Garden Diaries, 2020

[Ontario Chick]

Odd year for potatoes, tops still green, so digging up one hill at a time as needed, definitely difference in the two color potatoes, purple is taking over in some of them, so I think mutating back to purple
hoping to put in garlic this week, barring torrential rains or snow storms

[Farrier1987]

Onions. I planted both purple and white from sets. Harvested early August. Hung them to dry for two weeks. Went through them as I filled the onion sack, a few white ones getting mushy, pitched them. the rest felt good and hard or i didnt put them in.

I just went into our veggie storage to put some squash in. Lifted the onion sack, and all was not well. Lots of mushy ones. So I dumped the sack out and went through them. The purple were just fine, some goop from white ones on them. About half the whites brown mush. Put the rest out to dry some more.

I think next year, only a few whites to use during the season and all reds for trying to store.

Anyone else got tips on onion storage or growing? Particular good storing varieties? I have never really tried to grow from seed, always sets. Any successes/failures that way?

Going out now to build another raised bed. 4x8. The four foot wide so I can reach across weeding by hand, never any need to get on top of the dirt in the bed.

[Killerbunny]

OK I don't think it's your onions @Farrier1987. I just bought some and within a day they stank a sort of fishy smell and started to go bad.

[labradors]

Yuck on the onions! I bought a big bag from No Frills. Perhaps it wasn't such an economical move!

I planted my garlic yesterday. Yippee! Hope it wasn't too soon, but I really hate planting it in the cold......

Linda

[WLLady]

a lot of the white onions this year have heart rot. i better go and check mine in storage. i only have spanish and red...so hopefully we will be okay. any of the whites we have bought at the store have started rotting exceedingly fast this past year. so i think the stock seed is actually bad now genetically. sigh.

harvesyed 40 beautiful rutabaga today. theyre on the picnic table drying so i can get the dirt off tomorrow and cut the roots and tops off. i think i will wax the cuts....i have some bees wax hanging out that would be peefect for the job.

next chore is tilling in the garden and making a spot for garlic. that should also empty the gas tank on the tiller for winter.

also got my fall bulbs from veseys so need to clean gardens and put those in. yay! 3 weeks of holidays and lots of fun stuff to do!

[Ontario Chick]

OK, finished planting garlic, now it occurs to me that some people downsize by moving in to a condo, I am downsizing by planting 100 instead of 200 cloves of garlic.
Addy is a great help in the garden, it's good she is "self cleaning" :)

[labradors]

What do you do with all that garlic? I planted 25 cloves and that's too many for the two of us.

Linda

[Killerbunny]

Oh my @labradors. Roasted garlic I make a loaf with roasted garlic and cheese, amazing. Garlic bread for lunch, garlic goes in so many other things, with cabbage, cabbage rolls. Roasted garlic mashed with olive oil and spread on crackers, caesar sald. etc. etc.

[Ontario Chick]

I use it as an antibiotic

We use about 80 or 90 a year.
after harvest I divide them by month, until next year harvest, so it's very clear when I am not using all for that month, and sometime, that I am stealing from the next month

Like @Killerbunny use on meat, fish, meat loaf, garlic bread, roasted with parsnip.............
make garlic infused olive oil, pasta dishes, so I guess in everything accept the Christmas cookies

[labradors]

Too funny about the Christmas cookies. Why ever not? {LOL}.

Great idea to divide into months to see how you are going. I should do that so that I can give some away while it is still good. I do use it with everything meaty, not so much with fish and eggs though.... I'm obviously just not keeping up!!!!


Linda