Here at my Bedford, New York farm, late July is garlic picking time - when the bottom leaves of the plants start to die back and turn brown, but the top leaves are still green.
Knowing when garlic is ready to pick can be tricky. If it’s harvested too soon, the cloves are small and underdeveloped. And, if done too late, the clove heads begin to separate, making them more vulnerable to decay. Garlic is divided into two categories - the supermarket variety, softneck, which produces long-lasting bulbs with many cloves around a soft center stem, and hardneck, which are noted for their stiff central stalk, fewer cloves, relatively short shelf life, and intriguingly complex flavors. All our varieties are from Keene Garlic, a family-owned farm in Wisconsin.
Enjoy these photos.
Every year, we plant lots of garlic in a bed behind my main greenhouse. Garlic is planted in the fall. This photo is from a sunny, mild day in mid-November of last year. I’ve been planting Keene Organics garlic for quite some time, and am always so pleased with their growth and taste.
Come spring, young plants are already well established and several inches tall. Garlic loves a rich fertile loam soil or a silty loam soil. It also grows best in an area that drains well – the cloves can rot if they sit in water or mud.
Here is the garlic bed in May – it’s growing great.
In June, one can see the scapes beginning to form. Garlic scapes are the flower buds of the garlic plants. They’re ready about a month before the actual garlic bulbs. Scapes are delicious and can be used just like garlic. Scapes can be cut when the center stalks are completely formed and curled ends are seen growing above the rest of the plants.
Here is the bed in mid-July – it just needs a little bit more time.
And then last week, it was time to pick. The right time to pick garlic is when the top of the garlic plant begins to die back. It is important to wait for a dry day to harvest – this allows the soil to dry out, helps to prevent rot, and makes it much easier to pull the stalks and bulbs from the ground.
Garlic bulbs are several inches deep, so Brian loosens the soil first with a broadfork. He does this about six inches from each bulb to avoid puncturing it.
A broadfork is like a tall pitchfork except it has two long handles – one on each side of a two-foot long metal crossbar from which several long tines extend down towards the ground.
Brian steps on the bar of the broadfork and pushes down carefully. Then he loosens the dirt just enough, so he can pick the garlic.
Each garlic is pulled out from the base of the leaves so that the head comes out completely. I love to experiment with the different types to see what grows best in my garden.
The whole garlic is called a ‘head’, a ‘bulb’, or a ‘knob. ‘ Each small, individual segment of a garlic head is a clove. Garlic is both delicious and nutritious. It is known to lower cholesterol, decrease the risk of coronary artery disease, and is an excellent source of minerals and vitamins, such as vitamins B6 and C.
It isn’t long before the entire bed is picked. This year’s crop looks great.
All the garlic is brought into the greenhouse, where it can start to dry.
The big heads are this year’s Elephant garlic – our biggest variety. Elephant garlic is actually a leek that resembles garlic in growing and in appearance. It has a very mild flavor. It is most commonly found in grocery stores. Jumbo sized Elephant garlic will have about eight to 11 cloves depending on the size.
The next step is to prepare the garlic for curing. Curing is a process of letting the garlic dry in preparation for long-term storage. There’s no need to wash garlic – the point is to dry them out; however, they can be cleaned and trimmed. Ryan cuts off the top of each garlic leaving about a three to four-inch stalk.
Trimming the stalks makes it easier to store and keeps them neat and uniform.
This is a garlic bulbil. A bulbil is a false seed grown by a garlic plant in order to reproduce. They are miniature clones of the garlic plant itself, which can also be planted like the seed garlic.
Once all the garlic is trimmed, it is placed into a wire tray and left to cure. On another dry day, the trays will all move into the old corn crib, where they can continue to cure for several weeks.
In all, four large trays filled with garlic – that’s a great bounty. Finally, once the garlic is cured, Ryan will set aside the most beautiful heads with the biggest cloves to use as garlic seeds next season.
