Another task is done. Next year's garlic crop is now planted.
Although garlic can be planted in the spring as soon as the ground can be worked, fall planting is recommended for most gardeners. This allows extra time for the bulbs to grow and become more flavorful for the summer harvest. Every year, we plant a big crop of garlic from Keene Garlic, a family owned farm in Wisconsin that sells certified organic and naturally grown gourmet bulbs for both eating and planting. Garlic is great for cooking and very good for your health. It is well known to lower blood pressure and cholesterol, and carries many antioxidant properties. Knowing that I also grow the garlic myself makes it even more special.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
It’s always exciting to get a delivery from Keene Garlic filled with bags of fragrant garlic bulbs for my garden. I have been planting Keene Garlic for several years and am always so pleased with their growth and taste. Here are just some of the different varieties we are planting this year.
Each bulb is carefully broken to separate all the cloves. For the best results, plant the largest cloves from each bulb and save the smaller ones for eating.
When planting garlic, look for the largest most robust bulbs. Each bulb contains at least four to six cloves – some even more. Among this year’s varieties – Asian Tempest – Asiatic is very hot when eaten raw and sweet when baked. It tastes rich, garlicky, strong, and robust with easy to peel jumbo cloves.
The German Extra Hardy Porcelain garlic is large-sized and medium flavored. Because of its large root system, this hardneck is extremely hardy and often withstands freezing and thawing cycles when other garlic varieties don’t.
Nootka Rose is known for being a long storing garlic. This type is great baked, roasted, and nicely blended with a variety of dishes.
Ryan prepares the labels. It’s good to keep varieties identified, so favorites can be grown again the following season.
All the variety names are written on white labels and then covered with transparent tape and secured to the markers.
For the preparation process, Ryan gathers fish emulsion, isopropyl alcohol, a strainer and some plastic containers. Fish emulsion is an organic garden fertilizer that’s made from whole fish or parts of fish. It’s easy to find at garden centers or wherever gardening supplies and fertilizers are sold.
Ryan soaks the garlic in isopropyl or rubbing alcohol for about 20-minutes. This helps to sterilize the cloves. If you don’t have alcohol, you can also use hydrogen peroxide or vodka. Then drains.
Next, he creates a solution of fish emulsion…
… and a bit of baking soda and water for each container.
Ryan fills the containers with the baking soda water to ensure all the garlic is covered. This will give the garlic a fertilizer boost and rid them of possible diseases, which could have been carried by the garlic. It also increases the size of the bulb by giving the plant food before putting it to bed for the winter.
The cloves are all left to soak in the baking soda and fish emulsion mixture for at least 30-minutes or up to overnight. Then they are drained and rinsed thoroughly before drying.
Once all the garlic is put through the preparation process, the cloves are returned to their mesh bags for easy transport to the garden bed – this year located in the far southwest corner of my vegetable garden. Extra bulbs were left whole and brought down in case needed.
Josh secures twine to ensure the rows are perfectly straight. This is a guide for all the other rows in the bed. Ryan already determined how many rows would fit in this bed and how many garlic cloves would be planted in each row.
Ryan positions each clove. When planting multiple rows of garlic, be sure the rows are at least one-foot apart.
It is also important to give each clove enough room to grow and develop. They should be planted at least several inches from each other.
The majority of garlic in the US is planted from mid-October through November before the ground freezes.
To make the holes for planting garlic, Josh uses a dibble or a dibber. The T-grip on the dibber allows the planter to apply enough pressure to create a consistent depth for each hole.
Cloves should be at least three inches deep.
Josh gently pushes the clove to the bottom of the hole.
And then backfills with soil.
Josh and Phurba are fast planters. The garlic crop will tolerate some shade but prefers full sun. This garlic will be ready to harvest mid-July to August.
Each marker is placed at the end of the row for easy identification.
