Garlic Planted!

Fall has arrived so it is garlic time again. This year I am planting at the proper time as appose to last year when I planted in late December, tis tis. I decided to finally give in and order some interesting varieties. It can be kind of expensive to order garlic so normally I would just replanted from the current years crop.

The bed was cleared, turned and amended with my black gold. Then to speed things along I just jabbed in a trowel and stuck the clove in the hole. I am too lazy to dig a trench this year! I put in 6 varieties this year which I will show below. Then the remaining area was planted with my standby variety that has monster sized cloves.

To my surprise Wildfire looks like it might be the best of the bunch. It has two huge cloves per head and is suppose to be really hot. Can't wait for next summer when I can give them a try. If you're interested all the garlic came from Boundary Garlic Farm which has a great selection of organic garlic. I believe they only ship within Canada and you have to order in August, they sell out quickly.

Harvest Monday

Here goes another Harvest Monday post. Below is a collection of harvests since my last post. The garden is still chugging along and I am happy to have beans coming in again. It has still been really dry, the only good news is the temperature has cooled a bit.

 Dragon Tongue Beans.

 Tomatoes starting at the left: Sudduth's Strain Brandywine, Kellogg's 

Breakfast, Pink Berkley Tie Dye and Better Boy.

 Slicing Cucumbers.

 Black Summer F1 Pac Choi, Pink Berkley Tie Dye Tomato and

Dragon Tongue Beans.

 Kellogg's Breakfast Tomatoes. They have been a real performer this year!

 Purple Podded & Blue Lake Pole Beans.

 Slicing Cucumbers and Better Boy Tomatoes.

More Dragon Tongue Beans... They are an excellent producer

and in my opinion the best tasting bean.

In other news I started a bunch of fall crops in pots a while ago and they are just about ready to plant in the garden. The polytunnel has also been all cleaned up and it is ready to go in the garden. I'll be planted everything this week so I'll get a post up about the fall stuff later this week.

Harvest Recap

Today I am doing a recap of harvests since my last Harvest Monday post. The garden is doing well overall, it is certainly liking all the heat we have had this year. The stars of the show are Tomatoes and Cucumbers! They have been coming on fast. The only warm season crop that I am still waiting on is beans. I should have some Dragon Tongue beans this week but the pole beans are just starting to flower now. Photos follow:

Harvested today, Kellogg's Breakfast, Giant Belgium, Pink Berkley Tie Dye 

and a bunch of Better Boy tomatoes. 

Also today, a bunch of slicing cucumbers & Sungold cherries.

Slicing cucumbers, Sungold cherries & Better Boy tomato.

I harvested these broccoli side shouts a few weeks ago. They all
went in the compost because the heat made them taste awful.

Slicing cucumbers and a big zucchini. This was the last 

zucchini because the plant shriveled up and died shortly after.

These two were the first full sized tomatoes of the season on July 16th.
They are Better Boy tomatoes and they turned out to be really good. 

I picked the plant up on a whim at the nursery and I am glade I did.

More slicing cucumbers and zucchini.... 

On another note, is it just me or is this new post creator really buggy and annoying? The photos seem to not like to move and it is close to impossible to place text below photos. Any trick for getting around this?

Harvest Monday

It has been a while since I have done a Harvest Monday post so today seemed like a good day to do one. The heat finally broke today so I was able to get some work done that I have been putting off. I am starting to get the feeling it is going to be one hot summer. This should be good for the garden but not so good for the gardener, one can only remove so much clothing. Here is a series of photos of what I picked today:

Today I harvested all the garlic. It seems kind of early to harvest garlic put it was definitely ready. It is a little small this year, likely due to my December planting.

 

Amongst the garlic I had a bunch of potatoes come up from last years garden. I swear I got them all last fall :) I'm not complaining though because these mini potatoes will be excellent for dinner tomorrow.

Odds and sods are the first tomatoes of the season, sungold cherries. Along with a few broccoli side shoots and a mini zucchini. These will be added to a salad tomorrow.

 

Lastly here is a couple heads of broccoli I harvested last week. The broccoli has been great this year. The only issue I have had is I lost a few heads last week to the heat.

First Broccoli

Last Tuesday I harvested the first broccoli of the season. Fresh broccoli can not be beat! It was quickly blanched and served with slow roast duck and potatoes roasted in duck fat. All was cooked on the grill as it has been close to 40c(104f) for most of the week. 

The garden is doing quite well this season. The only thing needed at the moment is to pull some bolted lettuce and replant the area. I also have a bit of weeding to do. Once that is completed I will post an overdue overview of the garden.

 The last section of fencing was completed a few weeks ago and last weekend I completed the new retaining wall. Previous to the fence I had a garden tie retaining wall close to the tree and it had rotted out over the years. So I pulled that out and replaced it will a dry stone wall. All the stones were collected in the country (free!) and then I filled the area with triple mix hauled in by our truck. Once it cools down this weekend I will be dividing plants to fill the bed.