlic and given proper airflow and temperature (50-70 degrees) your garlic should last for 6 months (if not eaten by then)
As you can see growing garlic is pretty low maintenance and I am definitely looking forward to using it to my salsa this fall.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, garlic bulbs, led, organic vegetables, outdoor plants, salsa garden, vegetables
Oh the carnage…
17.9 years ago indoor seed starting, tomato
I am sorry to inform you that we have had a death in the garden. By entering this world a just a little sprout started from a packet of seeds just a couple of months ago. They spent most of their life being nurtured in the comfortable surroundings of the PC grow box our poor tomoto plants did not survive the harshness freakish winter storm we which occurred weeks after our supposed last frost date. On the positive side all of our cold season crops (garlic, onions, cilantro, lettuce, peas) as well as the corn and butterfly garden flowers have endured and enjoyed cozying up with the snow and are doing just fine.
Tags: butterfly garden, cheap, cilantro, garden seeds, garlic bulbs, growbox, outdoor plants, tomato plants, vegetables
Average last frost dates are only right half of the time
18 years ago indoor growbox, indoor seed starting, spring, tomato
Our last frost date in my area should have been March 24th but given the frosty mornings this past week and the fact we had snow coming down most of today it looks like this year our last frost date will fall on the other side of the bell curve. Unfortunately, I was optimistic with some of the great weather we were having earlier and planted my tomato seeds for a much earlier move outside. The poor tomatoes are still growing in my PC grow box but starting to not look so good. As you can see from the picture below my tomato plants are in some dire need of some non-artificial light. I am afraid I might end up buying my tomato plants at my local nursery (yet again) this year. Vegetable gardening is definitely one of those hobbies which it does not pay to be a too optimistic.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, growbox, outdoor plants, tomato plants, vegetables
Planting our butterfly garden
18 years ago butterfly garden, indoor seed starting
Yesterday with the weather almost getting to 60 seemed like a good day to try sow some of our vegetable seeds outside for our butterfly garden. I tried to make things organized by grouping the Black-eyed Susan, purple coneflowers, zinnias, and nasturtiums, but my daughter decided to distribute the seeds a little more random. I am sure the butterflies won’t mind and guess it should look a little closer to how nature would do it.
I have learned from my years of gardening I normally am too optimistic about when seeds can be planted outside so as a backup plan we also planted some of the same seeds indoors which are currently trying to push their way closer to the PC grow box.
Read Other Butterfly Garden Posts
Tags: butterfly garden, cheap, garden seeds, growbox, outdoor plants, vegetables
Spring Rainbow
18 years ago spring
Happy first day of spring, well this picture was not taken this spring but still a good reminder of days to come.
Tags: cheap, vegetables
Speed Composting
18 years ago alfalfa pellets, compost
Unfortunately I have a small yard so my space to compost is limited so my goal is to make sure the most use out of the limited space I have. I am also impatient and don’t want to wait a couple years to finally get some compost. Here are some of my suggestions on how to be a speed composter.
Make stuff smaller: The small the you break up the material the faster it will decompose, instead of putting in those leaves freshly raked run over them with your lawn mower or take a few passes with your weed whacker. If you have kitchen waste chop or blend them to help the bacteria out.
Be selective about what you add: The basic idea if the material was alive at some point in its life it will decompose. That gives you a lot to choose from but if you want to speed compost you need to be a little selective about what you add. Lettuce, fruits, most vegetables (carrots take awhile unless you shred), leaves, grass clippings, shredded newspaper will decompose quickly. Items like small branches, vines though will compost over time I would recommend adding these to your yard waste bin.
Create a good environment: You want to create a healthy environment for microorganisms to be happy and reproduce. To thrive they need moisture and air so if you bin it should have the consistency of a wrung out sponge. If you find your bin is lacking moisture just add some while you mix it. This is definitely one of those situations where more is not better too much moisture and you will suffocate the microorganisms due to lack of oxygen. If you find your bin is too wet (usually will start to smell) simply mix (aerate) with an compost mixer or a pitch fork. If it is more of a muddy mess spread it out for a couple days and you should be back to having a microbial breading ground again.
Provide a good diet You want to provide your bin with a proper balance of nitrogen and carbon. The documented best ration is 30 to 1 (carbon to nitrogen) but I wouldn’t get too concerned about exact numbers just keep in mind a compost with just leaves or grass clippings will not be the most efficient way to get some compost into your garden. During certain parts of the season you will find that some nitrogen or carbon materials are harder to come by. For example in the fall you will have all kinds of leaves but your lawn and garden will be baron with greens, while being just the opposite in the summer where you will have a lot of nitrogen rich materials and no carbon. This is an opportunity to supplements your compost by adding nitrogen (alfalfa pellets, blood meal) during the fall/winter and adding carbon (newspaper, sawdust) during the spring/summer time.
Follow these tips and you should have great compost at record speeds.
Tags: alfalfa pellets, cheap, compost, vegetables
