Planting

Sept 18, 2022

Well, I'm back tracking a bit, but now that this farmer's hibernation has been interrupted, I find I have lots to say, so I'd best start in chronological order.

The garlic planted for 2023, is on a 0.4 acre plot, only slightly smaller than last year's. The difference is, I put in full rows, or larger plantings of the most popular and best growing Porcelains and Marbled Purple Stripes, and reduced many of the others to a handful of cloves or just one pound of seed. I am trying to make it simpler, though I've been told that no matter how I try, I usually complicate things with great enthusiasm, so likely you will find me saving bulbils and selling all the specialty ones by the bulb as much as I can, for the sake of diversity. I have updated the 2022 Catalogue page to include a list of what I have in the ground, and what is planned for spring planting.

Sept 17, 2022

You can see how dry and dusty it still was in September. I planted earlier than I needed to, but, goodness, it didn't really seem to matter - the cloves just sat there until a big enough rain finally saturated the loose ground all the way through. It was a most unusual summer here. I once tried to dig a deep hole in the field, in July, but after scraping the top 6 inches of loose soil off, a pick axe would have been a more appropriate tool than a shovel - and - prepare for a work out while swinging that pick axe, while making tedious progress! The clay subsoil was that dry.

Sept 30, 2022

Nov 11, 2022

It was so dry, we were able to scuffle the garlic (and tine weed the winter wheat) in November.

Nov 11, 2022

 Some of the garlic was up by then, so we could kinda see where the rows of garlic exactly were. For the last couple years we have been putting orange or yellow stakes in every 50 ft before we close the furrow, to mark the rows, in case we get the chance to go over it before the garlic is up and that's been quite helpful, because our hiller can get off to the side a bit otherwise.

Another trick I've been doing is to plant the Turbans later than my other garlic. Turbans sprout so fast and are so frost tender, I'm trying to give then a break (since I can hardly save then for spring planting and be assured of the keeping quality). I got anxious and planted them on October 11, 2022... Who was to know that the weather would stay so nice. In my experience it usually goes in 2 month phases, based on where the jet stream is tracking (if it's making a loop above us we get hot and dry, or if it's pulling the cold air down, cool and wet). You never know when it's going to switch (or if it will).

Anyway, that's my very, very belated update on what planting was like last fall. I intended to make a video, but the wind was so strong out in the field it was beyond my abilities to make a functional presentation out of the raw video sequences. 

I'll soon be getting my Silver Skins and Creoles into the cold storage (with the carrots and beets), so that they can get sufficient chilling hours to bulb properly. If anyone needs carrots, by the way, we have them at the farm! And we sell them in small batches to Pfennings Organic and More, the health food store in St. Agatha.

Carrots don't get any sweeter, than when you dig them in the snow! Sugars develop in the cells when root crops are confronted by freezing temperatures. Some of the sugar even develops months later, in storage, for varieties like the Chantenay types that are good for our rich clay...so, actually, technically, carrots do get sweeter than in the December snow and are best right about now!

Not all of them look like this however! 

Only a few were dancing so gracefully as this one in their search for minerals in the soil.