Harvesting Garlic

Last year I harvested my garlic on July 17. This year my garlic was ready to harvest early last week, but I didn’t have time to get out to do it. I ended up harvesting all the garlic last Friday evening.

As with onions, the heads of garlic I grow here at Chiot’s Run are always a little smaller than I’d like. But this year they were much larger due to the fact that I added a teaspoon of bone meal under each bulb at planting time.


I planted different varieties of garlic than I did last year, I haven’t tasted them yet so I don’t know how they’ll stack up to the varieties I grew last year.

I only have a few heads of garlic left from my harvest last year, so I’m happy that the pantry is once again filled with a nice basket of garlic. I use lots of garlic in my cooking, both because of the flavor and the health benefits.

Are you a garlic lover? Do you grow garlic in your garden?

September 2009 Harvest Totals

September is the month when things start slowing down here in Ohio. We had scattered frost the last week of September, which is a few weeks earlier than usual. The weather has been very cold and very cloudy and dark, which significantly slowed down the harvests from the garden.

I harvested my onions, which was very disappointing. For some reason onions do not do well in my soil, I don’t know if it’s the acidity or the lack of sunlight in my fairly shady gardens. I’ll be growing the majority of my onions at my mom’s house next year and I’ll experiment with a few new locations here with more sun.

I didn’t get around to planting any lettuce in late Aug/early Sept as I wanted, so I don’t have any lettuce from the garden at the moment. I also got my fall cabbage & broccoli started a little too late, that coupled with the early cold weather will mean I will not be harvesting much from my fall garden. I do have spinach, chard and mache in one bed that will be ready for early spring harvests next year.

The longer I garden the better I’ll be at planting things at the right times to ensure better fall harvests. I should have a decent October harvest with all the squash and popcorn and hopefully I’ll be harvesting lettuce and other green towards the end of the month. I was also able to can/freeze/dry a lot of food for this winter not just from my garden but local food from the farmer’s market as well.

In September I was able to harvest:
44 lbs of tomatoes that were canned in chunks for winter sauces & soups
40 lbs of pears from my mom’s tree
43 lbs of pumpkins & squash that will be made into pies and other goodies
5 lbs of small onions that will be used up this winter in all kinds of dishes
4 lbs of green beans that were steamed, drizzled with olive oil and enjoyed
3 lbs of melons
2 lbs of crabapples that were used to thicken my elderberry syrup
2 lbs of peppers, mostly cayenne that were dried to spice up soups & sauces
2 lbs of celery that was used in chicken soup when I was sick and other dishes
.5 lbs of garlic that I found in the garage that was actually harvested in July but somehow got misplaced
Lots and lots of herbs that have been dried and stored for sipping in teas or spicing up dishes

Despite all the setbacks, it was still a satisfying September. I’d rather be harvesting a little from the garden than nothing at all, and I guess I keep track so that I realize at the end of the month that harvesting 142 lbs of food from my garden means that it wasn’t such a bad month after all. Besides, there are still tomatoes that are ripening on the vines and that makes me happy.

What were your September harvests like? Any standout producers?

Around the Garden

So what’s going on around the garden here at Chiot’s Run?

I expanded the flower bed up front to accommodate a dwarf cherry tree I planted last year. I was going to move a few cat mint plants to the new garden area, but I decided to plant some of my broccoli & cabbage plants there since I’m out of room in the raised beds out back.

My new batch of lettuce and arugula is growing nicely, I harvested a little for a salad for diner last night. We’ve really been enjoying the salad season this spring.

The garlic is doing incredibly well, I’m very excited to harvest some. As you can see, some of it is about 3 feet tall! Unfortunately the deer ate my peas, so no peas for us this spring. I think if I want peas I’m going to have to grow them in containers on my front porch, or put up a really tall fence.

How’s everyone’s garden growing so far this spring?

In the Garden: Inside and Out

I figured it was time for a garden update, to let you all know how all of the crops are doing. My raised beds are 100% full with spring crops now, I’m hoping everything will be ready to harvest by the beginning of June so I can fill them with summer crops. My grow lights (all 6 of them) are packed with plants, I’m hoping to harden some off soon so I can transplant tomatoes to bigger pots and start some squash and flower seeds.

