Here at my Bedford, New York farm, 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. If done too late, the clove heads begin to separate, making them more vulnerable to decay. This week, my gardeners picked our crop of hardnecks, noted for their stiff central stalk, fewer cloves, and intriguingly complex flavors. All from our friends at Keene Garlic, a family-owned farm in Wisconsin.
Enjoy these photos.
It’s always exciting when the garlic is ready to harvest. Garlic is a popular spice in many cuisines and traditional medicine. Do you know… Americans consume about two to three pounds of garlic per year? And consumption continues to increase because of the many flavors and health benefits. I plant a lot of garlic every year to share with family and friends.
Garlic is planted in the fall. The next several photos are from a sunny, mild October day of last year. I’ve been planting Keene Garlic for quite some time, and am always so pleased with their growth and taste.
The majority of garlic in the US is planted from mid-October through November before the ground freezes. When planting multiple rows of garlic, the rows are at least one-foot apart.
it is also important to give each clove enough room to grow and develop. These are at least two to three inches from each other.
Cloves should be at least three inches deep. The tip of the clove is faced up, and the root side faced down.
After each clove is pushed into its hole, it is gently backfilled. If the soil is well cultivated, this is a quick and easy planting task.
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.
Here is the bed in mid-June when the scapes are beginning to curl.
Scapes can be cut when the center stalks are completely formed and the ends are curled.
By early July, all the scapes are gone and the stems continue to brown.
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, but if the soil is soft, the garlic can be lifted straight up. If not.
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.
As the garlic is picked, it is placed in trays. Ryan keeps track of what grew well, so we can plant the same varieties in the fall.
Ryan shows just two bunches of freshly picked garlic – and there is so much more!
Look at the bounty! But it is not ready to eat just yet. It must still dry.
All the garlic is now in one area of my carport where it can cure for several weeks. 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.
Soon, the garlic will also be cleaned and trimmed. Finally, once the garlic is cured, the most beautiful heads with the biggest cloves will be set aside to use as garlic seeds next season.
My garden continues to produce bounties of beautiful fresh vegetables. Our latest harvest - potatoes!
Yesterday, before a thunderous rainstorm, my gardeners harvested the season's first batch of potatoes. Potatoes are from the perennial nightshade, Solanum tuberosum. As the world's fourth-largest food crop, following maize, wheat, and rice, potatoes are grown from “seed potatoes," which are certified disease-free and specially grown in nurseries for planting purposes. I always look forward to sharing the bounty with family and friends.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Here at my farm, I plant potatoes every year – they’re great for baking and enjoying with my favorite caviar, and for making my mother’s famous mashed potatoes. This particular batch is an extra harvest from last year’s crop – and there are so many!
This was one of the potato beds in June, when the potato plants flowered. This happens when they are mature and have enough resources to reproduce. The flowers can be white, pink, lavender, or purple, and they attract pollinators to help the plant make more seeds. Flowering is also a sign that tubers are starting to grow underground.
And just yesterday, they looked like this. This is definitely a less attractive sight in the garden, but it is a well-anticipated one because it means the potatoes are ready.
The potatoes are ready to pick once the vines have died back – when the tubers are done growing, and the potato plants have begun to turn yellow and withered.
The best time to dig up potatoes is on a dry day once all the vines have died. Here in the Northeast, yesterday was very hot and dry before the late afternoon showers began.
To harvest potatoes, Josh uses a gardening fork. It has four tines that can pierce the ground more easily than would a shovel or a spade.
Josh drives the fork into the soil at the outside edges of the plant and then carefully lifts the plant.
Here, Ryan digs deep into the ground and feels around for potatoes – potatoes will be slightly cool to the touch.
It’s important to dig them up carefully, so as not to damage any of the tubers. All these are from one plant.
The skins of mature potatoes are thick and firmly attached to the flesh. If the skins appear thin and rub off easily, the potatoes are still too ‘new’ and should be left in the ground for a few more days.
Here’s our gardening intern Matthew after picking a few potatoes, Always be careful not to scrape, bruise or cut the tubers. Damaged tubers will rot during storage.
It’s fun to dig around the soil and find multiple potatoes waiting to be picked. They are not too deep – any potatoes will be within the first several-inches of soil.
It’s easy to see how the potatoes are connected to the plant at the root area. They’re very easy to pull off, and often come loose by themselves. Leave any green potatoes alone. When potatoes are exposed to light, they turn green, a sign the toxic substance called solanine is developing, which may cause illness if eaten in large quantities.
