Hello Squash
I’ve never had much space in the garden for growing winter squash. Their vines sprawl far and wide, much farther than I ever had the space to give them in my tiny space. Now that I have a large garden, squash finally made the cut.
Frost was predicted for the night before last, so I decided it was time to harvest all the winter squash. This year I grew ‘Sweet Meat’ and ‘Waltham Butternut” from Baker Creek, along with ‘Burgess Buttercup Squash’ and ‘Delicata’ from High Mowing Seeds.
There were loads of beautiful delicata squash in the garden as well, but the voles and porcupines have been going crazy eating them. I managed to harvest four for us to eat. You can see here they were starting in on the pumpkins as well. At least they almost always came back to this pumpkin instead of gnawing on every single one.
Now all the squash are sitting in an upstairs window where they’ll stay warm. Squash don’t like cool storage like other vegetables, it’s best to keep them in the same conditions you like to live in. I’ll probably pile them in a corner of the living room after a few weeks.
In mid summer I planted a second crop of zucchini, mostly for feeding the chickens, ducks and pigs. They’re still going very strong. In fact I harvested about twice this many zucchini. They’ll be slowly eaten by the animals and us over the nest few weeks. The smaller ones are dried into zucchini noodles for us to eat on this winter.
Next year I’m planting about half of my big main garden in squash. I plan on growing a good amount for animal feed in a well mulched area of the garden since I won’t have time to grow crops that need more attention. I’m thinking however that an electric fence around the garden is going to be a good idea.
Do you grow winter squash in your garden?
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Garlic Giveaway
It’s that time of year to start thinking about planting garlic. Mine is going to be planted where the sweet potatoes were this summer. I plan on planting a lot of garlic, loads and loads of it. I never seem to have enough and I like giving it away as well. We eat a lot ourselves and I feed it to the chickens and the dogs every now and again.
Last year I did a giveaway thanks to Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply (also known as GrowOrganic.com), a company that my parents have been purchasing from since I was a kid. I’m more than happy to get a great prize for one of you while helping spread the word about this great company! Peaceful Valley also has a in depth weekly newsletter with loads of how-to videos and lots of useful information. They’re also on facebook if you want to keep up with their sales.
The garlic giveaway special will feature: a Garlic Combo collection, a quart of liquid kelp and plant labels. The garlic combo pack contains: 1 head of Elephant (conventional), 3 heads of California Early White (organic softneck), 3 heads of Music (organic hardneck), 3 heads of Russian Red (organic hardneck), 3 sets of French Red Shallots (organic).
So why the liquid kelp? Garlic bulbs do better when soaked in liquid kelp before planting. It gives them the boost they need to get a strong root system going before winter arrives in earnest. The plant labels were included because I have a very bad habit of never labeling my garden plants, particularly the garlic. As a result I have different kinds of homegrown garlic in my pantry but I don’t know which is which. The labels should help you keep things organized!
If you’ve never grown garlic before, don’t worry. I’ll have a garlic growing guide up on the blog next week. Deadline to enter is Wednesday, October 23 at midnight. Winner has been chosen via random.org – #72 – Matt who said, “I’ve loved garlic all my life.. Now I’m starting my own Back to Eden style garden and of course plan garlic to be part of it.”
How do you enter this giveaway? Tell me what’s your favorite way to use garlic in the kitchen?
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Cabbages
Back in Ohio, my soil was much to lean and dry to grow a decent cabbage. This year, I finally have a few beautiful cabbages in the garden. I can’t wait to harvest these lovelies to make a BIG batch of sauerkraut.
I have 6 of these green cabbages in the garden that could be harvested any day. The red ones still need another month or so. They’re lagging because of the big maple tree that’s planted a little too close to the potager.
Do you struggle to grow any certain vegetable?
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Sets or Pearls
Very early this spring, I direct sowed some onion seed in the low tunnel. I added a label that said “bunching onions”. Since I had seed for red bunching onions, I wasn’t surprised when they came up with red stems. Then, they started to bulb a little, not exactly what I thought was going to happen.
Evidently, these were bulbing onions and not bunching onions. I don’t know if I planted the wrong packet of seed, or if the seed packet was mislabeled. It doesn’t really matter, I can use these onions as pearl onions or I could save them and use them as sets for next year. I don’t usually grow onions from sets because they have a tendency to flower and I don’t find that they store as well.
Of course pearl onions would be nice as well, I was thinking I might pickle them if I chose to use them in that way. Peeling all those onions will be a chore though, not something I’m looking forward to.
Would you save these and plant them or enjoy them as pearl onions?
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Best Harvest Ever!
I’m a lover of onions and can never seem to grow enough of them. Over the past couple years, I’ve been augmenting my bulb onions with other alliums (read my post about alternative alliums here). Even so, I always run out of onions and other alliums and end up buying a few at the farmers market. This year might be the first year I don’t have to.
The main crop of storage onions was harvested last week, here’s a look at what I have to squirrel away in the larder. They’re drying in the upstairs of our garage where it’s nice & warm. It’s quite impressive I must say, I’ve never had enough space to grow this many onions. If you can believe it, this is only 3/4 of my crop, there are some still growing in the garden to be harvested in a few weeks.
The main varieties I grew were: Copra, Australian Brown, Sedona, Cortland, and Redwing. I had seeds for Ailsa Craig, but somehow they didn’t get started, I guess the seed packet got lost in the shuffle. I also started seed for a red torpedo onion, which never germinated.
I already have a long row of leeks in the garden for next spring and three different kinds of bunching onions as well. The perennial leek bulbs will be planted soon, along with the potato onions and shallots as well. Little by little, I’m achieving allium independence – which is a beautiful thing if you consume as many alliums as we do. This large crop of onions will save me a good deal on groceries, looks like I can buy more of my favorite chocolate (which happens to be Taza).
Do you grow alliums in your garden? How many different kinds do you grow?