The peas are all doing well, I didn’t get great germination with one kind, but they were seeds leftover from last year. So I’m guessing pea seed are best used up each year and fresh seed purchased each spring. Peas are one of those crops that seem like you never get much out of them, unless you’re growing the sugar snap and eating the pods. We’ll see how many I end up with. I would love a few pints for the freezer, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

The garlic is all doing very well. I think I counted over 50 plants (no problems with vampires here). That should give us enough to eat ourselves, gifts for friends & family and we should be able to save a few for planting this fall. I’m very excited to try the various kinds I planted:

German White: A Porcelain Garlic – very rich garlic flavor, rather hot pungency when raw, harvests mid-late season, stores 8-10 months

Killarney Red: A Rocambole Garlic – very rich garlic flavor, very hot pungency when raw, harvests early-mid season, stores 5-6 months

Chesnok Red: A Purple Strip Garlic – very rich garlic flavor, medium warm pungency when raw, harvests mid-season, stores 6-8 months

Georgia Fire: A Porcelain Garlic – very rich garlic flavor, very hot pungency when raw, harvests mid-late season, stores 8-10 months

My onion seedlings are doing really well, they’re tall and you can see red on the base of the red onions. These will be going out soon since they can take some cold. As soon as the night temps remain above freezing (it was 26 last night) I’m going to harden them off and plant them outside.

The cabbage & broccoli seedlings are starting to grow like weeds, they are all about 6 inches tall. They’ll be going outside soon as well, I’m waiting for temps to stay in the 40′s (if you plant them out too soon the broccoli heads will be small, the soil should be about 60 degrees).

All of my tomato seedlings are doing quite well. It looks as though I’m going to have plenty to give to family and friends. I’m also hoping to have a good amount left so I can pot them up with care instructions and give them to the local food shelter to hand out to needy families.

How’s your garden growing inside & out?

A Day in the Garden

Yesterday I spent the day working outside in the gardens. It’s just the kind of day I like for working outside. Cool but sunny, perfect for working hard, you don’t get too hot. My fingers even got a bit frosty while picking all the green tomatoes.

I picked 36 pounds of green tomatoes. So what am I going to be doing with these? Some of them will be put on a shelf in the basement on some newspaper for ripening, the other green ones will be made into a batch of green tomato chutney. For now they’re covering our dining room table. All of the tomato vines went into one of my compost piles.

I also cleaned out the bed that had the potatoes in it to make room for garlic. I didn’t get quite as many potatoes as I had hoped, but I planted them a little late and I don’t think the soil is all that great. So next year they’ll be given a ton more compost. Next year I’m planning on planting some different kinds of potatoes, I’ll buy my big bag of winter potatoes from a local farm (this year I planted Kennebec potatoes)

Early this summer I ordered a garlic sampler from Gourmet Garlic Gardens. I would highly recommend ordering from them (just make sure you order early to get what you want). I ordered a spicy garlic lovers sampler for my zone. They sent the garlic out in mid-september with detailed instructions about planting. Bob even wrote thank you on my invoice, how’s that for customer service.

So how do you plant garlic? Well, first you separate the cloves and soak them overnight in a solution of 1 heaping Tablespoon of baking soda to one gallon of water. I soaked my 4 different kinds in different bowls to keep them separate.

After about 12-16 hours when the cloves are loose in their skins you immerse them in alcohol for 3-5 minutes, then you plant 6 inches apart (and 3 inches deep here in Ohio, 2 inches deep in the south, and 4 inches deep farther north).

I mulched mine with straw to keep them warmer this winter and hopefully next spring/summer I’ll have a bounty of delicious fresh garlic.

So what kinds of garlic did I plant?
German White: A Porcelain Garlic – very rich garlic flavor, rather hot pungency when raw, harvests mid-late season, stores 8-10 months
Killarney Red: A Rocambole Garlic – very rich garlic flavor, very hot pungency when raw, harvests early-mid season, stores 5-6 months
Chesnok Red: A Purple Strip Garlic – very rich garlic flavor, medium warm pungency when raw, harvests mid-season, stores 6-8 months
Georgia Fire: A Porcelain Garlic – very rich garlic flavor, very hot pungency when raw, harvests mid-late season, stores 8-10 months

It looks like I’ll have a great selection for storing & eating. I’m hoping they’ll last me all year. Any of you planting garlic this fall and what’s your favorite kind?