Finally the beds are raked and then given and good drink of water and that’s it – we wait until next year to harvest. If you’ve never grown your own garlic, give it a try – it’s so easy and so rewarding. Go to the Keene Garlic web site to learn more!
I always enjoy growing my own plants, but there’s something even more gratifying about rooting and growing them from cuttings.
I love boxwood, Buxus, and have hundreds of shrubs growing on my property. I use boxwood in borders and hedges, as privacy screens, as accent plants in my formal gardens, in my living maze, and of course as part of the long allée to my stable. When I can, I like to grow my own boxwood from cuttings. This process takes time and patience, but seeing them mature is very rewarding. Recently, I received hundreds of young boxwood branches that were ready to root in a cold frame behind my main greenhouse. It will be fun to see them develop.
Enjoy these photos.
I am extremely proud of the growing boxwood around my farm. I designed every border and bed. This garden has both a boxwood hedge and individual shrubs on the terrace outside my Winter House kitchen.
This is a section of my long 450-foot Boxwood Allée. It runs from my stable all the way to the carriage road that leads to my hayfields and woodlands. It is so lush and green. I take very special care of these specimens.
These boxwood shrubs surround my herbaceous peony garden.
This is my sunken Summer House garden – a more formal garden with both English and American boxwood. Boxwood is a very ancient plant. Its ornamental use can be traced back to 4000 BC Egypt. The early Romans favored it in their courtyards. The wood itself is harder than oak and its foliage is dense and compact. Because of its growing habit, boxwood can be sculpted into formal hedges, topiaries, and other fanciful shapes.
In 2017, I decided to line both sides of my clematis pergola with boxwood. There are more than 300-shrubs planted here and they continue to thrive.
This year, I designed and planted a new boxwood garden in this front bed outside my greenhouse.
I received two large boxes of boxwood cuttings. They were delivered to me by my friend and boxwood expert, George Bridge, owner of George Bridge Landscape Design Inc.
This is one of two large cold frames behind my main greenhouse. A cold frame is a transparent-roofed enclosure, built low to the ground that utilizes solar energy and insulation to create a microclimate suitable for growing or overwintering plants. Historically, cold frames were built as greenhouse extensions tucked against the outer walls with southern exposure outside Victorian glasshouses.
I always save nursery containers, so I have a good supply whenever I need them. These have large holes in the bottom for good drainage.
Ryan fills crates with these plastic reusable containers to prevent them from falling over and to keep them tidy in the cold frame.
We use Miracle-Gro® Moisture Control® Potting Mix, which feeds plants for up to six months.
Ryan spreads the potting mix across all the pots to fill and then levels the top and removes any excess.
Ryan then removes any leaves from the bottom two to three inches of each boxwood stem, so they can be placed deep enough into the potting mix.
When preparing the cuttings, make sure to only use healthy stems with no insect damage or discoloration. These cuttings are in excellent condition.
Boxwood is popular for its versatility in the garden, its foliage, and its year-round greenery. Buxus is a genus of about 70 species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood. The boxes are native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Boxwood has dark green glossy leaves arranged opposite from each other, making pairs. Leaf shape depends on the variety; some are round while others are elliptical.
Rooting hormones increase the chance of cuttings taking root. It comes in a powder and is easy to find at most garden shops and online.
Ryan rolls the lower end of the cutting in powdered rooting hormone and taps the stem to remove the excess. Then, he sticks the lower end of the cutting into the rooting medium. He presses it firmly just enough to make it stand up straight.
This is just the first batch of cuttings. When complete, this entire cold frame will be filled with growing boxwood. It can take up to three months before roots appear.
Keeping the cuttings here in the cold frame will ensure they get lots of warmth and access to indirect sunlight. They will also be kept moist to encourage growth.
Ryan gives all the newly potted cuttings a good and thorough drink. These cuttings will remain here through the winter and then be transplanted in the outdoor “nursery” garden once they have well-established roots. And in two to three years, they will be beautiful shrubs ready to place in the gardens!
