Harvesting Garlic

From Gardening

We tried to harvest the garlic a couple weeks back, but it didn't seem quite ready yet. Today was clearly the day, before the daily thunderstorm. You can tell it needs it by how the leaves are browning and the stalks of the softneck variety (on the right) is falling over.

From Gardening

This is a first for me. I also didn't grow up with my family growing garlic. So I read a few books and websites, and gathered that you gently shake off the loose dirt, tie the hardneck heads together in small groups, braid the softneck varieties together, and let them cure in a warm place for 2 weeks or so. I don't really have the right scenario; it is the garage or nothing, which won't be very breezy, but will have to do. I grouped heads of garlic in clumps, braided some, and strung them up around the garage.

In two weeks we will gently brush the (then dried) dirt off, and cut the stalks off the hardneck ones, and prepare them for storage. I'm nervous that they got too wet and that they will mold rather than cure. So we'll see!

Watermelon Radishes

From Gardening

Growing radishes is a puzzle. While I'm happy to eat radish greens, I have no idea what makes one seed turn into a lovely radish with small greens and the one right next to it never really develop a radish but shoot seedy greens three feet into the air.

I picked almost everything this morning because they had clearly gone to seed, and I don't know if there is anything I can do to prevent it at that point, and we ended up with about 4-5 decent radishes.

Oh well, to be fair, we don't actually like radishes all that much, but they are certainly beautiful.