Well-cured, well-wrapped garlic bulbs will keep six to eight months or longer. The best storage temperature for garlic is between 60 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit, with low humidity at about 60-percent – and never store garlic in the refrigerator. I will soon have lots of delicious garlic to use and share.
My garden maze continues to evolve with each row of interesting plantings. It now includes a section of holly, Ilex, an evergreen shrub with dense, glossy, foliage.
Earlier this month, the wholesale nursery, Monrovia, sent me a large assortment of beautiful plants including 21-holly shrubs. I knew these specimens would make excellent additions to my maze, located in a lush pasture just outside my Winter House. I instructed my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, where they should go, and he and Pete went right to work - measuring the space, marking the rows, removing the sod, planting the holly, and top dressing with mulch made right here at the farm. I started planting this course one year ago with a variety of different hedges, espaliers, and trees, and I am happy to report, we've completed about a third of the three-acre space and it looks great.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Ryan started by placing the potted holly in the section of the maze where they would be planted.
The holly from Monrovia is ‘Ruby Colonnade,’ Ilex x crenata ‘RutHol5’ PPAF. It is versatile evergreen shrub with a naturally pyramidal form.
It shows off dense, glossy, bright green foliage, with new leaves that emerge deep “ruby” red.
Here, Ryan and Pete go over the exact location for the holly. The maze is drawn out on a map, so it is important to refer to it every time something new is added.
The area is measured multiple times – first to mark where the rows will be…
… then to mark how wide the beds would be and where the designated paths would start and end…
… and finally the exact spot where each tree will be placed.
Here, Pete sets up landscape twine according to the map’s specifications and our latest measurements.
Next, Pete goes over the designated beds with our new Classen Pro HSC18 sod cutter. The sod cutter goes over the area smoothly and deeply. Everything must be done as precisely as possible for the maze.
This sod cutter is so easy to maneuver and so sharp, Pete finishes one row in just minutes.
Then with the edge of a spade, Pete cuts the sod strips into sections, so it is easier to roll and lift.
And then one by one, Pete rolls up the sod. Here, Pete stops for a quick photo.
Here are several pieces of sod neatly rolled up and ready to be repurposed in another area of the farm.
All the sod is loaded in our Kubota M4 tractor and moved to the goose pen, where it can be reused to fill some of bare areas.
Once all the sod is removed, each potted holly is placed exactly where it will be planted – down to the exact inch, so plants are lined up perfectly.
Each hole is dug with enough room for the plant’s root ball. Holly thrives best in an area that gets equal parts shade and sun, and where it can live in well-draining soil.
Then, a good handful of fertilizer is dropped into the hole. A 20-20-20 or 10-10-10 slow release fertilizer designed for shrubs and evergreens is best.
Then the holly is carefully placed in the hole and backfilled. When planting, always check that the plant is positioned with the best side facing out, or in this case, facing the path.
Once it is planted, the surrounding soil is tamped down to ensure good contact between the plant and the soil.
Meanwhile, here comes Pete with a wheelbarrow filled with mulch made right here at the farm.
Pete drops mulch next to each shrub – just enough to add a nice top dressing. Three inches will be plenty. Too deep a layer may cause water logging later.
Here, the mulch is carefully and evenly spread around the shrubs and along the entire length of each of the four beds.
Here is one bed nicely done. The shrubs are five feet apart giving them ample room to mature.
And here is the section all complete. The last step is a good, deep drink. Remember, if you drink and eat, so should your plants. Four more rows in the maze are now done… and many, many more still to go.
If you have a vegetable garden, how is it doing this year? The new vegetable garden here at my Bedford, New York farm is amazing. I hope you saw my photos on my Instagram page @MarthaStewart48 showing some of our latest bounty.
