Harvesting

Harvested all my Garlic scapes last week and made pesto with them - and froze most, so we'll have garlic scape pesto for some time to come. Harvested some 'All Blue' spuds today from a pot - Yum! And blue all the way through after cooking. Had some broad beans last week - more on the way - and courgettes starting production. Lots of strawberries at the school for the students - redcurrants too, and broad beans. And they had their potato feast last week.

Blackcurrants and redcurrants at home too - where will I find time to harvest them all?

November Harvest

Lovely afternoon, so had a bit of a go in the garden. Harvested the last of the Borlotti beans and the runner beans - not as bad a yield as last year, but not great either. The French beans at the front which went in in July were a fiasco, though - maybe one pod per plant.

Have taken out all of the corn - it's really not a great use of space - will leave it out next year. Kevin Harmon has beautiful corn for sale in the latter part of the summer - that will satisfy my yen for fresh corn.

Harvested the last of the ildi and millifleur cherry tomatoes - the upside down hanging tomatoes seem less susceptible to the frost.

Preparing beds for garlic - it seems like I need another bed :-)

Finally, cooked some of the beans and slowly braised some kale & beet leaves in garlic and olive oil - blended all with salt, pepper , a little creme fraiche for a yummy dip.

Garlic harvest

My Garlic has all been harvested, and dried, and I have lots to plant next year, and to eat for as long as it lasts!

If you have been following this blog, you'll know that I got lots of garlic from a generous member (Spade Work) of the seed network. Here's my joyous entry last November.

All the garlic did very well - I'm delighted that I'm one of only a few people in the world growing Gazebo grande. And they all taste great - but I'm smitten with the garlic scape pesto (see bottom of the archive) so I'll be planting as much hardneck garlic as possible.

I have put aside the following to grow again next year - I think this is enough for me - hopefully next year, I'll have some to share.


Marco (softneck) - 7 cloves
Inchellium red(softneck) - 9 cloves
Prim (softneck) - 6 cloves
Gypsy red (hardneck) - 2 cloves
Gazebo (hardneck) - 2 cloves
Susan Delafield (hardneck) - 4 cloves
Misc - grown for supermarket garlic - 1 clove
Unknown hard neck - 3 cloves

Going into the end of last year, I was dismayed that I didn't have a good variety of garlic to sow - that's all changed!

Garlic scape pesto

We are just back from visiting a friend in London, and I wanted to bring her something unique as a hostess gift. So right before we left, I headed out to the garden, and harvested all the garlic scapes that were there. They are funny spiral things, so I had to cut them up a bit to fit in the plastic bag, with a damp kitchen towel. I also packed a little pot of gooseberry jam, that had been flavoured with elderflower, made by my mother, which I was really looking forward to trying. Both items went in my carry on bag.

Surprisingly (or maybe not) the security scanner detected both, and they confiscated the jam! I was almost in tears. So let that be a lesson to all - put any jams in your checked bags - they qualify as a liquid. The scapes however, could in no way be construed as a danger to passengers, so they made it through.

On arrival we made up a pesto with the scapes, some parmesan, pine nuts, olive oil, salt and pepper. It was green and fragrant, and wonderful on bread, in a yoghurt salad dressing, with Tuna salad - definitely a success, and pretty unique. We didn't try it with pasta, but I'll bet it would be good with that too. Or on new potatoes. I didn't measure - worked to taste - there are lots of recipes online. Maybe I'll make a recipe next year...

The stalk works better than the flower part - the flower is inclined to be stringy - and when harvesting, you should cut as close to the ground as possible. I have made some more of the pesto now that I'm home, and am freezing it in an ice cube tray so as to have small portions. Not sure how long it will last, though :-)

Garlic doing well

This year I hope to have enough garlic to harvest to be self sufficient. So I planted up some from the garden center last October . They have now outgrown the onions that I planted at the same time - they are 6-8 inches high, and very healthy looking.

Subsequently I planted some from the supermarket, and they are also doing well. I know it's not advisable, but at that point I just wanted to get some more garlic in.

Then, at the end of November, I got a wonderful package from Spade Work, planted them immediately, and they are now peeping up, and looking good with it.

At this time of year it's wonderful to have something in the ground and thriving, when much else is winding down, going to seed (the mooli) or getting ready to be planted.

Growth!

Hard to believe it, but the peas and broad beans planted on New Years eve have survived the move outside. They are currenly residing under a Lidl mini-greenhouse, so the snow is not landing on them. In the bright periods between snow, the little greenhouse is getting very warm, and they are even growing a bit.

The garlic planted back in October is very well established - better then the onions planted at the same time.

And the garlic planted in November - kindly sent by Spade Work right at the end of the month - is starting to peep through. So there is a bit of growth, in spite of the terrible weather.

And there's plenty of warmth when the sun does shine - our solar water heater got the water up to 41 degrees today.

Seed saving network delivers!

Yesterday the postman delivered two packets - it was better than Christmas! One had a fine selection from Mas Du Diable and the other an embarrasment of garlic from Spade Work.

Both were arranged through this Seed Network. I will or have already reciprocated with seeds that I have saved and made available. See my list.

So here I am, in rural Ireland - getting packages from France and London - I feel very connected to a worldwide gardening community. It's a lovely feeling!

Thanks to both John and Laura - I'm looking forward to planting the seeds in the spring, and the garlic went in immediately - luckily I had a bed all ready for them. The variety of the bulbs was interesting - some had only 3 cloves for a huge bulb, and others had 10 or more cloves for the same bulb size.

Planted the following varieties:
Prim - small cloves, but good keeper according to the notes
Susan Delafield - 7 cloves
Gazebo - 3 huge cloves,
Gypsy red
Inchelium red. - this one had loads of individual cloves.


The (Marco) garlic planted a month ago is shooting up - but I was dismayed by the lack of selection at the garden center. Next year I'll be ale to save my own garlic for replanting, and hopefully can swap garlic in subsequent years. What a great initiative, well done Patrick!

Garlic planted

Planted about 30 garlic cloves at the weekend, but reckon that I need about double that to properly meet my garlic needs for the year. However, there's only one type of Garlic - Marco - available in my local garden center - would like to try planting a variety - anyone know anywhere online that sells garlic?

Alliums

My garlic went in on on Dec 24th, but with all the construction in the garden, I had to move a few, and the others that are left behind are not terribly well tended. So a recent harvest showed fairly small bulbs. However, they are staring flowering, so I think a pizza with scrapes is called for.

I will harvest them end July, sort out the raised bed they are in, and sow some Daikon in there for the winter.

Planted a full raised bed of red onions - they are all going to seed now without getting terribly big, so next year I think I should plant them a bit later, in better quality soil, and not all red ones. Probably need to make a call on harvesting them, and backfill with some autumn/winter veg - probably a better use of the space. But maybe I need to wait thill the stalks die off - anyone have any ideas?

The leeks are doing great. After last years successful crop of 10 :-) (one of the few successes of last year) I planted lots. I now have maybe 50 scattered around the various beds, doing well. And more seedings coming on. I have seen mention of mid-summer leeks, but I don't think any of these will be ready in time. September would do fine, though.

Have some Japanese onions (ishikura) to grow from seed - should put a few of these in too - they seem indestructible...