Category Archives: growing garlic
Garlic Scapes Return!
I have been getting a lot of questions about garlic scapes lately – and in checking my blog stats, a lot of people are searching for recipes using scapes. Scapes, those curly flower shoots from the hardneck varieties of garlic, arrive just as we are running out of our green garlic harvest. My favorite way to use them is in pestos with parsley, olive oil, & parmesan cheese. They are also great in hummus and … Continue reading
Spring Cleaning in the Garlic Beds!
Spring is a busy time to get the garden in shape before planting. Garlic is up and so are the weeds! Efforts now to get rid of the weeds will pay off with big garlic bulbs later! Also time to fertilize the garlic with a little side-dressing of blood meal for a nitrogen boost. Seaweed and fish fertilizer foliar sprays also strengthen the plants. Raised beds are a real advantage to early growth. Continue reading
Welcome Back Garlic!
Welcome back New Garlic Shoots! Welcome back Garlic Lovers! Hmmm…I seem to have figured how to get my pictures back up on my posts, although not necessarily where I want them. After my recent WordPress upgrade, I have had a few problems. Hopefully this will be fixed soon, but in the meantime, please put up with this amateur hacker! Brrr! It is frosty outside! As you know, January and February can be a real mixture … Continue reading
Garlic is Harvested and Curing!
Hooray! The garlic is harvested and is now 2 weeks into the curing process. What do 1300 bulbs of hanging garlic look like? Granted, by some standards, that is not a lot. But for me – and for many who buy a few bulbs now and then – it’s like, wow – over one thousand bulbs! How to describe what it is like to step into a small room, surrounded by hanging garlic, and inhale … Continue reading
Garlic Status – Summer Solstice ’08
Despite the cold spring here in the Pacific Northwest, the garlic has been thriving! We got everything weeded over the weekend and thoroughly watered. You can almost feel them reaching upward, waiting for that promised sunshine! As you can see from the photos, I planted the garlic rather densely in beds (4 rows/bed) this year, which has really facilitated the weeding, fertilizing, & watering tasks! The picture in the lower right quadrant shows 2 plots … Continue reading
Rain! Rain! Rain!
If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you know we’re still waiting for this season called spring and it’s almost summer! The cold temps have delayed most crops – but I have to say, the lettuce, spinach, peas, mustards, parsley, potatoes, rhubarb, and garlic are thriving! (And so are the weeds!) Garlic scapes are a little slow this year, but I see elephant spears are starting to shoot straight up, which means the curly scapes … Continue reading
