Phew. Let me tell ya, it has been a bit of a marathon around here! Since our weather has been a bit all over the place, I had to get ALL of the warm weather crops in all at once. This of course meant some very, very long days over the past week.
I'm not sad about it though.
Part of the reason for my lack of sadness is the garlic. It is just so massive this year, and it's finally scaping!
What the heck are scapes some of you might be wondering? Well, I grow hardneck garlic, and hardneck garlic scapes before its growth cycle is done. A scape is a green onion looking stem that grows out and flowers at the end of the hardneck garlic's growth cycle, and to a garlic grower it's a super exciting time when they start to develop for a couple of reasons.
One, once the scape grows out into it's first curl, you cut it and know that you just helped plant divert energy go to bulb growth, and two, you get to EAT the scapes.
Oh how I love garlic scapes, they are so good whipped into a pesto, or pureed with some olive oil and frozen into cubes to chuck into your cooking. You can pickle scapes and do a ton of things with them, and as I have a LOT of garlic growing, I just know I will be scape rich this year!
And today, after transplanting my new thornless blackberry plants, I meandered over to check the garlic and saw that, Houston, we have scapes!
Of course, they are just starting to emerge and aren't near curling and cutting stage yet, but it's still exciting!
The new blackberry bushes are also exciting. A local nursery had them on sale this weekend, and I have been wanting to get friends for my inherited blackberry bush that lives out in the garden. Now I have four, two more Chester's and a Black Satin. The Black Satin even has little baby berries growing on it. Me, I just care about developing this year's primocanes so I get a little harvest next year, but holy surplus, there should be a right nice harvest the year following. You know, because of compost, proper irrigation, and other such plant care things.
Another chore that happened amongst putting in the rest of the garden was the Flowering. I let one of my dear friends plant a couple rows of flowers that are good for drying each year. She is a dried flower wreath making artist of awesomeness. Plus, it means I get to gaze upon several hundred row feet of FLOWERS! How could that ever be a bad thing?
So she, her husband, and I plunked over three hundred statice, Russian statice, Safflower, baby's breath, gomphrena, and dusty miller into the soil on Thursday. Even with the temps at about 80F the little plant babies are settling in right nicely. I think the drip irrigation the hubs installed has helped keep transplant
shock to a minimum.
I know this because the spaghetti squash, acorn squash, zucchini, and miscellaneous pumpkin plants that I transplanted are looking just dandy. Once again, I think the hub's irrigation skills have come in clutch in this area.
Over the last four days I have sown my corn and beans, and twenty thousand carrot seeds. Yes, I said thousand, but I got a smoking deal on a big bag of carrot seeds and I had a HUGE bed that just beckoned for some carrots. Plus, I will probably thin that bed down to a couple thousand carrots, it will be fine.
Maybe.
A lot more stuff happened, but as I spent eleven hours solid baking yesterday, I am going to leave that bit of info for a future post. My shoulder blades are on fire from all the planting and baking, and I think I am going to go out and sit a spell on the porch. For restorative reasons and such.
It looks like you're having some pretty nice weather there. That is something we here in this remote corner of the world can only dream of, our spring started great, and now we are sitting inside with temperatures of 16 degrees because it doesn't want to get warm outside. It rains almost every day, not just a little. But way too much... the temperature barely rises above 18 degrees and it just seems to be a long gray autumn from October onwards. Hopefully, we will also have another summer ... otherwise, I have to inquire whether living with you is possible for my partner, me, and Skipper.
Wow! It sounds like you've got one of those temperate El Nino summers brewing! When I was kid in Southeast Alaska we had one of those where there was only ten days of sunshine from May to September, and it was a gloomy, soggy mess of a thing. I hope a high pressure wave builds and you get some relief.
I am so sorry it too me three days to reply, I haven't sat down for three days, other than to sleep. I am either baking or planting right now, or pulling weeds, and I am a bit worn out.
And you and your crew are always welcome over this way, no matter what your weather is doing!
!PIZZA
We've been busy bees in the gardens!
Heck ya we have! This bee is in need of a bit of honey and a perch for a bit, I just got done with a nine hour transplanting, weeding, weed eating, mowing, silage tarp laying, carrot thinning extravaganza! I am covered in all the things lol, and I hope you are enjoying your day!
!PIZZA
I’m sorry to ask
Do you sell all your farm produce or you only get to use them at home?
For the last couple years I have used my produce at home and given some to family and friends, but years ago I sold at farmers markets and such, and am going to be doing some more small scale commercial farming from here on out, cause my kids are grown and I have more time to do so.
!PIZZA
$PIZZA slices delivered:
generikat tipped hetty-rowan
@generikat(3/15) tipped @rafzat
generikat tipped goldenoakfarm
I was going to plant garlic last fall, but I read it shouldn't be planted in the same place until 3 years later. And I only have one safe place to plant it where the Mad Tiller won't ruin it. That's a dilemma I will have to solve!