In the next bed – red potatoes. An entire potato plant grows from just one potato eye, although when planting, always plant a piece of potato with at least two eyes to ensure germination.
There are more than 200 varieties of potatoes sold throughout the United States. Each fit into one of seven potato type categories: russet, red, white, yellow, blue/purple, fingerling, and petite.
It doesn’t take long to fill the entire trug bucket with beautiful potatoes. And this is just one! Because potatoes grow underground, it is always a surprise to see how prolific the plants have been.
As the potatoes are picked, they’re placed into crates, separated by variety and color. They can be stored in bins, boxes, or even paper bags – just nothing airtight to prevent rotting. Another tip – never wash potatoes until right before using – washing them shortens the potato’s storage life.
After all the potatoes are picked, the beds are cleaned up, raked, and prepped for the next crop to be planted.
Meanwhile, the potatoes are stored in my carport. Don’t leave harvested potatoes in the sun as excessive heat could cause them to cook. Just brush off as much soil as possible and place them in a cool, dry place.
This was a great harvest – look at the size of one of my potatoes! I am excited to try every kind.
Colorful summertime blooms are now growing beautifully in the beds of a new cutting garden.
Earlier this year, I began developing a more formal cutting garden down by my chicken coops. It had been my vegetable garden for several years, but now that I have a giant half-acre vegetable garden closer to my home, I decided the former space would be dedicated to flowers, where varieties would be organized in sections by size, color, and bloom time. It has come through quite a transformation. Many of the flower seeds are from Johnny's Selected Seeds, Bakers Creek Heirloom Seed Company, and Vilmorin.
Enjoy these photos.
Once the ground was warm enough, the entire enclosure was cleared, cleaned, rototilled, and fed.
By spring, Fernando started creating the raised garden beds. Landscape twine was used as a guide, so every bed and footpath was perfectly straight.
After all the beds were completed, it was time to plant the flowers, which were started from seed in my greenhouse.
And now, many of the beds are bursting with blossoms.
One of the big showers right now is the zinnia, a member of the aster family and native to Mexico and Central America.
Zinnias prefer full sun and well-drained soil.
They are highly attractive to pollinators, particularly butterflies.
The leaves of the zinnia are lanceolate, ovate, or oblong in shape, dark green, with prominent veins.
Zinnias have a wide range of heights, growth habits, and flower colors. Colors include yellow, orange, white, pink, purple, lavender, red, and rust.
The best time to cut zinnias is in the morning or evening when it’s cooler and when the stems are stiff and upright.
Delphinium flowers have showy, spiky blooms on tall stems. Blue is the most common color, but delphiniums also grow in shades of pink, lavender, red, white, and yellow.
Also known as cornflower, Bachelor’s Buttons are wonderful grown en masse. Once established, Bachelor’s Buttons sprout in the same spot year after year and produce lots of seeds, which attract small birds.
This is the tall foxglove plant, Digitalis purpurea. These add lovely vertical interest to any garden. Foxglove flowers grow on stems which may reach up to six feet in height, depending on the variety. The downward-facing, tapered, tubular flowers are spotted inside with dark purple edged in white on the lower lip, which serves as a landing platform for pollinators.
This is Alcea rosea, also known as the hollyhock. These plants can reach five to eight-feet tall. The flowers are large and are borne up and down a single tall stem.
Hollyhock leaves are large with a rounded heart-shape.
I have long loved snapdragons, Antirrhinum majus, and have a bed of these growing in the garden. Snapdragons are available in most colors except blue and coordinate well with other garden bloomers.
Snapdragons are known for wispy jaw-like upper and lower petals. A single stem averages 10 to 15 of these unique blooms, grouped closely together.
The snapdragon’s alternate, lanceolate leaves are arranged in a spiral around the stem.
Scabiosa, also known as Pincushion Flower, is a versatile cut flower. With its spiky ball center and strong wiry stems, it is popularly used fresh and dried.
I also have my potted figs in this garden and this season, there are so many fruits! Figs, Ficus carica, are members of the mulberry family and are indigenous to Asiatic Turkey, northern India, and warm Mediterranean climates, where they thrive in full sun.
The fig tree has been sought out and cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world, both for its fruit and as an ornamental plant.
I hope your flower gardens are also doing wonderfully this year.
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