Planting Garlic and Shallots
Hello friends,
A couple of weeks ago I was finally able to get all my garlic and shallot bulbs into the ground. I've been meaning to for a while, but first I had to weed, and then dig over the vege garden bed they were to go into.
Once hubby and I did the hard work of weeding and digging the vege garden bed one Saturday afternoon, I pulled out my trusty bulb planter, and got to work first planting out six shallot bulbs that I had picked up from our local garden centre. I haven't planted shallots before, so this is a small experiment to see if they were worth doing so in the coming years.
Once they were in the ground, I planted out a couple of bulbs of Printanor garlic I also purchased from our local garden center. I've grown these for years, but I've had some problems with garlic rust with this variety each December.
Next up were the garlic varieties I bought from Bulbs Direct. I've wanted to try new varieties to see if they were more resistant to garlic rust, and I was also interested in how they tasted. I planted a bulb of Creole garlic, which is supposed to taste very intense and much more firey than other garlic varieties. Creole garlic has beautiful red/burgundy cloves when the bulb is broken up for planting.
And the last garlic variety to plant was Fire which was also from Bulbs Direct. Fire garlic is supposed to form large bulbs and have a fierce spicy taste.
And now with all that planting done, my garlic and shallot bulbs are in the ground for the next 6 - 7 months. I hope come the end of December, there is a large harvest for me to dig up.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Early Spring Vegetable Garden Update
Hello friends,
I just wanted to update you on what's been happening in the vegetable garden over winter.
The garlic I planted in late autumn has been growing well, and I even got a couple of surprise garlic plants after we forgot to harvest some bulbs last summer.
The onions and spring onions have also been growing well, and I've been harvesting our spring onions as we need to use them in recipes.
The sugar beet plants I'm growing to harvest for seed are also growing well, and I hope they'll soon send up flower buds.
And finally, I sowed peas seeds direct a couple of weeks ago as well. And as a bonus I finally have a use for the old wooden trellis I took down off the woodshed last autumn while we were painting it.
The next thing to direct plant into the ground is our seed potato varieties, but first I need to prep the garden bed they're going into.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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My 2023 Garlic Harvest
Hello friends,
According to one of last year's blog posts, I sowed my garlic bulbs for this season on Friday the 2nd of June 2023. Apparently, at that time I planted 60 Printanor bulbs, and in my naive state back then, claimed that we hadn't had any problem with garlic rust in all the years since we returned to Dunedin, so I wasn't worried about it happening at all.
Well it turns out I was really wrong about this. Normally, the humidity in Dunedin in spring usually isn't too bad, but unfortunately in mid-December 2023 the tell tale signs of garlic rust began appearing on my garlic plants after a period of rainy, humid days. I was devastated to say the least, but it was only a few weeks until the garlic harvest, so I prayed for lots of dry and sunny weather, and hoped my garlic plants had already formed decent bulbs while I waited impatiently for harvest day.
A couple of days after Christmas, my garlic plants were ready to harvest. It was a gray, drizzly day, but hubby and I got to work, and began lifting all the garlic bulbs. It wasn't the biggest garlic bulb haul in the world, but it was good enough for us. I had been hoping for lots of large bulbs, so I could swap some of our harvest for other things like apples and pears etc in autumn, but due to their smallish size, we ended up only with enough to last us for the year.
After a quick spray with water to clean off all the dirt, we made the decision to harvest the garlic then and there. Garlic plants with rust don't tend to keep very long while stored dry and whole, so we harvested the garlic bulbs and froze the cloves in our chest freezer. When we cook with garlic we just use the cloves, or we dehydrate the garlic to get flakes and powder.
The thing about growing underground vegetable crops is that you're not entirely sure what the harvest will be like until you dig them up. It's really just a case of making do with what you get, and then planning accordingly. If gardening life was predictable all the time, it would probably be boring...but I still would've loved to have a bigger harvest. So instead, I'll just have to buy autumnal fruit the normal way, at the supermarket.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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The Vegetable Garden is Planted
Hello friends,
Over Labour Weekend in October hubby and I planted our vegetable garden for the summer.
My first task was to weed the garlic growing in the smallest vegetable garden bed, and then also sow onions, carrots, beetroot, radish, sugarbeet and carrot seeds as well.
Hubby then dug over the two remaining large garden beds, and I added sheep pallet fertilizer for the soon to be growing plants.
For the next bed, which was already growing peas and potato plants by now, I added lettuce, rocket, black turtle beans, summer sprouting broccoli, and cabbage, that I had been growing in the glasshouse.
With the last large garden bed I planted maize, corn, and pumpkin plants in the top half. In the bottom half of the garden bed I sowed wheat and linen flax seeds, while hubby acted as a scarecrow to keep the birds off them, and then we double bird netted the seeds to protect them from the birds.
With most of the glasshouse now empty of plants, we emptied out the space, and hubby dug over the garden bed. After that there was just the task of fertilising the soil, and then planting cucumbers, basil, chillies, capsicum and many tomato plants. There was also the big task of setting up all the climbing frames for the growing plants.
It's been a few weeks now, and everything is growing nicely in the garden, despite low snow falling the week after we planted everything. I can't wait to feast on all our vegetables over the coming summer.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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