One can tell the cuttings have rooted if there is a slight resistance when gently pulling on the stem, or if new roots or growth can be seen from the bottom of the pot. It will be exciting to see how these look in the new year!
I have thousands and thousands of trees. Many were already well-established when I purchased the property, but the rest I've planted - in allées, in groves, as privacy hedges, around my pool, and in rows within my living maze. One type of tree, however, stands out this time every year - the ginkgo.
Ginkgo biloba, commonly known as ginkgo or gingko, and also known as the maidenhair tree, is the only living species in the division Ginkgophyta. It is found in fossils dating back 270-million years. Native to China, the ginkgo tree is widely cultivated, and was cultivated early in human history. Ginkgo trees have beautiful green leaves that turn a luminous golden-yellow in autumn. This time of year, the female trees also start dropping their fruits all over the ground. Ginkgo nuts are a delicacy in China, Japan, and Korea, and are prized for their flavor, nutritional value, and medicinal properties.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
This year, I have so many ginkgo fruits. Female ginkgo trees produce tan-orange oval fruits that fall to the ground in October and November.
They start off high up in the tree like this before falling. This ginkgo is outside my Summer House garden and it is full of fruit.
And this ginkgo tree, another female, is the main focal point of my sunken garden. It is about 250 years old.
In June, it’s filled with beautiful bright green foliage.
In October, it is a gorgeous golden yellow. The ginkgo biloba is one of the most distinct and beautiful of all deciduous trees. It prefers a minimum of four hours of direct, unfiltered sunlight each day. The ginkgo has a cone-like shape when young, and becomes irregularly rounded as it ages.
Here are some leaves as they started to change color. The leaves are unusually fan-shaped, up to three inches long, with a petiole that is also up to three inches long. This shape and the elongated petiole cause the foliage to flutter in the slightest breeze.
And now, the tree is bare. Typically, on one day after the hard frost sweeps down the east coast, this ginkgo, along with others at my farm and countless more in the area, drops its leaves, but with such mild temperatures this autumn, the “great fall” seems less dramatic.
The leaves fall all over the boxwood hedges…
… and in the garden beds, covering the entire area in yellow.
The ginkgo leaves are easy to identify.
They are often deeply grooved in the middle of the leaf, producing two distinct lobes, hence the name Ginkgo biloba, meaning two lobes.
Mixed with the fallen leaves is a group of newly fallen ginkgo tree fruits. The most noticeable thing about these is the smell – it is hard to miss, and the stench is quite disagreeable. The outer, nasty smelling pulp is known botanically as sarcotesta.
Inside is a single hard-shelled seed enclosing an edible kernel. The kernels are often roasted and used in Asian cuisines.
The ginkgo seeds contain urushiol, which is the same chemical that causes poison oak, ivy, and sumac, so always wear gloves and protect your skin whenever handling the fruit.
Here is a closer look at the fruit and seed. It is small and fleshy – about the size of a small jujube, or Chinese date.
Ginkgo trees are dioecious, meaning that male and female reproductive parts develop on separate plants. Ginkgo trees typically reach sexual maturity around 20 to 30 years old. Male trees do not drop fruit. This young ginkgo tree is in the northeast corner of my herbaceous peony bed. It has lost most of its leaves.
This tree is in a field east of my chicken coops and off a carriage road to my run-in paddock. It still has many leaves left on its branches.
This ginkgo is outside my raised bed vegetable garden. It is the first to lose its leaves here at the farm.
These are my newest ginkgo trees, six Ginkgo biloba Goldspire™ Obelisk trees, which I planted by my pool last May. They too have lost lots, but not all, of their leaves.
In September, I gathered the new ginkgo seedlings that started growing near their parent tree outside my Summer House. I repotted them so they could be nurtured in one of my greenhouses until they are transplanted in more permanent locations. It’s a cycle of growth, fruiting, abscission of leaves, and then dormancy for the mighty ginkgo.
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