Over the last week, my head gardener, Ryan McCallister, and my housekeepers, Enma Sandoval and Elvira Rojas, picked cucumbers, summer squash, artichokes, carrots, beans, Swiss chard, and so much more. They also picked nearly a bushel of peaches - that's almost 50-pounds of delicious, sweet fruits. Despite some very uncomfortable summer weather, the produce in the gardens is thriving.
Enjoy these photos.
Here at my farm, we’re all so pleased with the new vegetable garden. It’s been so productive and all the vegetables look fantastic. It’s important to check it every day – there’s always something ready to pick. It makes me so happy to be able to share all of this produce with friends and family every summer.
So many tomatoes are developing on the vines, but they’re not ready just yet. Most tomato plant varieties need between 50 and 90 days to mature. Planting can also be staggered to produce early, mid and late season tomato harvests.
And the onions are doing excellently also. We planted a lot of white, yellow and red onions. Onions are harvested later in the summer when the underground bulbs are mature and flavorful.
But so many other vegetables are ready to harvest right now. Look at the cucumbers! These are perfect, and what a bounty.
Cucumbers, Cucumis sativus, are great for pickling – I try to find time for pickling every year.
Ryan is using a double harvest bag from Johnny’s Selected Seeds. Originally designed for Canadian tree planters to carry heavy loads, it’s so popular to use for harvesting lots of vegetables. This is one of two bags that are each about 10-inches by 12-inches by 14-inches deep and the triple padding on the harness can be adjusted for maximum support.
Ryan starts to fill the bags with cucumbers. I like them best when they are at least six to eight inches in length. These will be so sweet and juicy.
There are also a lot of beans. Beans grow best in full sun and moist soil. Bush beans are second only to tomatoes as the most popular vegetables in home gardens. Bush beans are eaten when the seeds are small. They are also called string beans because of a fibrous string running the length of the pod.
Swiss chard always stands out in the garden, with its rich colorful stalks. Swiss chard is a leafy green vegetable often used in Mediterranean cooking. The leaf stalks are large and vary in color, usually white, yellow, or red. The leaf blade can be green or reddish in color. Harvest Swiss chard when the leaves are tender and big enough to eat.
The globe artichoke, Cynara scolymus, is actually a flower bud, which is eaten when tender. Buds are generally harvested once they reach full size, just before the bracts begin to spread open. When harvesting artichokes, cut off the bud along with about three inches of stem.
We picked lots of artichokes in just a few minutes. Artichoke harvest starts in late July or early August and continues well until frost. The container is Johnny’s harvest bucket – a kidney shaped hard bucket on an adjustable heavy duty wide strap for easy carrying.
Here’s the bucket filled to the top with garden fresh artichokes.
Here are our trug buckets of cucumbers. I think this is one of our biggest cucumber harvests yet!
All the freshly picked vegetables are loaded up and brought to my flower room, where they can be washed if needed, then bagged and stored in the refrigerator.
Here’s our bin of carrots. We have such beautiful carrots this season. Most are familiar with the orange carrots, but they also come in red, yellow, white, and purple.
And then it was a walk to the orchard. My orchard surrounds three sides of my pool. It’s filled with a variety of apple trees, plum trees, cherry trees, peach, pear, and quince trees. Most of the fruits are not yet ready to pick, but many of the peaches are ripe and sweet.
And all the peach trees are filled with bright pink fruits. Can you see them?
Here’s a closer look. This time every year, everyone around the farm eagerly awaits the first fruits.
If the peach is firm to the touch, it’s not ready. It’s ripe when there is some “give” as it is gently squeezed. Color is another great indicator of maturity. Peaches are ripe when the ground color of the fruit changes from green to completely yellow.
Here’s our first big bounty of fresh, organic peaches of the season – so sweet and delicious!
It’s always so much fun to harvest the “fruits of our labor.” Thanks Ryan, Enma, and Elvira! And be sure to look at my Instagram page @MarthaStewart48 to see more of what we harvested. I hope all your gardens are just as productive as mine.
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