Tag Archives: Garlic

Garden, July 10 2014

DSC03521 Garden, July 10.  No new plantings since last spring.  I got a garlic, newly growing from cloves I planted last spring.  I pulled it up because I thought it was a weedy piece of grass.

DSC03518 It looks like a small onion, but it smells like garlic.  We CAN grow garlic.

DSC03520 And plantains.  They need attention, but they grow really well here.

DSC03505 The little feathery seedlings are dill, which self-seeded from such seed bearing flowers (below).

DSC03517 The flowers are at the upper left, and the skimpy roots are at the lower right.  After they have gone to seed, dill dries up and is refreshed by the baby plants from its seeds.  A possible project would be to see where the dill from the seeds I saved could grow in our yard in different times and places.  Dill and plantains have completed the life cycle by dying back and propagating for future crops.  These are self sustaining.

Garlic could become self-sustaining.

DSC03510 Basil (right of center)is growing well here, but not a few feet away, where it could not sink its roots in.

DSC03509 Carrots are taking off now.DSC03511 Parsnips are growing well.

DSC03514 Kohrabi (light green in front) with a tomato plant behind it.

DSC03513 More tomatoes are visible among the plants in the upper left quadrant.  The newly planted tomatoes, which had sprouted in June among the front yard plants,  have all disappeared.  I wonder if snails eat young tomato plants.

DSC03512 Cabbage has not done too well here.  Here is a barely growing cabbage.

DSC03503 Lettuce grows, and I am going to see if I can get some seeds from these plants.  Some of it may have seeded itself.  The trouble with lettuce here, is that after snails become active, I am afraid they may pass on dangerous parasites that they leave on the lettuce leaves, unless I cook it.

 

 

 

Visiting Our Compost Pile

DSC02160 Mr. Possum came to eat from our

compost pile.

DSC02162 Sometimes he did not look  friendly, and I thought about what he could be carrying in the way of noxious microbes and parasites, so I decided to discourage him.

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I remembered a safe formula for discouraging cats and dogs from entering a garden in this book, and thought it would work for possums, so I looked it up.

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Here it is!  DSC02171  I made a quart of this by blending up a whole head of garlic instead of using the garlic powder.  I added the 1/4 cup of Tabasco sauce, a 1/2 teaspoon of vegetable oil, and  shook it up in the one quart spray bottle.  The spray mechanism did not get plugged with the garlic at any time.  A very small residue on my hands did not hurt my eyes when I rubbed them.

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I squirted a couple of squirts of this into the compost, and lifted the sides off of the compost.  Mr. Possum went scampering down the alley.  I hope he will not return.  I sprayed by far the most of it around and into the garden to discourage cats and dogs from entering our garden.  We’ll see how long the spray effects will last.

Garden, 12th Week After Planting

DSC01108 The biggest radish on DEC 5, 2013DSC01115   Garden overview DSC01116  Garlic, DEC 5, 2013

This biggest radish is a good size.  We may get more next week.  Some may begin growing better when the days begin to lengthen.  Only two and a half weeks until then.

The garden overview shows the radish patch to the left, and parsley and cilantro to the right.  The scattered grey-green plants are the cabbage plants that I bought already started.  I planted eight of these in different parts of the garden to see where they grow best.  (Since most of the garden did not do well.)

The garlic is from one head that we bought at the grocery store, and separated into cloves.  I planted about 6 cloves at each end of the garden.  It  is growing well everywhere so far.

Though I planted a whole onion at the same time, nothing is growing from it, at least not yet.  I am going to see if onions, from seed or planted whole, and chive from seed begin to grow better later.

It is a little surprising to me that garlic grows so much better than any of my onion types so far.  Two years ago I got good chives from plants, and onions did begin to take hold in the late winter.  I would have gotten a couple of scallions if that garden had not been full of lead.